Many customers want to know about minimizing their hardware usage especially if they are smaller deployments 

1) What is supported for LCS and Archiving using the same SQL server - same instance, different instances?

From a performance perspective, if you want them on the same box, then use the same instance of SQL server. This will result in better performance than using two instances as two instances will be competing for memory and not sharing any caches.

While this is supported, it is not a recommended configuration. Two instances also mean twice as many User Mode Schedulers (UMS), which operate more efficiently when there is one UMS per processor.

Also be aware that for decent performance, you must have at least 3 (preferably 4) spindles on a machine running both archiving db and presence db. One spindle for each transaction log, and at least one spindle for both data files (preferably 1 spindle for each data file.)

2) Can we alter the SQL port used with the named instances?

You can change the TCP port that the named instance listens on and restart SQL server. EE servers will be able to reconnect without changing the connection string.

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For more information on I/O you can refer to this whitepaper - SQL Server 2000 I/O Basics http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2000/maintain/sqlIObasics.mspx

Server and storage guidelines for Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005 from HP http://h71019.www7.hp.com/ActiveAnswers/downloads/LCS2005_Server_Storage.pdf

Toml LCS Kid

/personal - Congratulations to my brother on his upcoming participation in the Pit Orchestra for Red Hot Broadway: A Broadway Musical Concert. http://www.redhotbroadway.com/