We are going to upgrade our existing Baan server and we have two options:
- Get one server with 4 CPU's (App + DB in the same box)
- Get two servers with 2 CPU's each (App in one server, Database in another server)

Our current configuration is:
- One server (App + Db in the server)
- Windows 2000
- SQL Server 2000
- 40 concurrent users
- MRP regen runs for 20 minutes.

Given our configuration and the fact that we want to improve the user experience, meaning we would like to speed up the Baan application and the concurrent users will grow around 10% to 20% in the next 2 to 3 years, and probably in the near future we would like to do clustering.
What would be a better solution for our needs? One server or two servers?



Any advice will be much appreciated

Thanks

Daniel

Looking at your clustering requirements in future for disaster recovery 2 servers with db and app in each server is recommended.

Primary server may be of higher configuration according to me to get better throughput because secondary server has no application logic burden in run time. I wish you get confirmation on this configuration aspect from a SQLserver & Baan Tools expert also.

2 servers are needed for failover/ clustering. Offcourse 1 server would perform better because you can elliminate the network roundtrip which can be usefull for Level 1 drivers (like SQL Server).

Kind regards,
Dick

I think 2 servers is a good option for you. Implementing 3 Tier Client/Server configuration makes replication and failover clustering very easy. You want to make sure that you are implementing this by using the ODBC method and not the BAANNET method. Refer to Baan document TFH-006 (Installing Baan and MSSQL with a three-tier configuration) for more information.

Thanks for your very helpful comments. Still I'm a little bit concern that if I go one route or the other, will or will not give the maximum performance output:
We have 2 options now:
1 server with 4 CPU’s
And
2 servers with 2 CPU's each (app & db)

Since I have been using Baan I keep hearing that having app & db in one server is faster than 2 servers. Any more ideas on this?

How good Baan takes advantage of multiple CPU's on Windows 2000?

If I take clustering out of the equation. Will my option one is faster than option 2?

Given the number of concurrent users (about 40), which is not a lot, will it make more sense to stay with only one server and eliminate the network roundtrip? (Which nowadays have gigabyte speeds)?

Any more feedback will be appreciated.

Thanks

Daniel

I do not have specfic experience with intel platform but one other aspect that has a very significant impact on performance is the amount of RAM.

RAM is very cheap. I am not sure what you have in mind but numbers like 4 to 8 GB are what I expect you will have.

Terry

Since I have been using Baan I keep hearing that having app & db in one server is faster than 2 servers. Any more ideas on this?

Definitely yes.

How good Baan takes advantage of multiple CPU's on Windows 2000?

No specific knowledge of windows 2000 . But suppose it must be . I would recommend if there is Baan porting set for windows 2003 , please go for it.

If I take clustering out of the equation. Will my option one is faster than option 2?

Definitely option 1 will be faster. But taking clustering out of equation is not a good decision keeping in mind business continuity requirements.

Given the number of concurrent users (about 40), which is not a lot, will it make more sense to stay with only one server and eliminate the network roundtrip? (Which nowadays have gigabyte speeds)?

With gigabit networks , clustering /not clustering is irrelevent according to me. 40 users do not generate very high load on the system . Though 4 GB Ram could be sufficient , no harm having more RAM (assuming Baan will be the only application running in the servers)

Lastly the kernel tuning is extremely important. It should be done by a person having expert knowledge of SQL server , Baan and window 2000 (or 2003 ).

We use 1 server on NT4 with Oracle database
-60 concurrent users and
-2 Gb RAM
-4 CPU's 700 MHz

Performance is OK so with new CPU and 40 users this should be no problem for you (it depends also on which sessions you are using, ie PCF users are giving a heavy load on the server).
When we discussed this (some years ago) our supplier told us that the maintenance tasks for more servers are larger and the complexity is bigger (ie network card problems).
So we decided to keep it "simple" and put BAAN on 1 server

One big box mostly performs better than 2 smaller ones. Especially when the amount of CPU's is low. So, for optimal performance I would go for 1 box. I assume that indeed 2 CPU's will be sufficient for an avarage customer, but depends on your needs. Especially with the newest CPU's you have sufficent power per CPU. jdboer is having 4 CPU's at 700 Mhz, so 2 CPU's with > 2 GHz should be sufficient in his case and so maybe also in your's.

But CPU power is one thing, also be carefull whn selecting disks etc.

Hope this helps,
Dick