SQL Server for vCenter

[bdseymour]

I am building a new sql server for a medium size environment and I am wondering what the memory and CPU recommendations are for a seperate SQL server.

[Troy_Clavell]

are you running vCenter DB Server as a VM?  A good starting point, if on W2K8 or above would be 2vCPU/4GBvRAM.  From there adjust as needed.  If you are running your DB Server on physical hardware, well any of the new technologies will probably provide a very sufficient solution

[vmroyale]

Define "medium"

I have a standalone SQL Server running as a VM at a DR site with a single vCPU and 4GB RAM that supports roughly 30 VMs. As Troy said - if you go wtih a VM start small and grow it as required.

[bdseymour]

I setup a seperate SQL box 4GB 2CPU. sized accordingly for 500vms.

[logiboy123]

500 VMs is quite a sizable environment. I'm guessing you are talking about 20 hosts or so?

If SQL is running on a seperate VM and the only thing it is doing is servicing vCenter then it will be using about 10GB of disk space with normal logging levels set. If you turn up the logging levels to the highest, then the vCenter database will be using about 200GB of space and will be processing vastly greater amounts of tiny transactions. So it really depends;

Do you have plenty of RAM to play with?

Is anything else going to run on this SQL environment?

Will it be SQL 2005 or 2008?

Personally I'd probably start with 8GB and 2 vCPU and go from there. You will find out pretty quick if it isn't going to be able to do the job, in which case you can just increase the memory and/or CPU count.