how to determine how many users web sql will support?

Hello,
We are writting a small pc monitor app that sends pc statistics (hd free,
mem free etc) to a hosted sql server every hour. The pc's also do a select
query to see if there are any messages for it every 30 seconds. We may have
up to 1000 computers doing this. How do I make sure our hosted SQL server
can handle this performance wise?
My other concern is that all 1000 will hit the sql at nearly the same time
cause extreme delays. Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Matt> up to 1000 computers doing this. How do I make sure our hosted SQL server
> can handle this performance wise?
There is no magic formula, it will depend on a number of things, such as
amount of data being transferred, bandwidth, hardware, table
structure/indexes, concurrency of inserts, concurrency of inserts/updates
vs. selects, etc. I suggest you look into some load testing software, e.g.
there is a list here for web-based apps http://www.aspfaq.com/2139
For the database specifically, you can use profiler, Database Hammer from
the SQL Server 2000 Resource Kit, SQL Load Simulator 2.0 (SQLLS2) that comes
with the Back Office Resource Kit 4.5, or some of these:
http://www.mercury.com/us/products/performance-center/
http://www.benchmarkfactory.com/com...ntent.asp?PID=1
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awd...ance/index.html
http://www.sqlpower.com/products.htmlsql