The Dell™ PowerEdge™ 2950 is an excellent server for deploying SQL Server 2008 x64, the latest release of Microsoft’s highly available and high-performing data management platform. This Deployment Guide reviews the approach that Principled Technologies (PT) and Dell recommend for implementing a tested and validated solution for SQL Server 2008 x64 on the Dell PowerEdge 2950 9th generation server and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise R2 x64.

PT has performed hands-on testing and research and drawn on real-world experiences to document best practices and help systems administrators and database administrators simplify operations and take advantage of new features in SQL Server 2008 x64. SQL Server 2008 x64 introduces a wide variety of new features. While there are far too many to discuss in this Guide, the following list mentions some of the more significant ones:
• Policy-based management. SQL Server 2008 x64 lets you automatically enforce and monitor policies for database operations. You can also push these policies out to your servers.
• Resource Monitor. The Resource Monitor allows you to monitor which users are running which queries and how long those queries run. This ability helps you to better tune your server for optimal performance.
• Resource Governor. The Resource Governor lets you limit the resource consumption of incoming requests by classifying incoming connections as specific workload types and defining limits for those types. You can also redefine the limits in real time.
• Backup compression. SQL Server 2008 x64 can automatically compress database backups, a feature previously only available via the purchase of third-party software products.
• Performance data collection. SQL Server 2008 x64 lets you store performance data in a centralized database. It also provides enhanced tools for analyzing and reporting on such performance data.

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