Capture Resource Utilization Baseline for Existing Databases

After you clearly understand your organizations needsbusiness and technical requirements,
availability
and other operational requirements for implementing SQL Serverthe next important step is to
establish
a baseline, using data from the current, running physical deployment. The best way to accomplish
this is
to use the Virtualization Assessment service delivered by VMware or its partners. Using VMware
Capacity
Planner, this service collects all essential performance metrics, including processor, disk, memory,
and
network statistics, and specific SQL Server metrics on existing database servers in the environment.
Capacity Planner analyzes this data to recommend server consolidation opportunities. You can
monitor
these metrics, in addition to the essential system metrics, if you want to capture the baseline
information
yourself. It is important to collect the data over a period of time long enough to reflect all variations
in the
usage patterns of SQL Server in your organization. The duration can range from one week to one
month,
depending on seasonal or cyclical usage peaks such as when they occur, their intensity, how long
they
last, and other factors. This exercise helps you to understand what resources your current physical
SQL
Servers use, and makes it easier for you to create a short list of SQL Server instances to virtualize and
to
determine the order in which you should virtualize the SQL Server instances. Refer to the following
metrics when running your own analysis. Capture data for average as well as peak periods.