SQL Express Limitations

Question

Hi

We are planning to use SolarWinds in support of a managed service.  The design calls for a combination of NPM, SAM and NCM on a VM at the customer site.  Customers could be anywhere from 50 to 2000+ elements.  Where possbible we would like to use SQL Express.  We are trying to estimate a cutoff point for when we would have to move off of SQ Express, due to its limitations (10 GB DB size and 1 GB RAM)

To save on DB size we understand we would likely not process Syslog, limit processing of traps and perhaps adjust data retention.  Still, although we know of the 1GB RAM/10GB DB limitations, we have not been able to find what this correlates to on production deployment of NPM/SAM/NCM.  Does anyone have any real world expreience, or even estimates, of how much we can support while using SQL Express?

thanks

Bob

mesverrum · Answer

I would expect to run into performance issues with a sql express instance once you get more than 100-200 elements (nodes or interfaces or disk volumes) at default polling intervals due to the ram limit.  It's just not very much to work with.  Obviously if an environment can't support a paid SQL instance then I expect they might be willing to live with a slower UI so thats not a hard cap, just the point where people may feel like things aren't snappy as they might like.  The 10 gb total size limitation is fairly easy to work around if you just cut your retention settings pretty aggressively. Maybe 2 days of detailed polling, a week or two of hourly values, and 30 days of daily averages (or just discard the daily values after a couple weeks).  In a small environment you wouldn't even really need to be that aggressive to stay under 10 GB, but i'm not sure how standardized you are hoping to make these deployments, could get confusing if some sites have 6 months of retention while others have 1.  I've seen environments with a 2000 element license and similar module list to what you are asking for with default retention settings where their DB hovered in the 60-80 gb range, but YMMV dramatically depending on how much is really happening in your environment.