At this level of objects..
- Design to remove latency period.
- Database IOPS are critical - SSD is your only hope here..
- Stats levels are critical. (you cannot run at Level 4 for long w/ that many objects.. if at all, so if you have some app that wants and level > 1, then... reconsider.
- DB implementation, preallocations etc.. - Dedicate large amounts of RAM to SQL - enough that it can hold the entire DB in RAM would be ideal.. / critical
- DB growth, designs, logging, tuning - critical.
- DB backup, reorgs etc.. - critical
- System backups - critical
- Multiple bonded NICs (2-4 min) - these could also fan out to separate HOST segments..
- Network latency - critical - latency and hops..
- Consider 10GbE NICs
- Consider Heartbeat.
- This is sometimes counter-intuitive but keeping SQL LOCAL and beefing up the machine is the absolute best way to minimize latency between the vCS and SQL..
Cheers, GC Mobley