For organizations that want to consolidate multiple SQL instances on the same physical server, this configuration is now supported for Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 and Office Communications Server 2007.  Both of these products make use of SQL Server.  Previously, Microsoft recommended that Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 and Office Communications Server 2007 use SQL Server on a separate dedicated physical server.  As of this announcement, the database used in the Enterprise pool, the Archiving and CDR Server or the QoE (Quality of Experience) Monitoring Server can now share the same SQL Server with other application databases and remain a supported configuration by Microsoft Customer Support Services.

 This level of support does not imply that installing LCS or OCS server roles on the SQL Server is supported.  Installing LCS and OCS server roles collocated on the same physical server running SQL Server remains unsupported.  The physical server must be dedicated to running only SQL Server.

 The server running the Back-End Database can host other SQL applications, as long as they are hosted in different SQL instances; the SQL Server instance that hosts the Office Communications Server Back-End Database must be dedicated.

 If you are going to run other SQL applications on the same server as your Back-End Database, keep the following in mind:  

·         The Back-End Database must have separate dedicated physical drives for its databases and transaction logs.

·         The server must have enough RAM to cache the entire instance being using for Office Communications Server.

·         With this configuration, diagnosing performance issues will be more difficult.

·         This configuration is supported, but not recommended.

 To track the performance of the SQL instance used by the enterprise pool front-end servers, monitor the following performance counters:  

·         LC:USrv – 00 – DBStore\Usrv – 002 – Queue Latency (msec)

·         LC:USrv – 00 – DBStore\Usrv – 0 04– Sproc Latency (msec)  

For more details on how to monitor and interpret these counters, see the article “How can I tell if my server is healthy in less than 10 counters?” by Pauline Batthish: http://communicationsserverteam.com/archive/2007/09/10/9.aspx

 For an in-depth resource on Office Communications Server 2007 with detailed troubleshooting tips, refer to the Office Communications Server 2007 Resource Kit book available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Quantum Books: http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/10482.aspx

- Rui Maximo 

  Senior Technical Writer