Adding a second processor

Hello,
We use a client/server application from our vendor running on SQL 2000,
which runs on a Windows 2003 Server in an ADS domain. The server is
currently only running a single Xeon processor and it has the capability for
having 2 processors. Our vendor claims that their application is not "coded"
to run on a dual-processor machine (a bunch of bull?), but their application
only runs on the client end, not on the server.
The way I see it, it is Windows and SQL that have to be able to handle the
processor, which we all know they can certainly do. Does anyone think that
by adding a second processor, we would be doing any damage to our data and or
the application?
The application is Time Matters Enterprise 5.0 (sr2), by LexisNexis and it
is a case management system for a law firm. This is our mission-critical
application.
--
Thanks, JeffOutside of the fact that your vendor doesn't support it, I really see no
reason why you would want to limit yourself to just one processor. In most
cases, SQL Server would run faster with more CPU's. This is because your
workload is distributed across all of the CPU's. Thus, if you have 100
concurrent queries, 50 would run on one and 50 would run on the other -
ignoring parallelism. However, in most cases parallelism would improve an
individual query's performance, since both CPU's would be used to service
the query. In some cases, parallelism makes specific queries run slower,
but you can turn parallelism off on a per-query basis (or even at the server
level, if you prefer).
--
Tom
----
Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA
SQL Server MVP
Toronto, ON Canada
.
"Jeff" <Jeff@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:56410EBD-043F-4AC4-870B-652141840545@.microsoft.com...
Hello,
We use a client/server application from our vendor running on SQL 2000,
which runs on a Windows 2003 Server in an ADS domain. The server is
currently only running a single Xeon processor and it has the capability for
having 2 processors. Our vendor claims that their application is not
"coded"
to run on a dual-processor machine (a bunch of bull?), but their application
only runs on the client end, not on the server.
The way I see it, it is Windows and SQL that have to be able to handle the
processor, which we all know they can certainly do. Does anyone think that
by adding a second processor, we would be doing any damage to our data and
or
the application?
The application is Time Matters Enterprise 5.0 (sr2), by LexisNexis and it
is a case management system for a law firm. This is our mission-critical
application.
--
Thanks, Jeff|||I do realize the benefits of a second processor in SQL and that's just it, we
don't want to limit ourselves to a single processor. We purchased a new
server recently and only purchased one processor because of what our vendor
told us. It didn't make any sense to me then and it doesn't now. The mobo
on that server is setup for dual-processors. Since the application runs on
the client, I didn't understand why they would tell us that.
More importantly, we no longer have a service contract with that vendor so
they are not going to support us either way unless we get another contract.
My thought is that the worst that can happen is that we have to restore the
database off of a backup and pull the second processor out.
--
Thanks, Jeff
"Tom Moreau" wrote:
> Outside of the fact that your vendor doesn't support it, I really see no
> reason why you would want to limit yourself to just one processor. In most
> cases, SQL Server would run faster with more CPU's. This is because your
> workload is distributed across all of the CPU's. Thus, if you have 100
> concurrent queries, 50 would run on one and 50 would run on the other -
> ignoring parallelism. However, in most cases parallelism would improve an
> individual query's performance, since both CPU's would be used to service
> the query. In some cases, parallelism makes specific queries run slower,
> but you can turn parallelism off on a per-query basis (or even at the server
> level, if you prefer).
> --
> Tom
> ----
> Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA
> SQL Server MVP
> Toronto, ON Canada
> ..
> "Jeff" <Jeff@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:56410EBD-043F-4AC4-870B-652141840545@.microsoft.com...
> Hello,
> We use a client/server application from our vendor running on SQL 2000,
> which runs on a Windows 2003 Server in an ADS domain. The server is
> currently only running a single Xeon processor and it has the capability for
> having 2 processors. Our vendor claims that their application is not
> "coded"
> to run on a dual-processor machine (a bunch of bull?), but their application
> only runs on the client end, not on the server.
> The way I see it, it is Windows and SQL that have to be able to handle the
> processor, which we all know they can certainly do. Does anyone think that
> by adding a second processor, we would be doing any damage to our data and
> or
> the application?
> The application is Time Matters Enterprise 5.0 (sr2), by LexisNexis and it
> is a case management system for a law firm. This is our mission-critical
> application.
> --
> Thanks, Jeff
>|||The only real issue I see is that of licensing. If you go with a per-CPU
license, you will have to spend some change to do the upgrade. Other than
that, you're fine.
--
Tom
----
Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA
SQL Server MVP
Toronto, ON Canada
"Jeff" <Jeff@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:7CA5419B-884D-4D51-8B1C-3DEE16B291F1@.microsoft.com...
I do realize the benefits of a second processor in SQL and that's just it,
we
don't want to limit ourselves to a single processor. We purchased a new
server recently and only purchased one processor because of what our vendor
told us. It didn't make any sense to me then and it doesn't now. The mobo
on that server is setup for dual-processors. Since the application runs on
the client, I didn't understand why they would tell us that.
More importantly, we no longer have a service contract with that vendor so
they are not going to support us either way unless we get another contract.
My thought is that the worst that can happen is that we have to restore the
database off of a backup and pull the second processor out.
--
Thanks, Jeff
"Tom Moreau" wrote:
> Outside of the fact that your vendor doesn't support it, I really see no
> reason why you would want to limit yourself to just one processor. In
> most
> cases, SQL Server would run faster with more CPU's. This is because your
> workload is distributed across all of the CPU's. Thus, if you have 100
> concurrent queries, 50 would run on one and 50 would run on the other -
> ignoring parallelism. However, in most cases parallelism would improve an
> individual query's performance, since both CPU's would be used to service
> the query. In some cases, parallelism makes specific queries run slower,
> but you can turn parallelism off on a per-query basis (or even at the
> server
> level, if you prefer).
> --
> Tom
> ----
> Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA
> SQL Server MVP
> Toronto, ON Canada
> ..
> "Jeff" <Jeff@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:56410EBD-043F-4AC4-870B-652141840545@.microsoft.com...
> Hello,
> We use a client/server application from our vendor running on SQL 2000,
> which runs on a Windows 2003 Server in an ADS domain. The server is
> currently only running a single Xeon processor and it has the capability
> for
> having 2 processors. Our vendor claims that their application is not
> "coded"
> to run on a dual-processor machine (a bunch of bull?), but their
> application
> only runs on the client end, not on the server.
> The way I see it, it is Windows and SQL that have to be able to handle the
> processor, which we all know they can certainly do. Does anyone think
> that
> by adding a second processor, we would be doing any damage to our data and
> or
> the application?
> The application is Time Matters Enterprise 5.0 (sr2), by LexisNexis and it
> is a case management system for a law firm. This is our mission-critical
> application.
> --
> Thanks, Jeff
>|||"Tom Moreau" <tom@.dont.spam.me.cips.ca> wrote in message
news:uzy8rPbeGHA.5016@.TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> The only real issue I see is that of licensing. If you go with a per-CPU
> license, you will have to spend some change to do the upgrade. Other than
> that, you're fine.
I'll second this.
And second the opinion that the original vendor is full of it. :-)
> --
> Tom
> ----
> Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA
> SQL Server MVP
> Toronto, ON Canada
> "Jeff" <Jeff@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:7CA5419B-884D-4D51-8B1C-3DEE16B291F1@.microsoft.com...
> I do realize the benefits of a second processor in SQL and that's just it,
> we
> don't want to limit ourselves to a single processor. We purchased a new
> server recently and only purchased one processor because of what our
vendor
> told us. It didn't make any sense to me then and it doesn't now. The
mobo
> on that server is setup for dual-processors. Since the application runs
on
> the client, I didn't understand why they would tell us that.
> More importantly, we no longer have a service contract with that vendor so
> they are not going to support us either way unless we get another
contract.
> My thought is that the worst that can happen is that we have to restore
the
> database off of a backup and pull the second processor out.
> --
> Thanks, Jeff
>
> "Tom Moreau" wrote:
> > Outside of the fact that your vendor doesn't support it, I really see no
> > reason why you would want to limit yourself to just one processor. In
> > most
> > cases, SQL Server would run faster with more CPU's. This is because
your
> > workload is distributed across all of the CPU's. Thus, if you have 100
> > concurrent queries, 50 would run on one and 50 would run on the other -
> > ignoring parallelism. However, in most cases parallelism would improve
an
> > individual query's performance, since both CPU's would be used to
service
> > the query. In some cases, parallelism makes specific queries run
slower,
> > but you can turn parallelism off on a per-query basis (or even at the
> > server
> > level, if you prefer).
> >
> > --
> > Tom
> >
> > ----
> > Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA
> > SQL Server MVP
> > Toronto, ON Canada
> > ..
> > "Jeff" <Jeff@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:56410EBD-043F-4AC4-870B-652141840545@.microsoft.com...
> > Hello,
> >
> > We use a client/server application from our vendor running on SQL 2000,
> > which runs on a Windows 2003 Server in an ADS domain. The server is
> > currently only running a single Xeon processor and it has the capability
> > for
> > having 2 processors. Our vendor claims that their application is not
> > "coded"
> > to run on a dual-processor machine (a bunch of bull?), but their
> > application
> > only runs on the client end, not on the server.
> >
> > The way I see it, it is Windows and SQL that have to be able to handle
the
> > processor, which we all know they can certainly do. Does anyone think
> > that
> > by adding a second processor, we would be doing any damage to our data
and
> > or
> > the application?
> >
> > The application is Time Matters Enterprise 5.0 (sr2), by LexisNexis and
it
> > is a case management system for a law firm. This is our
mission-critical
> > application.
> >
> > --
> > Thanks, Jeff
> >
> >
>