Before creating a database, we recommend that you review our recommendations.
Database disk I/O management
The database file system configuration is much more important than the Web server file system in terms of design. A system administrator needs to be concerned about the integrity of their disks; plan for easily expandable growth; have a good balance between disk reads/writes, and plan for system failure and recovery.
See Server Hardware Requirements and Planning for Telligent's recommended optimal database I/O performance.
Database memory
After the installation, consider adjusting the memory for the SQL Server Service. If you right-click the server (with SQL Server Manager), choose Properties and select the Memory tab. You can set the Maximum Server memory in MB.
We recommend that you allocate 80-85% of server memory for SQL Server. The Server Hardware Requirements and Planning documentation has current recommendations for database hardware.
We recommend that your services be dedicated to their own hardware; however, if your environment dictates that you have IIS and SQL Server running on the same machine, you will need to adjust these values accordingly. For a baseline, the server needs 15-20% of the system RAM. Then, split the RAM so 60% is used for SQL Server and up to 40% for IIS.
Collation
Server collation is the sort order and the case sensitivity of the data within the databases. Setting the collation at the installation time for the default collation of the databases is the best time. This is so that all of the system databases (master, msdb, model and tempdb) are created with the same sort order that the user databases would use. This allows for better interoperability.
Initial database size
The initial size of the database is very important. Planning the size of your community is not a one-time event: it should be evaluated at least once every six months.
We recommend that you plan for one year's growth when setting the initial database size - not only for the community's sake, but also for your file system. Even for smaller communities, it is better to use a much larger introductory data file. For a lightweight community, you should start with a 1GB data file size and 64MB log file size. Fewer expansions of the data files means that there are fewer file fragments on the hard disk. This is important for consistency at a raw file level.
Database sizing formula
Use Server Hardware Requirements and Planning to approximate the total amount of storage required when sizing the disk space needed for your SQL Server database.
The formula assumes the default set of user profile properties and on average one revision of a wiki document.
The metadata factor % is a value that adds a percentage of the core data to the total size.
Sizing formula = (Number of Items * Item Storage Required) * 112%
For example, assuming 100,000 users at 3.04kb per-user, you would plan for 296.88MB of storage with an additional 35.6MB of metadata for a total storage requirement of 332.5MB.
Each configuration is unique. Some installations will have more user storage with custom user properties, whereas other installations will have multiple revisions of Wiki documents.
Autogrowth SQL settings
Use the sizing recommendations in database sizing formula when creating your data file. There are two directions to take regarding autogrowth on SQL Server data and log files:
- If your environment is consistent with monitoring the size of the data in the SQL files and the physical size of the files themselves, then there should be no autogrowth at all. At a minimum, sizing should be checked at least once a quarter and adjusted as least once every six months. This is the preferred direction.
- If your environment is more lenient, you can continue to set AUTOGROWTH in terms of megabytes. Start with 128 MB. This is a small enough value that it can grow with hardly any contention and you shouldn't have issues with getting "out of space" errors.
Recommendations
If you are space-confined, set your maximum file size so that you do not exhaust all available space on your disk. We recommend that you have a minimum of 40% free space on the disk. Anything less than 40% free could jeopardize any substantial database grow that may occur in the future.
For the database log file, take the same considerations into account. Transactions in Telligent Community Server are generally not very large, so you could size your log file much smaller - such as 64 MB or 128 MB. Your autogrowth could be set to something much smaller as well, such as16MB or 32 MB. You will find discussions on tracking growth later in this guide.