Navision 2017

webrisk21

Hello All

I'm new to Navision. Our company is trying to move to new Nav 2017.
I need some advise setting up the server.

One powerful with 64GB Ram, 4TB HD Raid10 install all in one (Windows 2016, Nav 2017 and SQL 2016) or separate the Nav 2017 and SQL 2016 with each server. (Physical or Virtual)

Which is better?

David_Singleton

You are starting from the wrong end of the problem.

Fundamentally server setup always comes down to cost. No mater what anyone says, ultimately you want to spend the least money to get the optimal solution.

The SQL server and the NAV server have very different requirements, so first thing is to work out what you need from each. For the NAV server, the most important issue is the number of active users, for the SQL server the important issue is the number of transactions.

So the starting point will be to work out how many users you will have, and what they will so. How many are mostly writing (Posting, importing journals, etc) and how many are reading (Reports, Reviewing data, BI etc.)

Next the volume of transactions, how many invoices with how many lines will be posted, how many people spend their day reading data and printing lots of reports.

Next the size of the database, look at how much history you are bringing to the new system, and what growth you expect.

Next look at redundancy, having multiple servers means if one fails you are back up an running faster. Or is it better to have failover servers to handle redundancy.

Also all the old performance advice of "multiple RAID arrays for Log, Database, Temp Exe etc." and "only RAID 10" are outdated. With modern cached controllers, looked at per $ or per spindle can out perform multiple RAID 10 arrays. And actually that has been true for many years now.

So how many users, and how much data do you have. And we can start from there.

(FYI I would no matter what always recommend SQL and NAV on separate Servers.)

PS do you actually need 4 Terra bytes for the database?

JohnHunter

you made me think, cores vs clock speed, ram latency vs frequency (ECC), HDD (obsolete?) vs SSD, raid (obsolete?) vs Gpfs/Zfs, multiple nav instances boxed vs virtual. Suspect the answer is "it depends".. wish i could tinker with it

webrisk21

Now you make me think more.......ㅜ.ㅜ

Juhl

How many users? Start there.

David_Singleton

You are starting from the wrong end of the problem.

Fundamentally server setup always comes down to cost. No mater what anyone says, ultimately you want to spend the least money to get the optimal solution.

The SQL server and the NAV server have very different requirements, so first thing is to work out what you need from each. For the NAV server, the most important issue is the number of active users, for the SQL server the important issue is the number of transactions.

So the starting point will be to work out how many users you will have, and what they will so. How many are mostly writing (Posting, importing journals, etc) and how many are reading (Reports, Reviewing data, BI etc.)

Next the volume of transactions, how many invoices with how many lines will be posted, how many people spend their day reading data and printing lots of reports.

Next the size of the database, look at how much history you are bringing to the new system, and what growth you expect.

Next look at redundancy, having multiple servers means if one fails you are back up an running faster. Or is it better to have failover servers to handle redundancy.

Also all the old performance advice of "multiple RAID arrays for Log, Database, Temp Exe etc." and "only RAID 10" are outdated. With modern cached controllers, looked at per $ or per spindle can out perform multiple RAID 10 arrays. And actually that has been true for many years now.

So how many users, and how much data do you have. And we can start from there.

(FYI I would no matter what always recommend SQL and NAV on separate Servers.)

PS do you actually need 4 Terra bytes for the database?