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Guidance needed on moving Orion to Windows Server 2019 and SQL Server 2019

Hello,

My Orion installation is outgrowing its current environment, both in terms of performance specifications and in terms of out-of-date software. Here's what I'm running:

NPM 12.2 + NCM 7.7 + VNQM 4.4.1

800 Nodes, 2500 Interfaces, 100 Volumes

Single Poller, No HA or additional web servers

Running on: Windows Server 2012 R2 + SQL Server 2014 Express (SQL Server running on same machine as Orion)

My NPM database is at 8GB, so we are flirting with the SQL Express 10GB limit. Not to mention support for Server 2012 R2 is on its last leg.

I need to get off NPM 12.2 soon, as it is EOL in December. I tried upgrading everything to 2020.2.1 yesterday, but this failed when it pushed the database beyond the 10GB mark, so I had to roll back. I now need to figure out a path forward for buying Server 2019 and SQL Server 2019 so I can migrate my Orion installation to it and then upgrade to 2020.2.

I started looking into licensing for Windows Server and SQL Server, and it made my head spin! I'm no DBA or Sysadmin, I'm just a lowly Network Engineer. I could really use some guidance because at this point I'm not even sure of what I don't know. Some of the big questions so far:

-What is the best licensing model for Orion? I don't want to pay through the nose for Core licensing if Server + CAL is more appropriate. The simplicity of Core licensing is attractive though.

-Is Solarwinds considered a Multiplexer? If so, I assume I would need CAL's for every user I have in Solarwinds?

-Are the Standard editions OK for Orion, or do I need to consider paying for Server Datacenter edition or SQL Enterprise edition?

-I know Solarwinds wants me to run SQL Server on a separate machine from my Orion installation, but it seems there are licensing benefits for both Server and SQL Server if I run them together. Any thoughts on this based on the size of my environment?

-What about SA? Do I need it?

Thank you for reading. Any input is appreciated.