Some nice questions & posts

- What is formula to calculate how much RAM is required for NAV Server? And for NAS and Web services?

- And can you somehow set the maximum limit of memory that the NAV Server service can consume?

- Is there any official documentation about NAV 2013 hardware calculation?

Unfortunately, There is not exist official documentation about NAV 2013 hardware calculation.

We use our experience in hardware calculation, case-by-case.

MS in System Requirements for NAV2013 says only 2GB.

This I have said is enough to SQL and OS. But, probably it need more.

It depends on a lot of things (database size, number of users, number of services, do more writing or reading on database...)

Furthermore, doesn't matter only RAM. Very important are RAM, CPU, number of HDDs, database implementation on SQL...

I don't know about setting maximum RAM limit for NAV. I know about maximum limit for MS SQL, but all database administrators knows that better of me.

According to estimates, this is need for SQL Server:

- up to 50 users (or small databases) - minimum 4GB

- 40-80 users (or medium databases) - minimum 8GB

- 80 and more users (or large databases) - minimum 16GB

These are minimums, and the basic rule is that the more is the better. I usually MINIMUM twice multiple these numbers.

Absolute minimum based on MS System Requirements is 2GB, but it's funny, except for the really small databases.

As mentioned, the performance requirement is hard to nail down, you could run Windows 7 on a PC with 512 Megs of ram but it wouldn't be fun to work on, this is how we make recommendations to our clients, it is not meant to be perfect from a technical perspective it is rather aimed at making things more understandable

With regards to the memory usage question: Memory is the best value for money performance gain on the server, as it is them able to use the memory instead of reading from the HDD which can be up to 3000 times slower than memory

You shouldn't restrict the amount of memory being used

From a practical perspective these are the recommendations we make to our clients, this was for a 15 user site, this was to be a combined SQL and Application server,

1x Quad Core processor (Preferably 2)

– This directly affects the number of users that are able to work simultaneously, as the server is running SQL server as well as the NAV application server this means that each user will use a core when NAV is working on something for them and a code when NAV requests data from SQL to perform their task, adding additional cores is recommended as the user load grows and for more complex sites

12 Gigs RAM (More if possible here)

– The RAM is the single largest performance boost for a SQL server and continues to be until the amount of ram is greater than the size of the database + Temp tables, therefore 12 gigs is a good starting point but it can be grown later,

Expect the application servers to use up to 2 gigs of ram per 5 users, so this will provide 2 gigs of ram to the OS, 6 gigs of ram to 15 users and leave 4 gigs for the database, once the database grows beyond 4 gigs the amount of RAM in the server should be reviewed, this is dependent on the complexity of the site

(RAM is the best value for money performance improvement on a SQL server)

4x Hard drives (Speed of drives is much more important than the size of the drives)

– This becomes the next bottleneck after the RAM, as the performance of data retrieval from drives affects the speed at which the system can respond to client queries, a minimum of 4 drives are recommended in a RAID 10 setup,

(RAID 5 did not perform well on previous SQL editions, in the current editions it does now work however RAID 1+0 performs better when there has been a failure of a drive),

More drives (Added in sets of 2) will significantly improve drive performance, although servers have built in RAID controller, a separate battery backup raid controller is recommended for all sites but required for larger or more complex sites

Slower drives will also affect the performance of the processor as it waits for data retrieval from the drives

This as we have both said above is just our advice as developers working with the product for many years

On the RAM though, the NAV Role Tailored Client is essentially an XML document that is presented to the client computer (Like a web page), all business rules, logic & processing all happens on the server, essentially what we are saying is give the users 400 megs each to run the application in = 2 gigs per 5 users,

When you think of it that way it is not actually that much,

Alex is saying 32gigs - less DB, less OS / 80 users = 325 megs, not that much different from my number, (using my numbers for the OS & DB Memory)

The difference is just our personal experience and what we have done in the past, for example are they running full warehousing, doing 1 000 000 transactions a day (I have had a client that did), running full manufacturing, all these things should also be considered in the hardware question, when you are looking for a guide on what to use however, the above makes a good one

by Neville Foyn & Aleksandar Totovic

Posted on NAV Community

https://community.dynamics.com/nav/f/34/t/106643.aspx#.Ua9yW7Xy-So