Server Spec Calculator?

[jamesb]

While I think its unlikely that this exists, given the huge variety in hardware requirements for different environments, I was wondering if anyone has or knows of a calculator which can give estimated server specifications depending on predicted load?

[kmount]

"Edugeek Server Spec Calculator"

 

- Roughly translated, outline what you plan on going etc and get a general opinion back!

[tmcd35]

I'd work to the following very rough formula.

 

1) Decide how much you can spend and what type of chassis you're after

2) Find the fastest server of that type for that amount of money

3) Decide how much ram you need

4) Reduce the spec of the processor(s) only by enough to be able to afford the ram

5) Decide how much storage you need

6) Reduce the spec of the processor(s) only by enough to be able to afford the storage

7) Ask the bursar for more funds so you can get the processor(s) you wanted anyway.

[jamesb]

Its actually for a less technical friend of mine who does Sales. I'm hoping either to build something fairly crude using rough calculations, or find one already written.

[kmount]

Ah, I understand James ...

 

Tricky one that mate without some kind of "educated" background in it.

[SYNACK]

Problem with this is that the load is stupidly difficult to quantify, your calculator would need to take into account the impact of different levels of usage of different programs on the various subsystems of a computer. Simply getting accurate usage data for a single application would be a challange that would probably require the involvment of the software producers themselves and projecting this foward in time would be troublesome. The best method at the moment is probably tapping the experience of others and overspecing enough that any unexpected usage patterns are taken into account.

 

If even the creators of software have trouble defining minimum specs for their own software a third party to accuratly measure the absolute requirements of a system that has multiple main applications running on it would be epic.