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Preinstallation Requirements

In this section we’ll explore the specific hardware and software requirements for SMS 2003 sites and site systems, beginning with SQL Server because it’s an integral part of SMS and the SQL Server database serves as the repository for most of the data that SMS collects. To that effect, we’ll explore database size and security considerations as well as SQL Server optimization considerations. We’ll also explore the hardware and software requirements of the Windows server that will become your SMS site server.

SQL Server Requirements

SMS 2003 requires the existence of a SQL Server 7.0 with Service Pack 3 or later applied or SQL Server 2000 with Service Pack 3a or later applied. As with SMS 2.0, if SQL Server is installed on the same computer as the SMS site server, SMS can create the database for you. If SQL Server is installed on a separate computer, you must create the database before you install SMS 2003 and be sure that the SQL Server settings are appropriate for SMS.

If you install SMS 2003 on the same computer as SQL Server, SMS 2003 will not only create the database for you, but it will also tune SQL Server for use with SMS 2003. This does not, of course, relieve you of all responsibility for maintaining SQL Server or the SMS database, but it does ease some of the setup concerns regarding SQL Server, which is especially helpful if you have little experience with SQL Server.

Note 

During the setup process for SMS 2.0, if SQL was not already installed on the proposed site server, the SMS 2.0 installation process prompted you for the SQL Server source files and installed a dedicated SQL Server database for itself on that same server. The SMS 2003 installation process doesn’t do this. It’s recommended that you install SQL Server before running the SMS 2003 setup.

More Info 

Although a working knowledge of SQL Server isn’t required to install and work with SMS 2003, in the long run you’ll need a good working knowledge of at least SQL Server administration tasks. SMS 2003 is not itself a database server; rather, it acts as a front end to the SMS site database maintained in SQL Server. Therefore, you’ll need to initiate many database maintenance tasks through the SMS Administrator Console or through SQL Server. Consider taking a class in SQL Server administration, such as Microsoft-certified course 2072, “Administering a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Database,” or 2071, “Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with Transact-SQL.” Microsoft Press offers several books about SQL Server. One that I especially recommend is Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Performance Tuning Technical Reference (Microsoft Press, 2001). Many of the performance tuning methods and formulas presented in that book are directly applicable when planning for capacity and hardware requirements for SMS component servers.

There are two main issues to consider for the SQL Server installation.

  1. Should the installation of SQL Server be dedicated to the SMS site database and not shared with other SQL databases?

  2. Should you install SQL Server on the same computer as the site server or should you install it on a separate server?

Microsoft recommends that you have a dedicated installation of SQL Server just for SMS 2003. This is because of the significant increase in information SMS 2003 now stores in the database, the over 200 SQL transactions and triggers related to SMS 2003 processes and services, the 40-50 connection accounts required just for the site server, the resource requirements of SQL Server itself, and the fact that SMS 2003 uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to provide access to the database for the SMS Administrator Console. However, there’s nothing inherent in the way the SMS site database is maintained that precludes your sharing an instance of SQL Server with other SQL databases or, for that matter, with other SMS site databases. You’ll need an adequate hardware configuration for that server to handle the load appropriately.

Similarly, Microsoft recommends installing SQL Server on the same computer as the site server. Doing so provides more efficient access to the database for the site server and significantly reduces network traffic involved with SMS-SQL transactions. However, this arrangement will also require an increased investment in hardware on the proposed site server computer to accommodate the resource requirements for both SMS 2003 and SQL Server. This cost will be felt in three areas:

  • Processing memory (RAM) SMS 2003 requires a minimum of 256 MB of RAM. SQL Server requires a minimum of 64 MB of RAM and is driven largely by the size of the database(s) it will maintain. So the total RAM requirement will be significant. On the other hand, RAM is relatively inexpensive.

  • Disk storage and I/O SMS 2003 requires a minimum of 2 GB of disk storage. SQL Server can require up to 270 MB, depending on the type of installation, and this doesn’t take into account the amount of storage required for the database itself. SMS 2003 has an automatic minimum of 50 MB for the database and 20 MB for the transaction log. Most SMS 2003 and SQL processes are disk intensive, so the faster the disk access, the better the performance gained. Unlike RAM, disk upgrades can be costly. For example, hardware-based redundant array of independent disks (RAID) systems offering disk mirroring (RAID 1) or disk striping with parity (RAID 5), or both, provide excellent I/O performance as well as fault tolerance in the event of a disk failure. However, such a system can be expensive.

  • Processor The type of processor used will obviously affect the performance of the site server. SMS 2003 requires a minimum 550 MHz processor-Intel/Celeron family or compatible, while SQL Server requires a minimum 166 MHz processor. Two or more processors installed in your server would be preferable for optimum performance, as Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 will certainly take advantage of their presence. Again, multiple-processor systems can be expensive.

Ultimately you’ll need to balance resource requirements, network traffic concerns, and overall performance considerations when deciding whether to use a single computer for both SQL Server and SMS 2003 or separate computers.

Sizing the Database

SMS 2003 requires a minimum practical database size of 50 MB and a transaction log of 20 MB. I say practical, because this is the published minimum to support a small (100-1000, perhaps) client install base. However, you can successfully install SMS 2003 with smaller database sizes, especially for demo or testing purposes. Microsoft recommends anticipating around 220 KB per client for the database. The transaction log should be at least 20 percent of the database size. Additional factors in determining the amount of database space required include the amount of hardware and software inventory collected; the number of packages, programs, and advertisements that will be deployed; the size and number of collections; the type and number of discovered resources; and the number of queries and status messages to be maintained.

The Systems Management Server 2003 Concepts, Planning, and Deployment Guide offers the following formula for determining database size:

50 MB + (x × 220 KB) (where x is the number of clients in the site)

This formula is based on a weekly hardware and software inventory schedule, default aging interval (90 days) of discovery and inventory out of the database, and 20 status messages reported by each client each week. If we apply this formula to a single site with 1000 clients, we get:

50 MB + (1000 * 220 KB) = 270 MB

Keep in mind that the actual database size will be affected by changes you make in the default settings for hardware and software inventory, aging, and the actual number of status messages generated. Sizing the database is not an exact science, and it will require that you monitor database usage periodically.

As if this weren’t enough to consider, don’t forget your site hierarchy. If you have identified child sites, these sites will report their inventory, discovery records, status messages, and site configuration to their parent site. You must allow space for this additional information in the parent site’s SMS database. Needless to say, the greatest cause for concern regarding database space will be at the central site, as it will collect and maintain database information for every site below it in the site hierarchy.

Database Security

You’ll need to create an account that SMS will use to generate, access, and maintain its database. This is known to SMS as the SQL Server Account. However, if you haven’t created a specific account and you installed SMS with standard security, SMS will use the SMS Service Account. If you haven’t created a specific account and you installed SMS with advanced security, SMS will use the SMS site server’s local system account.

Two basic types of security are available for the SQL Server database: SQL Server and Windows and Windows Only authentication. SQL Server and Windows authentication uses SQL Server-specific accounts that are maintained within SQL Server. The SQL Server account must be specified when making the connection to SQL Server. SQL Server and Windows authentication is present for backward compatibility and for Windows 95 and Windows 98 clients. In this scenario the default SQL login ID is “sa,” which stands for system administrator and, by default, has no password assigned. Windows Only authentication indicates that the database may be accessed by using a Windows account. Windows Only authentication is always available. SQL Server and Windows authentication can be enabled and disabled.

If you use SQL Server and Windows authentication, you can create a Windows account that SMS will use to create and access the database in SQL Server and then map that account to the sa account using the SQL Security Manager by making the account a member of the administrators group on the server running SQL, or you can let SMS use the existing SMS Service account if SMS was installed with standard security or the local system account if SMS was installed with advanced security. By default, all members of the Administrators group in the server running SQL are mapped to the sa account. If the server running SQL is a member of the same domain as the SMS site server, SMS can use the SMS Service account to access the database, as this account becomes a member of the Domain Admins global group, which is, by default, a member of the local Administrators group on every member server in the domain. If the server running SQL isn’t a member of the same domain, you can either establish a trust relationship between the domain in which the server running SQL resides and the domain in which the SMS site server resides and add the Domain Admins group from the SMS domain to the Administrators local group on the server running SQL, or you can explicitly create a duplicate account (and password) in the SQL Server domain so that Windows pass-through authentication can allow access to the server running SQL and thus the database, though the latter is not recommended as a best practice.

Tuning SQL Server

As stated earlier, if you let SMS install SQL Server for you, or if SQL Server is already installed on the intended SMS site server, SMS will set SQL Server parameters to their optimum settings for you. If you install and configure SQL Server yourself, you should pay attention to some specific SQL Server configuration parameters and set them appropriately before installing SMS 2003. Now if you installed SQL Server without changing any of its defaults, SQL Server will be able to automatically and dynamically modify and allocate the required parameters. However, if you choose to maintain and monitor some or all of the SQL Server settings yourself, Table 2.1 lists those parameters that are specific to SMS and provides guidelines as to how they should be set.

Table 2.1: SQL Server configuration parameters

Parameter

Guidelines

User Connections

SMS 2003 requires a minimum of 40 user connections for the site server and two connections for each SMS Administrator console you plan to install. It also requires five additional user connections for each instance of the SMS Administrator Console, if more than five consoles will be running concurrently on your site. You can set SMS 2003 to calculate this number and configure it automatically during setup. Each installation of SMS 2003 requires 20 user connections. By default, SQL Server will dynamically allocate the appropriate number of connections.

Open Objects

Open Objects indicates the number of tables, views, stored procedures, and the like that can be open at a time. If you exceed the number of open objects specified, SQL must close some objects before it can open others, resulting in a performance hit. By default, SQL Server will dynamically allocate this value. However, if you need to manually manage this value, for large SMS sites, this number should be 5000 or more. Use SQL Server Performance Monitor counters to track the number of open objects in use to determine the optimum number for the SMS site.

Memory

Memory indicates the amount of RAM that should be used for database caching and management. SMS automatically allocates 16 MB of RAM for SQL Server use. SQL Server allocates memory dynamically in 8 KB units. You can define a range for SQL Server to use.

Locks

Locks prevent users from accessing and updating the same data at the same time. Because of the volume of information contained in the database, Microsoft recommends setting this value from 5000 to 10,000 depending on the size of the database and the number of SMS Administrator Consoles. By default, SQL Server will dynamically allocate the appropriate number of locks.

Tempdb Size

The temporary database and log are used to manage queries and sorts. By default, the tempdb database and log information are maintained in the same SQL device. For best performance, each should be kept in this default location.

Set the tempdb database size to at least 20 percent of the SMS database size. Set the tempdb log size to at least 20 percent of the tempdb database size. SQL Server, as you have by now surmised, sizes the tempdb database dynamically by default.

Although system clock synchronization isn’t a function of SQL Server per se, it’s nevertheless important that you synchronize the system clocks between the server running SQL and the SMS site server if they’re on separate computers. When an SMS service or process schedules a task, it will use the system clock of the server running SQL to trigger the task.

The steps involved in creating devices, databases, security accounts, and so on are outlined in Chapter 19, “Maintaining the Database Through Microsoft SQL Server.”

Caution 

A final thought about SQL preparations: be sure the SQL services have been set to autostart after installing SQL Server manually. If you don’t, you could be in for a big surprise after you install SMS 2003 and then restart the server.

Site Server Requirements

SMS 2003 site servers have specific hardware and software requirements. Some of these include disk space, memory, processor, and operating system. We’ll outline these requirements, as well as explore other platform considerations, such as Windows Terminal Server and Cluster Server support, in this section.

Hardware Requirements

SMS 2003 has the following hardware and platform requirements:

  • Be sure that your computer hardware is included on the Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). It’s sometimes possible to install Windows on computers whose hardware components might not be on the HCL. However, when you install a Microsoft BackOffice product onto such a server, you might experience anomalous activity—like the “blue screen of death.” It’s not worth the gamble.

  • The server platform must be X86-based. Alpha systems are no longer supported.

  • SMS 2003 requires a minimum processor type of Pentium 550 MHz. The more powerful (and plentiful) the processor(s), the better performance you’ll see. Dual-processor systems are strongly recommended.

  • SMS 2003 requires a minimum of 256 MB of RAM. Of this, 16 MB is automatically allocated to SQL Server. SMS 2003 running on a 64 MB server is not a pretty sight. As RAM is a relatively inexpensive upgrade, you should install at least 256 MB, testing performance under various load conditions and then upgrading RAM as necessary.

  • SMS 2003 must be installed on a Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 file system (NTFS) partition. SMS 2003 uses NTFS permissions to secure access to SMS directories and shares. An SMS 2003 site server or site system may be a member server in a Windows NT 4.0 domain, Windows 2000, or Windows Server 2003 domain, or it may be a Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 domain controller.

  • SMS 2003 requires that a minimum of 2 GB of hard disk space be available on an NTFS partition. Keep in mind that the actual amount of disk space required ultimately depends on such factors as the system roles the site server will employ, the number of clients and resources that will be managed, and the number of packages, programs, and advertisements that will be generated. For example, 2 GB of free space might be sufficient if the site server functions as a server locator point and a CAP in a medium-sized stand-alone site. However, if the site server will also function as a management point, reporting point, and distribution point in a large enterprise environment, you’ll almost certainly require additional disk space for storing the package files.

    Note 

    A medium-sized stand-alone site refers to a site with a few thousand clients that’s collecting hardware and software inventory, status messages, and discovery data based on the SMS 2003 default settings. The assumption is that the site averages two to three packages a week of about 20 to 30 MB in size and two to three advertisements a week. These examples should be taken as soft guidelines only. As always, you must test your SMS 2003 configuration within the unique requirements of your own organization and modify it to provide you with satisfactory performance parameters.

  • Microsoft also recommends a higher video resolution than you might have on most Windows servers. SMS 2003 will function just fine with a standard VGA resolution monitor. However, if you plan to use the SMS Administrator Console on the site server itself for regular site tasks, consider setting video resolution to at least 256 colors, 800-by-600 pixels.

  • Microsoft also always mentions the following two devices in its requirements list, although it’s hard to imagine purchasing a server nowadays without them: a mouse and a CD-ROM drive. (Performing SMS 2003 tasks using only keyboard shortcuts is possible but would be ill-advised.)

Software Requirements

In addition to the hardware requirements we outlined previously, you need to consider the following software requirements before beginning the SMS 2003 installation process:

  • The SMS 2003 Site Server must be installed on a Windows 2000 Server, Advanced Server, or Datacenter Server with Service Pack 2 or later installed, or Windows Server 2003 (Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter Editions).

  • IIS is required for server locator points, management points, and reporting points. It’s also required for distribution points that have Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) enabled.

  • Management points require Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 or later. Also, you must enable BITS (the Windows component) on your management points if you intend to use BITS-enabled distribution points.

  • All SMS Standard Clients must have Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or later installed.

  • SMS 2003, as we’ve seen, requires SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 3 or later applied, or SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 3a or later. You can install either as part of the SMS 2003 setup routine. See the section “SQL Server Requirements” earlier in this chapter for a discussion of the merits of having SMS 2003 perform the SQL Server installation for you.



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