Server specs for running QB Enterprise in RDS

[jzukerman]

I have a client who currently has hosted QB Enterprise through Right Networks and is not having good performance. About 6 employees logged into the hosted server at any given time. QB can become very sluggish to respond, and the hosted Office software as well. I've personally watched a 30 second save time on a simple Excel spreadsheet. Unfortunately Right Networks blocked task manager so I can't see resource usage and no web browser can be used. I'm guessing the virtual machine is underpowered or too many other Right Networks clients on the same physical node but I have no way to check. I've advised the client to call Right Networks and discuss the issue with them. I believe they did that, but didn't get a satisfactory answer.

The client would like to bring everything back in house instead of continuing with hosted. I'd like to setup a new server like a Dell PE R430, run a couple of virtual machines: one Server 2012 R2 w/ Essentials Role and second Server 2012 R2 with QB in RDS. Is QB Enterprise I/O intensive or is it mostly CPU and/or RAM? I only have two other clients with QB Enterprise but they are much smaller: one runs on 2 workstations, the other has just the QB database service running on the server and runs QB Enterprise on the client workstations (nothing in RDS). Would 32GB of RAM, single E5-2620 cpu, and RAID-10 array be good for this job?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

QB is "all intensive"...speedy server, speedy network, speed workstations...fast disk/CPU/RAM/LAN.

Sharing a host with Essentials....with all that Essentials does...I'd want to separate the LUN (disk) that the QB server uses. And I'd want more RAM....32 gigs is good for Essentials. You need to have some for the Hyper-V host itself, and you want some for the QB Server.

How many users in the office? Of it's under 10 users...I don't really see an advantage of having a separate server for QB..just host the database on the Essentials server.

I like doing a RAID 1 pair of drives for the OS or Hyper-V host, and then do a RAID 1 or 10 for the larger data volume.
If it's a Hyper-V host...not only the RAID 1 for the OS install of the Hyper-V host itself, but make a large enough RAID 1 so the OS VHD files for the guests can reside on that drive. Leaving the second RAID 1, or the RAID 1 volume..just for the data. Put the pagefile.sys across both . Makes for a much speedier server, the drives can split up the concurrent drive usage a lot better.

Put workstations to 16 gigs of RAM, i5 CPU minimum.
Gigabit LAN

Want to really surprise them...get a pair of Crucial, Samsung, or Intel SSD drives 'n RAID 1 'em for the data volume or just for a QB data volume.

 

[jzukerman]

Client has 6 employees using hosted QB on Right Networks right now, licensed for 7 total. Currently they have not mentioned needing more QB users, but I plan for 10 for future growth just in case. 15 total employees. Client has been purchasing store brand junky workstations and laptops prior to me coming onsite a couple of months ago. Half of them don't even have Pro version of Windows. So that's one reason I want to go with QB in RDS. Also having to apply QB patches onto 6 computers is a pain. But with RDS I just apply it 2x (once for the database service and once for the RDS QB install) and I'm done. Yes, Hyper-V Host w/ 2 virtual machines.

I'm thinking QB Ent + Office apps will be 1GB of RAM per user. Maybe 48GB of RAM is more appropriate. Not a lot more money to add that instead of 32GB total.

I'm not bothering upgrading the hardware inside the existing workstations as they are junky. Easier to replace them with business end computers (already got 1 Optiplex 3020 installed) as they die/age out.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Yeah I'd definitely go with 32 gigs for the RDS to start with. For the 6 users total...that'll get 'em going. I'm a strong believer in RAM.
Might host the QBD file on the Essentials server. Although on hyper-v...yeah you're sharing the same spindle...so not as much of a performance boost as if you had separate bare metal. It's all still shared. I used to prefer putting the QB database on the file server, and have a terminal server pull from that.

 

[marley1]

I have a nice site that has about 15 users in one location and 5 remote.

T320, 32gb, 2*300gb SAS in raid1, 4*300gb SAS in raid 10
Hyper V, DC with 12gb, Terminal with 12gb. Publishing QB for the 5 users over Remote App.

Not a issue with performance.

 

[marley1]

Why essentials role. I've done one install and will stay away from it.

 

[PodnutzPro]

Do you know what the specs are on the hosted server? I would probably offer my client a conference call with Right Networks so they can't just give a BS answer to get them off the phone. When I do that, I can usually get better answers than the just the client on the phone with them.

 

[jzukerman]

Do you know what the specs are on the hosted server? I would probably offer my client a conference call with Right Networks so they can't just give a BS answer to get them off the phone. When I do that, I can usually get better answers than the just the client on the phone with them.

Client has called RN Support several times but they say the issue is with my client's internet connection. Their 25x3Mbit internet connection. And RDP that uses what 128Kbit at most? Yeah I don't buy it. It's pretty apparent the hosted server (probably a VM) is either underconfigured (not enough cores and/or memory) or the VM host is overloaded with other RN clients. I would love to confirm that but the VM is pretty locked down: no IE, no browser, I don't believe local drive maps, no Control Panel access, and no Task Manager. My client isn't interested in dealing with them any longer. Hence why I needed to know how much memory/CPU that QB Enterprise needs to run in a virtual environment.

 

[PodnutzPro]

I have a server hosted for a client for QB Enterprise access that the client RDPs to, just as your client is doing. My client has 6 or 7 people connecting to run QB. The specs on the Windows Server 2012 server is 1 vCPU with 2GB RAM and they report no slowness issues. The server's average vCPU usage is 17.47% and the average memory usage is 34.83%.