[SIMS] Planning a migration to a new VM

[lyndonw]

I'm currently looking after a SIMS installation running on Win2008r2 and MS SQL 2014 in a large secondary school with between 80-100 concurrent SIMS users at any given time throughout the school day.

 

I have read the recommended minimum spec for a server; however, am wondering if there are any benefits to running SQL on a dedicated VM and keeping the Capita app and numerous connectors (Teacher app, Inventry and about 6 others) on a dedicated MIS VM.

 

Are there any tips, tricks for a successful migration that anyone would care to share?

[3s-gtech]

I wouldn't say it'd be a necessary complication for a userbase of that size. As long as your DB will fit in RAM, and the host CPU isn't being hammered all the time, it'll work fine as it is.

 

If you do decide to make that change, you'll obviously have some configuration of the base server to do, which shouldn't be a lot of work if you're building a new VM anyway. You'll want the link between the different parts to be quick though - whether through virtual switch or separate boxes.

[bobsmith]

That is almost EXACTLY the situation we're in.

 

One of the problems with having it all on the one VM is that some of those third party connectors can bug out or just be inefficient and hog loads of RAM, I'm finding Inventry can just keep taking more and more RAM.

 

Having them on a separate VM would allow us to chop them out for diagnostics without interfering with the operation of SIMS itself.

[supportman]

There is a registry key or setting that you can set that limits SQL server to only use 90% of the RAM, it really helped our server. I don't remember what it was though.

 

I found the hardware wasn't that important other than an SSD drive, but this setting helped a lot.

[3s-gtech]

That setting is within SQL Management Studio, it sets the maximum and minimum memory allocation. Minimum is useful, because it tells SQL to load everything into RAM and not unload it. You’ll find it in the properties of the server instance.

[Banjo]

I wouldn't split SIMS from SQL as there is no need. What you can do is install a 2nd instance of SQL on the same VM and the 3rd party add-ons can be attached to that instance rather than the SIMS instance. As for any tips, make sure you have the licence file for NOVA on the new server.

[DrCheese]

I wouldn't split SIMS from SQL as there is no need.

 

 

Yeah I wouldn't bother either - I recently moved our SIMS server to a new machine & it's basically just SQL server anyway, very little sits on top of it on the actual machine anymore.

 

I have all my third party sync stuff on another machine tho (Groupcall xporter etc) - I leave the SIMS server with just SQL and SOLUS 3 (The horrible piece of software it is!)

[bobsmith]

I was thinking of dumping SOLUS 3 onto the third party sync server as well - any reason why not?

[DrCheese]

I kept it on my SIMS server as I didn't want another SQL/MSDE instance floating about (I try to keep these to a min) & wanted to keep SIMS all together, but no don't think there's a reason you can't have it elsewhere.