Multiple databases on 1 machine

[Former Member]

I have 5 independent SQL anywhere databases currently running on 3 servers. I want to consolidate them to one server. My question is should I run them under a single network service, or should I start them as different services on different ports.

The main DB is over 30 GB and is the largest and busiest of the 5. The rest are 250 MB and smaller. The server should be capable. It has 24 cores and 64 GB of RAM.

Does anyone here have experience with running multiple databases on a single server? Any suggestions?

[Former Member]

Thanks guys. I've installed 12.0.1 in my test environment. The 30GB DB is currently running dbsrv9 and averages 20-30 active users. The others are running dbsrv8 and average 1-3 active users. I've already migrated the main DB from 9 to 12 in our test environment. Application testing is underway, and things are looking great. I still need to migrate the other DBs from 8 to 12 and test the applications.

On the 30GB database, do you think I would benefit from increasing the page size from 4096 to 8192? I read through the SA12's performance improvements tips and thought it might be worth addressing.

BTW, Gotta love the smaller indexes after moving from 9 to 12. The DB file shrunk from 32GB to 22GB.

[justin_willey]

There are pros and cons

• Pros - simple to manage, cache shared across multiple databases
• Cons - server asserts - all databases stop, if you want to restart a server for some reason, you have to stop all databases, you have to have the same server settings for all the databases

Extra Con - if you are using the in-built http server, all the databases on a single engine instance have to use the same http port. I'm sure others will have their own views, but in the situation you describe I might be tempted to have one service for the 30GB database and another for the other four.