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Planning for Hardware Configurations for Configuration Manager
Updated: May 1, 2012
Applies To: System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1
This topic identifies recommended hardware configurations for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager site system servers, clients, and the Configuration Manager console. Use these recommendations as guidelines when you plan to scale your Configuration Manager environment to support more than a very basic deployment of sites, site systems, and clients.
Use the information in this topic as a guide for the hardware to use when you run Configuration Manager at scale. For information about supported configurations for Configuration Manager, see Supported Configurations for Configuration Manager.
These recommendations are not intended to cover each possible site and hierarchy configuration. Instead, use this information as a guide to help you plan for hardware that can meet the processing loads for clients and sites that use the available Configuration Manager features with the default configurations.
This section identifies recommended hardware configurations for Configuration Manager site systems. In general, the key factors that limit performance of the overall system include the following, in order:
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Disk I/O performance
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Available memory
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CPU
For best performance, use RAID 10 configurations for all data drives and 1Gbps Ethernet network connectivity between site system servers, including the database server.
Use the following recommendations for each Configuration Manager site server. For information about the disk space requirements, see Disk Space Configurations.
| Site details | Suggested minimum configuration | ||
|---|---|---|---|
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Central administration site with the Standard edition of SQL Server
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Central administration site with the Enterprise or Datacenter edition of SQL Server
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Stand-alone primary site
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Primary site in a hierarchy
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Primary site in a hierarchy
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Site Server:
Remote SQL Server:
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Secondary site
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Note Because disk allocation and configuration contributes to the performance of System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, disk space requirements can be greater than for previous product versions. Use the following information as guidelines when you determine the amount of disk space Configuration Manager requires. Because each Configuration Manager environment is different, these values can vary from the following guidance.
For the best performance, place each object on a separate, dedicated RAID volume. For all data volumes (Configuration Manager and its database files), use RAID 10 for the best performance.
| Data usage | Minimum disk space | 25,000 clients | 50,000 clients | 100,000 clients |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Operating system |
See guidance for the operating system. |
See guidance for the operating system. |
See guidance for the operating system. |
See guidance for the operating system. |
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Configuration Manager Application and Log Files |
25 GB |
50 GB |
100 GB |
200 GB |
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Site database .mdf file |
75 GB for every 25,000 clients |
75 GB |
150 GB |
300 GB |
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Site database .ldf file |
25 GB for every 25,000 clients |
25 GB |
50 GB |
100 GB |
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Temp database files (.mdf and .ldf) |
As needed |
As needed |
As needed |
As needed |
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Content (distribution point shares) |
As needed1 |
As needed1 |
As needed1 |
As needed1 |
1 The disk space guidance does not include the space required for content that is located in the content library on the site server or distribution points. For information about planning for the content library, see the Plan for Content Libraries section in the Planning for Content Management in Configuration Manager topic.
In addition to the preceding guidance, consider the following general guidelines when you plan for disk space requirements:
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Each client requires approximately 3 MB of space in the database
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When planning for the size of the Temp database for a primary site, plan for a size that is 25% to 30% of the site database .mdf file. The actual size can be significantly smaller, or larger, and depends on the performance of the site server and the volume of incoming data over both short and long periods of time.
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The Temp database size for a central administration site is typically much smaller than that for a primary site.
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The secondary site database is limited in size to the following:
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SQL Server 2008 Express: 4 GB
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SQL Server 2008 R2 Express: 10 GB
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SQL Server 2008 Express: 4 GB
Use the following as recommended hardware configurations for computers that run the following site system roles. These recommendations are for computers that hold a single site system role and you should make adjustments when you install multiple site system roles on the same computer. For more information about the disk space requirements, see Disk Space Configurations in this topic.
| Site system role | Suggested minimum configuration | ||
|---|---|---|---|
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Management point
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Distribution point |
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Application Catalog, with the web service and website on the site system computer |
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All other site system roles |
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For additional resources, see Information and Support for Configuration Manager.
Tip: Use this query to find online documentation in the TechNet Library for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. For instructions and examples, see Search the Configuration Manager Documentation Library.
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