Hardware and SQL Server Upgrades

With the recent changes in SQL Server’s licensing, you may have hardware you cannot use (there are limits to the number of cores, depending on SQL Server Edition).

You really don’t want to see a message like this in SQL Server’s error log:

SQL Server detected 4 sockets with 8 cores per socket and 8 logical processors per socket, 32 total logical processors; using 20 logical processors based on SQL Server licensing.

When you need to provision new hardware, how do you figure out which processors to use and which SQL Server licenses to buy to minimize your costs and get the best performance?

Don’t just upgrade-in-place on old, under-performing hardware, with more processor cores than you can use or need. By letting us spend some time analyzing your hardware needs, you may well find that you can save a huge amount of money, and get better performance!

Usually you’ll be upgrading Windows and SQL Server at the same time as you provision new hardware. But how do you choose the correct Edition of SQL Server? Do you have the expertise to install and configure the new software? Do you need help migrating your existing SQL Server databases to the new platform?

We can help you:

Evaluate an existing hardware and storage subsystem
Evaluate and recommend hardware and storage for an upgrade
Get a sanity check on your proposed hardware specifications
Plan a complete migration
Install and configure Windows and SQL Server
Migrate your databases to your new platform