Hello all and big thankyou to Graz et al for this handy site.

Although probably a bit off topic for a SQL log, but I'll be focusing on .NET as I am in the middle (read Deep End) of a large implementation of it.

The real goal of the project is to kill off the mainframes. Slowly but surely more and more SQL Server boxes are being implemented to ease the burden and reliance of our mainframes. I didn't make this decision but I will be following orders.

We currently stand at 16 physically servers separated into 4 clusters (4 boxes per cluster). We use the term "street" to describe a collection of clusters.

The Middle tier is 4 times the size the off the Data Tier and Web Tier is the same size as the Data Tier.

Probably the first thing that jumps out at you is why the middle tier is big.

The answer is two fold. First the entire DAL and BAL are in this tier for both mainframe and SQL Server access. And secondly and most damaging is XML.

Besides Middle Tier to Data Tier communications, every other tier relies on Web Services. The XML generated is not shy on size and each server requires a lot of CPU for the parsing of this information both in an out.

So after a 40 years of computer technology, the database is now one of our fastest tiers……