We are planning a large SharePoint 2010 farm (centrally managed farm for ~60K global users). As we consider fundamental architecture, the technical team is divided about the following 3 SQL Server choices.
Please keep in mind that although we are designing a new SP 2010 farm, the final design must be scalable for additional load and positioned for a future in-place upgrade to SharePoint 2013.
- SQL Server Version – SQL Server 2012 was released early this year and advertises significant advantage over earlier versions, especially for SharePoint. Half of our technical team recommends that we build the new SharePoint farm with SQL 2012, and the other
half recommends we stay with the tried-and-true SQL 2008R2. What is recommended? Is there any guidance to help us with this decision; e.g., pros-and-cons?
. - SQL Server Physical or Virtual – From what I have read, Microsoft has relaxed their position on deploying SQL server as a virtual machine. Although SQL Server as a VM is now a supported option, we would still like to know if it is a good/smart choice for
a large SP 2010 farm.
. - SQL Server Standard or Enterprise Edition – What guidance is available to help us decide whether to build with SQL Server Standard or Enterprise edition? Are there reasons to choose Enterprise edition as the farms database server? For example, I’ve read that Enterprise edition is required for RBS configuration. Although we don’t expect to deploy RBS out of the gate, there’s a strong possibility we will need it to support future multi-media content.