Database Sizing Requirements

[Chris]

Database Sizing Requirements for RPM and ERPM

Date: 07/14/2009
Revision: 2.2

Considerations

The information in this document applies to both Random Password Manager and Enterprise Random Password Manager but is only meant to be used as a guideline and not a definitive answer.

Regarding the size of the database, there is nothing but variable after variable to contend with when calculating the size of the db such as:

• Number of systems
• Number of accounts
• Number of passwords
• Number of groups (system lists)
• Amount of recoveries and other web operations
• Number of delegations
• Number of password jobs
• Stored password history
• Is propagation turned on or not
• Job failures

Bottom line is: the solution is only storing text into the db fields as opposed to binary data. This means that what the input will be relatively small in every sense of the word. As for sizing requirements, default limits are generally fine for everyone. Random Password Manager collects considerable less information and its initial database will be an order of magnitude smaller than that of Enterprise Random Password Manager. Following are observed numbers from an Enterprise Random Password Manager database running with SQL 2008 x64 Enterprise Edition.
-----
4MB (.92MB Free) Default formatted DB, with one dynamic group with one active directory query
---
System added to group (no information) = .0006MB Per system
System information and account usage per system = .005MB per system
System added to a job = .0006MB per system
Stored Password with job settings and first time discovery information.045MB per new password
---
Job re-runs, stored passwords = .0017MB per password history
-----
Based on the above number, a systems list with 1,000 systems in it changing one account on each of those systems via 1 job, and further assuming that those accounts changed on the first try (no retries or other failures) you would have an initial database that would be roughly:

4MB initial size + (.0006MB x 1000 Windows Systems) + (.005MB x 1000 Initial Discovery - optional) + (.0006MB x 1000 systems in the job) + (.045MB x 1000 Password change job) = 55.2MB. If the optional discovery is not performed, which has no effect on jobs with propagation settings, the size of the initial database becomes 50.2MB.

Password histories require approximately .0017MB (no job info stored with historic passwords). So 1,000 password historical passwords, at 15 characters each, would be an additional 1.7MB.

After one year for 1000 Windows systems whose passwords change 12 times per year with propagation, assuming everything else was relatively perfect, The size of the database would be:

55.2MB + 18.7MB (11 months for first year) = 73.9MB

Assume an annual growth of 20.4MB per year which is calcualted as 1,000 systems x .0017 pw history x 12months.

This of course is an approximation affected by operations performed in the website, re-randomization jobs created by the website, as well as factors previously mentioned.

Applies To:

Random Password Manager (RPM)
Enterprise Random Password Manager (ERPM)