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Need some clarifications on Sql Server 2012 QA & Prod environment setup

Answered Need some clarifications on Sql Server 2012 QA & Prod environment setup

  • Thursday, December 20, 2012 7:57 AM
     
     
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    Hi,

    I'm looking for some clarifications & best practices on setting up Dev, QA and Prod environment for Sql Server 2012.

    We are planning to Create an EDW, develop some SSIS packages to migrate data from Source files and develop some Reports and Dashboards for end users reporting need.

    The Dev environment will have about 20 Developers,

    QA will have 5 Developers, 5 Testers & 10 Users to perform UAT, and

    Prod will have about 150+ users to access.

    Can anyone suggest the best hardware and software configurations with licensing details to setup these environments.

    Appreciate your help. Thanks.

     

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  • Friday, December 28, 2012 2:06 AM
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    you can set it up like this:

    three environments: DEV , UAT and PROD

    - DEV

    you can have a single server for DEV server, install SSIS, SSAS Multidimensional and Tabular (if you use it), SSRS and SharePoint (if you use PerformancePoint for dashboarding) and MDS and DQS (if you use them)

    you didn't clarify that do you want to have physical environment for each developer? or prefer to have VMs for them? if you prefer VM then you can configure all VMs on the same DEV environment using shared resources.

    - PROD

    I strongly recommend two different servers, one for ETL (SSIS) and DW. and another for SSAS Multidimensional and Tabular. you can install SharePoint on same machine because it will not consume too many resources.

    - UAT

    as UAT and PROD needs to be in same conditions to have a real test of PROD environment, I recommend same configuration as PROD, but if this is not possible for you then you can put everything related to UAT on same machine (SSIS, AS, RS...)

    amount of RAM and Disk Space is dependent of how large your DW and Cubes are? and do you have a backup server or not? because if you don't have a backup server and want to use disk space of prod for backing up then you need to think about an extra hard drive of course.

    http://www.rad.pasfu.com

     
  • Wednesday, January 02, 2013 5:33 PM
     
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    based on the number of users and the type of setup I would think your investment in the project is not going to be massive. In order to drive the project I would suggest setting up the stack in a IAAS cloud setup (AWS is a good option , so is rackspace). QA on a DW is not a full time activity so techinically being able so shutdown QA when not needed is a bonus. Elastic hardware ( ram and disk space when u need it0 is a big attraction.Many companies use Cloud providers for setting up BI.  usually I go with a setup like below:- if Prod is 100% then UAT is 50% and QA and Dev are between 10- 20% of the actual hardware configuration. Big investments in non production enviornments do not provide proportional returns ( in identifying bugs or improving performance etc).

    Jayanth Kurup - www.enabledbusiness.com

     
  • Wednesday, April 10, 2013 12:22 PM
     
     
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    I think the original question requested information on Licensing as well, which none of the answers contain. I agree on the HW configuration part - they majorly depend on application size including data volume.

    With SQL Server 2012 we can use Standard (Core / Server-CAL), BI (Server-CAL) and Enterprise (Core) editions, - among them which edition to choose will depend on what features the solution needs. On high level, if the solution needs canned reporting on moderate sized data, Standard edition will do. If it requires ad-hoc / self-service BI then we need BI or Enterprise edition. If the data volume is high requiring columnstore indexing, we need Enterprise edition.

    So far so good, all these are options for the Prod environment.

    But for Dev and QA, can we use Developer edition license:

    1. Will that license be able to access data from some other SQL Server database (which might be copy of Prod data for Dev and QA)

    2. Will that license enable us to move SSIS/RS/AS/PowerView codes to Prod environment without any issues? 

    Can some expert from Microsoft answer this question - which I think would answer a good part of the original question as well.

    Souvik Banerjee. MSBI Lead, Zensar Technologies