[sims] How big is your database?

[matt40k]

Unless you use RBBUS\RedStor\Attix 5, I would say Simple. IE every backup is a full backup, nice and simple.

[john]

I'm learning something new today then I've set it at 2 sockets each with 4 cores, and you cna see where that logic comes from...copying the physical design in to the virtual. Thanks for the education @john

 

Potentially stupid question, should sims be set to simple or full recovery mode on the database?

 

Sorry my explanation was a bit confusing, I would advise, if you truly need 4 vCPUs, that you run them as 4x Sockets with 1 core each, so you have a total of 4 CPUs showing in Task Manager.

[mrbios]

Sorry my explanation was a bit confusing, I would advise, if you truly need 4 vCPUs, that you run them as 4x Sockets with 1 core each, so you have a total of 4 CPUs showing in Task Manager.

 

Sorry yea I'm going to be changing it to that, my post was a bit rushed (made it sound like i read your post wrong) at the moment it's 2 and 4, which is wrong by your explanation, but what i felt was right when i set it up due to copying the physical setup. I plan to change it to 4 and 1 tonight remotely once all the staff are gone

 

Unless you use RBBUS\RedStor\Attix 5, I would say Simple. IE every backup is a full backup, nice and simple.

 

Thanks, that's what mine is at currently, wanted to be sure

[Edu-IT]

Can you do SIMS backups while SIMS is 'in use'?

[clareq]

We're looking at sims performance at the moment - SIMS support have advised I set up maintenance plans in SQL manager - shrinking log files and backing up the database. I was also advised to switch to simple recovery. My database is just short of 9Gb. Another piece of advice was to ensure that I had more RAM that the size of the mdf and ldf combined.

[SHimmer45]

since our migration of SQL (which has brought all sorts of performance hits......) we are now being advised to setup and run scheduled maint tasks etc which is something we have never had to do before.

with the previous version of SQL it was left alone, anyone else found this /threaddrifting

[jinnantonnixx]

Can you do SIMS backups while SIMS is 'in use'?

 

Yes, no problem. SQL systems are designed to be backed up with no downtime.

[jinnantonnixx]

We're looking at sims performance at the moment - SIMS support have advised I set up maintenance plans in SQL manager - shrinking log files and backing up the database. I was also advised to switch to simple recovery. My database is just short of 9Gb. Another piece of advice was to ensure that I had more RAM that the size of the mdf and ldf combined.

 

I've had success with rebuilding the indexes. Not reindexing, but rebuilding them. Last time I looked (correct me if I'm wrong) the SIMS reindex tool doesn't update the stats, so even though the indexes are reorganised, the built-in query optimiser isn't able to make full use of the stats for its queries. A rebuild forces fresh stats.

 

If you want to try a maintenance plan to rebuild the indexes, here's how. Usual disclaimers, etc, if you break something you get to keep the pieces.

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/128123-sims-gradually-getting-slower-slower.html#post1097603

Edited January 30, 2015 by jinnantonnixx

[SHimmer45]

capita have released documentation to explain how to set the above up and other measures, received it today (still have gone from not having to to much with the SQL apart from checking the backups to actually putting in extra tweaks, surely this sort of thing should be mentioned at the point of migration)

[Edu-IT]

capita have released documentation to explain how to set the above up and other measures, received it today (still have gone from not having to to much with the SQL apart from checking the backups to actually putting in extra tweaks, surely this sort of thing should be mentioned at the point of migration)

Do you have a reference for that doc?

[stgoodyeara]

we have 600pupils and have had SIMS since the "beginning" our earliest recorded date of entry is 1993, We are a 700 pupil school and pretty much always have been around that number role on and our database is 4.1gb. But The sql service that sits in RAM is around 9gb. I assume this is just log files etc, if i stop the service it must truncate alot of this information as it's ram usage goes almost back to the size of the master file again. I have my MIS server on a VM with 24gb of ram and it performs well.