What are you running SIMS on...?

[BJG]

This summer we'll be switching to SIMS, as well as replacing our server hardware and moving towards increased (if not total) server virtualisation. I'm wondering whether to virtualise SIMS or give it its own box. What kind of physical/virtual hardware do I want to get this thing running smoothly...?

[IrritableTech]

It will depend on the size of your school, and how many will be accessing the database concurrently.

 

Our server is virtualized on Xenserver. It has 16GB Ram, four cores and storage on our SAN. The single server runs everything nicely. We use full SQL, and have limited it's max RAM usage to allow the OS some breathing space. We also use Intouch, Discover and Emerge on the same machine.

 

We run physical and virtual installs at some of our primary schools. They use SQLExpress and generally have between 4 and 8GB of RAM on quad core boxes.

[hallb15]

I'd agree with @IrritableTech it does depend on your school size and the number of simultaneous users.

For our school we have just over 700 pupils and 85 staff, but only 10 admin users who have access to SIMS.

 

I'm about to virtualise our SIMS server and have been advised by our SIMS support company to give it 16GB RAM and 4 cores.

Its currently running (crawling) on an old single core Xeon with 4GB RAM which is woefully inadequate.

[fairm010]

We run an ancient LEA setup on a quad core Xeon with 8GB RAM but using SQLExpress which has a 1GB memory limit IIRC?

[6Foot2]

We visualized our servers about a year and a half ago now.

 

Our virtual SIMS server, FMS only: Our MIS is Serco Facility running on another virtual server, has 4 GB RAM, Dual xenon 2.6 GHz processors, C:\ Drive: 50 GB, D:\ drive: 100 GB. O/S: Windows Server 2012 Standard, 64 Bit.

[localzuk]

Ours is virtualised:

 

16 Virtual Processors - we have several SQL servers installed for various systems on the same VM.

8GB minimum RAM, allowed to expand to 32GB but it usually hangs around 16GB.

Storage is hosted on a RAID5 array of 8 x 100GB SSDs.

 

Works well for us! The slow down is now just SIMS itself - optimisation appears to be limited in some areas.

[BJG]

Great - thanks for the info...

[Max_Power]

Slightly off topic, but could I enquire what you are moving from in terms of MIS @BJG and if you worked to a specific framework to come to a decision?

[PotNoodleTech]

Ours been virtualised Since 2009, there's no reason not to as long as the storage is up to spec.

[abillybob]

Errrm, I've got Sims running on a Microserver here which also acts as a File Server. Everyone seems to have such high specs for a Sims Server here IMO. We are a primary school of 500 Kids and around 70 Staff.

 

Specs are as follows:

AMD Athlon II Model Neo N54L

4GB DDR3 RAM

6TB HDD

[localzuk]

It really depends how heavily SIMS is used. We used to have it on something a lot lower spec, but it was slooooww. Now, pretty much every task is completed in a couple of seconds. Except CTF import and a few of the chunkier reports.

[vikpaw]

Defo virtualise - you'll thank me later when a snapshot saves your life after an update goes wrong!

[Sylv3r]

We are another with a virtualised box. Running 16GB, I virtualised at the same time as moving to SQL 2012. Our setup is so much quicker now then when it was on our older box.

 

We've got 1,500 students and around 170 staff.

[the_quick]

Running my on Vmware as virtual - works well, assigned 8 cores and 16GB RAM - probably overkill but now it hardly spike up to 40% of CPU usage. When we had 2 cores and 8GB it was struggling a bit. Secondary school with 1250 student and 150 staff

[matt40k]

Defo virtualise - you'll thank me later when a snapshot saves your life after an update goes wrong!

 

No upgrades don't go wrong, @PhilNeal told me so, also there is nothing in the release notes about things going wrong, you must be getting SIMS confused with DoubleFirst

[Marshall_IT]

Just one thing to note on assigning cores to a virtual machine, I know on VMWare not certain on hyper-v but I'd assume it's the same.

 

When assigning multiple cores to a vm the vm must wait until that number of cores on the physical processor are free. When over loading the processor with vms with lots of cores this can mean the vm waiting a long time to run its next instruction.

[Tall_Paul]

We use Terminal Server SIMS here. I would not go back to an on-site box!

[pauldredge]

Have installed sims loads of time on both a physical server and virtual server and it runs fine on both. The SQL database can get quite resource friendly at times but if you cap the SQL to use a certain amount of ram then you wont have these issues.

[vikpaw]

No upgrades don't go wrong, @PhilNeal told me so, also there is nothing in the release notes about things going wrong, you must be getting SIMS confused with DoubleFirst

 

No, no, you must be getting DoubleFirst confused with Dilbert, which brings me back to my first point. :

 

[Steven_Cleaver]

Virtualised here on Xen , 12 Gb Ram , Full SQL 2012, 8 Cores , completely agree with Vikpaws comment about being able to snapshot whole server in case upgrade failure which I always tend to do and takes a couple of minutes.. Was many years ago but have had an upgrade failure and it was a big upgrade so LEA had come into perform this and the backup performed that it usually performs prior to the upgrade had failed as well but had no warning of this luckily I was concerned about the upgrade so had stopped the SQL Service and took Copies of ldf and mdf which sort of saved us some major issues.

[3s-gtech]

Ours is a bit unique, but works nicely. Virtualised on ESXi, but it's the only VM on the host (was originally a physical machine that was P2V'd). Cheap ICT Direct server, HP DL385 G2 with 8 cores, 32GB of RAM and two RAID arrays, OS (1) and SQL (10). Two teamed NICs. Not efficient, but quick - we're a mid sized secondary with 1100 students and 115 staff, with SIMS heavily used.