Need an advise on designing BI infrastructure

Question

Our corporate currently has a medium sized (approx 500 GB) data warehouse in SQL SERVER 2005 and all SQL Server’s components database server, SSIS and SSAS are deployed to the single physical server. Considering the current performance and future growth management, we are in the process of re-architecting this BI infrastructure using SQL SERVER technologies.

 

Could you please share your ideas/experiences/expertise on selecting the following design choices for designing a BI infrastructure for an optimal performance:

 

1.       System Configuration : Monolithic (run all SQL Servers components in single physical server) OR Distributed (run all SQL Servers components to different physical servers)

 

2.       Data Storage: SAN or DAS

 

Thanks in Advance.

Answer 1

Well, I would say the preference is to split the components up on different servers.  However, this will come down to hardware and licensing budget constraints, I suspect.  This decision to keep everyting on one server is usually determined by the lack of money, in my experience.  SSIS has the ability to consume quite a bit of memory (I suspect SSAS/SSRS does as well) and I for one would not necessarily want them interfering with a production database.

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Phil Brammer | http://www.ssistalk.com | Twitter: http://twitter.com/PhilBrammer