Sizing DA8

[JaneSmith]

I am a fairly large organizations but don't expect that my users will be utilizing DA8 much, since they already don't use it too much on the old network we have.  I am trying to size out our new design for the DA server and so far I have:

OS: 36GB          VMDK
Pagefile:4GB    VMDK

I know I am in need of a "production" area where cases can be exported when required for production of the eDiscovery results, but not sure how to come up with this number.  Oh, and its a 4 core processor @ 3.0 Ghz with 4GB memory.


I also need to provide more storage availabiltiy on my sql dbs for analytics.  How do I size this one as well????

Thanks!
JS

[Liam_Finn1]

The size of storage for Production will depend on how much data you expect to be produced

For your SQL Databases and analytics Symantec recommend that you house all the DA databases on a separate SQL server from the EV databases because when you enable analytics on a case SQL will get very busy.

You mentioned above about the number of users using DA.
DA is not designed for the normal user population to access and search for documents. It is designed for use by your companies legal and HR staff to create cases search for data related to the case and then produce that data for use in legal proceedings. If you just want users to have access to search their own data then you would use archive explorer

[JaneSmith]

Sorry, what I meant to say was that we dont expect my legal and HR staff to be doing many searches or creating many cases.  


So what you are saying is have a sql server and instance for my EV databases and then also have a sql server and separate instance for my DA databases and analytics? 

[Liam_Finn1]

Yes it is what is recommended by Symantec

Searches are very system intensive. Analytics is very heavy on SQL

At first our legal team did not use it mush either but now it is used every day. Once legal and HR get used to the abilities of DA they will live by it

[JaneSmith]

Ok thanks.

As a general rule of thumb then, and since I dont know how much DA us actually going to be used, what size sql db should I provide for?  The storage type I will most likey be using is a SAN.

[Liam_Finn1]

 For all Databases I recommend that seeing as you are using a SAN put the databases on a RAID 10

For the space ...it is hard to guess but if you assume that the smallest disks will be 72GB *6 in a RAID 10 you will end up with 210GB of usable space for your DA databases Also do the same for your SAL logs. You can start out with them on the same LUN but once the usage of DA increases you will find better performance if you keep the logs on a separate LUN to the databases

[The_Chadster]

Jane,

I'm not sure how you classify a large company, for comparison we have about 15-16,000 archives in our EV environment and somewhere just over 100 cases (active, closed, or otherwise) in DA.  We actually engaged consulting in the design of our environment, and for each customer database they specified 50 gigs for log drive and 100 gigs for database.  This was WAY too small.  Our database cruises right now at around 140 gigs, and during reindexing (which I need to do CONSTANTLY to keep the indexes in shape..they recommend weekly) it can grow to 220gb+.  I had log backups running every 20 minutes to make sure my 50 gig log drive didn't fill up.

I have expanded my database drive to 400 gigs and my log drive to 150 gigs.  Things seem to be happy now.  As Liam said, RAID10 is a must.  DA just crushes SQL.

Be sure when setting it up that you follow the best practices for routine SQL maintenance for DA, per the following technote.
 
Routine monitoring and maintenance for the Accelerator environment - http://support.veritas.com/docs/308418

[JaneSmith]

Thanks for the sizing perspective.

On a SQl note, it was mentioned to have a separate SQl instance for EV and DA.  What if I am running a clustered SQL farm that hosts multiple applications, including EV?  Wouldn't a separate instance just for DA be a bit much, considering my SQL farm could handle the load??  x64 bit running SQL 2008 with 4 processor cores @3.0 GHZ 8GB memory...

[Liam_Finn1]

 Again it all depends on the size of the environment. In my setup we have 3 SQL servers in a cluster and the DA databases sit on an SQL instance on it's own. The other two SQL instances house the databases for the archives

I would recommend you get in touch with a Symantec partner to correctly size your hardware to meet the needs of your location. Trying to guess it out yourself is not the way to go