I just wanted to find out what sort of RAID arrays our customers use and address any performance concerns you might have about RAID configurations.
Typically I see RAID 5 used for the OS and applications and RAID 10 used for the database. RAID cache ratios are normally set to 50/50 read/write.
RAID 5 is generally not used for the database because it has poor write performance for small data writes, like databases!
If you have concerns about your RAID configuration/setup please post. Alternatively, if you had a performance issues because of a mis-configured RAID array please share the issue and resolution.
Data that will be interesting to know:
Number of RAID arrays and RAID # for each.
Number of drives in arrays.
Number of BES Clients.
Number of BES Consoles typically in use and total number of BES Console Operators.
Data partitioning on the arrays (Examples: OS, BES Application, SQL Application, Web Reports Application, Database Data, Database transaction logs)
Great question! In either solution you end up with multiple raid arrays and breaking the database onto its own raid array is a big performance win, so either solution can provide performance increases. In this situation, you’ll need to decide which way to go based on the other hardware resources available.
Adding an external chassis with an additional RAID array to the existing server is a straightforward gain for disk speeds on the BES Server.
If your BES Server is lacking on CPU/Memory though you might benefit from using a second server and moving SQL onto it. You’ll also gain additional CPU/Memory resources along with the RAID array. If the second server is a shared server though, the other applications sharing the server could interfere with us and you might actually lose performance. Using a second server also adds complexity to your solution, you have to worry about things like authentication between the servers, backing up the data, etc…
Given the above, its simplest and best to use add an external chassis with additional RAID arrays to the existing server unless you could benefit from additional CPU/Memory on a second server and can’t upgrade the existing server.