Most Administrators already know how to size a SQL database based upon amount of data captured, however, simultaneous HP SAM logons and logoffs can impact performance because these events have to be written to the database. Therefore, the platform sizing for the SQL should take this into account as user populations grow.

HP SAM is a multi-tier application and the actual user never logs into the database directly at any time. HP SAM only needs one logon, which is the HP SAM service account. You may want have more than one logon if you want manual access to the HP SAM database without using the HP SAM service account.

HP SAM needs many concurrent connections. HP SAM does not have control over the number of connections. Instead, the .NET Framework database engine decides whether it is more efficient to wait for a connection, re-use an existing connection, or create a new connection. Normally, the busier the database, the more connections are created. They are automatically destroyed once the operations are complete.

You should not need to limit the concurrent connections. If you must set a limit, we recommend that you set it for at least 200–300.

The HP SAM database consists of two files:

●SAM_data.mdf: Location of the HP SAM tables

●SAM_log.ldf: Location of transaction log information. SQL server uses this file to keep track of SQL transactions.

The default size is 100MB for each file, but the actual data inside each file is about 10MB. This leaves about 90MB free for each to grow before SQL has to expand the file.

The SAM_data.mdf file holds several HP SAM tables, including History and AuditLog tables. These two tables store the HP SAM history data and events, and over time these two tables will grow larger. If you disable history and audit logs, you will not outgrow the 100MB default with 100 users. If you do not disable them, SAM_data.mdf will grow by at least 100MB a day.

The busier the database, the more transactions will be added to the SAM_log.ldf file. When a transaction is complete, it is removed from the file. The maximum size of the file, therefore, is when the concurrent transactions peak. For 100 users, the average size of this file should be less than 2 GB.

To optimize the HP SAM database performance, a database administrator should do two things:

●Develop a SQL maintenance plan. This includes backing up HP SAM database and truncating orphaned transaction logs in the LDF file. When backing up, the orphaned transactions are truncated, but the size of the LDF file is not reduced. The database administrator can shrink the LDF file as far as the 100MB default, if desired.

●If the history and audit logs are not disabled, the database administrator will need to truncate these two tables periodically. It is recommended that this be done on a weekly basis to keep SAM_data.mdf under 1 GB.

Number of HP SAM Servers

It is recommended that, as user populations grow, the number of HP SAM Servers (gateways) be increased to handle loading and provide backup gateways when another server is inaccessible for whatever reason.

HP SAM Hardware and Software Requirements

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