The attributes behind your decision
- Decision input
- Measured workload
- Primary variables
- Capacity, control, operations
- Validation
- Representative testing
- Next step
- dedicated servers
Profile the working set and query load
Measure active data, cache hit behavior, concurrent connections, slow queries, write volume and growth. Database engine and schema design can matter more than headline CPU count.
Prioritize predictable storage latency
Review device type, RAID layout, queue behavior and filesystem capacity under representative reads and writes. Keep free space for maintenance, logs and temporary operations.
Protect access and replication paths
Restrict database exposure, use least privilege and encrypt connections where required. Replication supports availability but is not a substitute for historical backups.
Test backup, restore and failover
Create consistent backups, restore them in isolation and measure recovery. Document promotion, application reconnection and rollback when using replicas.
Size the working set and recovery process
Database size on disk and the active working set in memory are different measurements. Capture frequently accessed data, index size, query patterns and peak connections. Investigate slow queries before assuming that a larger server is the only solution.
Test storage behavior during normal traffic and maintenance such as backups or index operations. Restrict database network exposure and define authentication, encryption and patch ownership. Set recovery-point and recovery-time objectives, then prove the backup method can restore a consistent database within those objectives.