Keeping a legacy disparate hardware solution composed of nine older servers instead of choosing the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3 family may cost more than one would expect. We found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with an Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server could do the work of nine legacy servers running email, database, and file/print server workloads. The VRTX ran all nine workloads in VMs, achieving a slight performance boost on the database and file/print workloads while using much less datacenter space and reducing power consumption by 38.4 percent.
The VRTX achieved these savings using 88.6 percent less rack-equivalent space than the legacy disparate hardware solution and with one-third as many cables, to reduce complexity and reduce the burden of space in small offices.
Despite a larger initial investment, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with an Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server could actually lower the total cost of ownership over five years by as much as 48.5 percent, delivering a solid return on investment in less than two years.
As our test results show, investing in the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 v3 family could provide a compact solution to optimize application performance and reduce complexity at a lower lifetime cost than a legacy solution composed of nine older servers.
Setting up a failover cluster on the Dell PowerEdge VRTX is a straightforward process. In very little time, you can deploy Dell PowerEdge VRTX with up to four M-series servers, switches, and storage in a redundant configuration using Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. By setting up a failover cluster on your compact Dell PowerEdge VRTX, you can maximize server uptime to keep your business moving.
Consolidate and upgrade: Dell PowerEdge VRTX and Microsoft SQL Server 2014Principled Technologies
Your growing business shouldn’t run on aging hardware and software until it fails. Adding memory and upgrading processors will not provide the same benefits to your infrastructure as a consolidation and upgrade can. Upgrading and consolidating your IT infrastructure to the Dell PowerEdge VRTX running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014 can improve performance while adding features such as high availability.
Based on our findings, a single Dell PowerEdge VRTX can replace four four-year-old dual-socket servers with VMs running heavy SQL database workloads. We found that consolidating four older servers onto a Dell PowerEdge VRTX and upgrading to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save up to $16,390 over three years, compared to keeping the four-year-old dual-socket servers and upgrading existing storage infrastructure. If your business runs older versions of Microsoft SQL Server on end-of-life dual-socket servers, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save your company these costs while delivering better performance than the aging hardware and software.
When considering whether to upgrade to the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX or repurpose older hardware, the advantages of new hardware are clear. Not only do you get newer hardware that is faster and is better-equipped to handle the increasing demands of today’s business applications and workloads, but you also benefit from advances that make deployment and management easier than ever.
In our labs, we compared the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with four server nodes and shared storage and networking to a similar infrastructure using four legacy tower servers, external network switches, and an external SAN. Our testing revealed the following:
· PowerEdge VRTX took 78.5 percent less time and 150 fewer steps to configure and deploy out of the box compared to the legacy solution.
· PowerEdge VRTX It took less than 1 hour to unbox and configure into a highly available VMware vSphere cluster compared to over 4 hours on the legacy solution.
· Deploying the Dell PowerEdge VRTX used just a single management tool, the integrated Chassis Management Controller, whereas the tower solution required six separate management tools.
Choosing such a complete solution during your next server refresh can simplify infrastructure setup and configuration, boost performance through built-in high availability features, and potentially save your organization space and operating costs over the life of the hardware.
Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs. legacy hardware solutionPrincipled Technologies
Keeping a legacy, disparate hardware solution instead of choosing the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX may cost you more than you realize. We found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX increased application performance over a legacy, disparate hardware solution across email, database, and file/print server simultaneous workloads while reducing power consumption by 19.8 percent. The VRTX did so in 70.6 percent less rack-equivalent space than the legacy, disparate hardware solution and with one-third as many cables, to reduce complexity and reduce the burden of space in small offices. Finally, despite a larger initial investment, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX could actually lower your total cost of ownership over years as much as 26.0 percent, delivering a solid return on your investment in less than three years.
As our test results show, investing in the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution could provide you with a compact solution to optimize application performance, reduce complexity, and even lower the total cost of your solution over its lifetime.
The Dell PowerEdge VRTX is an all-inclusive platform, suitable for rapid deployment of a virtual environment, such as Citrix XenDesktop 7.5. The integrated components of the VRTX means your business has a centralized management console for the necessary data center components that support VDI environments. We found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX and XenDesktop set up, configured, and deployed VDI users easily. The addition of Dell Wyse terminals demonstrates how your end-users can access your XenDesktop VDI environment with efficient hardware and little administrative effort. The combination of Dell PowerEdge VRTX and Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 can offer a unified, efficient, and simple enterprise-value VDI solution for your business, but without the resources and commitment need for supporting an enterprise data center.
Save space, increase efficiency, and boost performance in your remote office ...Principled Technologies
Two realities drive many remote and branch office server decisions: the need for a versatile platform that delivers excellent performance, and the need for simplification by using fewer servers and cables. By consolidating your older servers to the powerful, space-efficient Dell PowerEdge VRTX server, you can increase database performance while saving valuable space. In our tests, the base-configuration Dell PowerEdge VRTX could consolidate four legacy servers while providing 5.4 times the overall performance. With the Micron P420m PCIe SSD added to the configuration, the VRTX consolidated eight legacy servers and delivered 10.7 times the overall performance.
Investing in the Dell PowerEdge VRTX—in either configuration—can elevate your IT infrastructure by answering database performance and space-saving challenges that face your remote and branch offices.
In addition to providing excellent performance in a space-efficient manner, the VRTX simplifies the office environment, brings efficiency to IT staff through its management advantages, and offers businesses the versatility of deploying performance anywhere.
Meet database performance needs while reducing TCO with the Dell PowerEdge VR...Principled Technologies
Cloud WAN services can seem convenient for small businesses and remote offices, but they remove local control and can be more expensive over time. In our tests, the all-in-one Dell PowerEdge VRTX provided the necessary transactional database performance while saving up to 63.9 percent in costs over five years. When you’re looking for a reliable solution to run workloads in remote offices, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX has the potential to cost less than running databases from the cloud.
Performance per dollar comparison: Dell PowerEdge R715 vs. HP ProLiant DL380p...Principled Technologies
Servers that deliver high performance at lower costs are a smart choice for any IT department building or refreshing a data center. In our tests, we found that the AMD Opteron 6200 Series processor -powered Dell PowerEdge R715 increased performance per dollar by as much as 23.27 percent in our real-world 70 percent processor utilization scenario, and as much as 26.84 percent at maximum processor utilization.
Setting up a failover cluster on the Dell PowerEdge VRTX is a straightforward process. In very little time, you can deploy Dell PowerEdge VRTX with up to four M-series servers, switches, and storage in a redundant configuration using Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. By setting up a failover cluster on your compact Dell PowerEdge VRTX, you can maximize server uptime to keep your business moving.
Consolidate and upgrade: Dell PowerEdge VRTX and Microsoft SQL Server 2014Principled Technologies
Your growing business shouldn’t run on aging hardware and software until it fails. Adding memory and upgrading processors will not provide the same benefits to your infrastructure as a consolidation and upgrade can. Upgrading and consolidating your IT infrastructure to the Dell PowerEdge VRTX running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014 can improve performance while adding features such as high availability.
Based on our findings, a single Dell PowerEdge VRTX can replace four four-year-old dual-socket servers with VMs running heavy SQL database workloads. We found that consolidating four older servers onto a Dell PowerEdge VRTX and upgrading to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save up to $16,390 over three years, compared to keeping the four-year-old dual-socket servers and upgrading existing storage infrastructure. If your business runs older versions of Microsoft SQL Server on end-of-life dual-socket servers, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save your company these costs while delivering better performance than the aging hardware and software.
When considering whether to upgrade to the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX or repurpose older hardware, the advantages of new hardware are clear. Not only do you get newer hardware that is faster and is better-equipped to handle the increasing demands of today’s business applications and workloads, but you also benefit from advances that make deployment and management easier than ever.
In our labs, we compared the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with four server nodes and shared storage and networking to a similar infrastructure using four legacy tower servers, external network switches, and an external SAN. Our testing revealed the following:
· PowerEdge VRTX took 78.5 percent less time and 150 fewer steps to configure and deploy out of the box compared to the legacy solution.
· PowerEdge VRTX It took less than 1 hour to unbox and configure into a highly available VMware vSphere cluster compared to over 4 hours on the legacy solution.
· Deploying the Dell PowerEdge VRTX used just a single management tool, the integrated Chassis Management Controller, whereas the tower solution required six separate management tools.
Choosing such a complete solution during your next server refresh can simplify infrastructure setup and configuration, boost performance through built-in high availability features, and potentially save your organization space and operating costs over the life of the hardware.
Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs. legacy hardware solutionPrincipled Technologies
Keeping a legacy, disparate hardware solution instead of choosing the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX may cost you more than you realize. We found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX increased application performance over a legacy, disparate hardware solution across email, database, and file/print server simultaneous workloads while reducing power consumption by 19.8 percent. The VRTX did so in 70.6 percent less rack-equivalent space than the legacy, disparate hardware solution and with one-third as many cables, to reduce complexity and reduce the burden of space in small offices. Finally, despite a larger initial investment, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX could actually lower your total cost of ownership over years as much as 26.0 percent, delivering a solid return on your investment in less than three years.
As our test results show, investing in the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution could provide you with a compact solution to optimize application performance, reduce complexity, and even lower the total cost of your solution over its lifetime.
The Dell PowerEdge VRTX is an all-inclusive platform, suitable for rapid deployment of a virtual environment, such as Citrix XenDesktop 7.5. The integrated components of the VRTX means your business has a centralized management console for the necessary data center components that support VDI environments. We found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX and XenDesktop set up, configured, and deployed VDI users easily. The addition of Dell Wyse terminals demonstrates how your end-users can access your XenDesktop VDI environment with efficient hardware and little administrative effort. The combination of Dell PowerEdge VRTX and Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 can offer a unified, efficient, and simple enterprise-value VDI solution for your business, but without the resources and commitment need for supporting an enterprise data center.
Save space, increase efficiency, and boost performance in your remote office ...Principled Technologies
Two realities drive many remote and branch office server decisions: the need for a versatile platform that delivers excellent performance, and the need for simplification by using fewer servers and cables. By consolidating your older servers to the powerful, space-efficient Dell PowerEdge VRTX server, you can increase database performance while saving valuable space. In our tests, the base-configuration Dell PowerEdge VRTX could consolidate four legacy servers while providing 5.4 times the overall performance. With the Micron P420m PCIe SSD added to the configuration, the VRTX consolidated eight legacy servers and delivered 10.7 times the overall performance.
Investing in the Dell PowerEdge VRTX—in either configuration—can elevate your IT infrastructure by answering database performance and space-saving challenges that face your remote and branch offices.
In addition to providing excellent performance in a space-efficient manner, the VRTX simplifies the office environment, brings efficiency to IT staff through its management advantages, and offers businesses the versatility of deploying performance anywhere.
Meet database performance needs while reducing TCO with the Dell PowerEdge VR...Principled Technologies
Cloud WAN services can seem convenient for small businesses and remote offices, but they remove local control and can be more expensive over time. In our tests, the all-in-one Dell PowerEdge VRTX provided the necessary transactional database performance while saving up to 63.9 percent in costs over five years. When you’re looking for a reliable solution to run workloads in remote offices, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX has the potential to cost less than running databases from the cloud.
Performance per dollar comparison: Dell PowerEdge R715 vs. HP ProLiant DL380p...Principled Technologies
Servers that deliver high performance at lower costs are a smart choice for any IT department building or refreshing a data center. In our tests, we found that the AMD Opteron 6200 Series processor -powered Dell PowerEdge R715 increased performance per dollar by as much as 23.27 percent in our real-world 70 percent processor utilization scenario, and as much as 26.84 percent at maximum processor utilization.
VDI performance comparison: Dell PowerEdge FX2 and FC430 servers with VMware ...Principled Technologies
Replacing your legacy VDI servers with a new Intel Xeon processor E5-2670 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a great boon for your enterprise.
In the Principled Technologies (PT) labs, this space-efficient, affordable solution outperformed a five-year-old legacy server and traditional SAN by offering twice as many VDI users. Additionally, it achieved greater performance while using 91 percent less space and at a cost of only $167.89 per user in hardware costs.
By supporting more users, saving space, and its affordability, an upgrade to the Intel-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a wise move when replacing your aging, older infrastructure.
VDI performance comparison: Dell PowerEdge FX2 and FC430 servers with VMware ...Principled Technologies
Replacing your legacy VDI servers with a new Intel Xeon processor E5-2650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a great boon for your enterprise.
In the Principled Technologies (PT) labs, this space-efficient, affordable solution outperformed a legacy server and traditional SAN VSAN by offering 72 percent greater VDI users. Additionally, it achieved greater performance while using 91 percent less space and at a cost of only $176.52 per user.
By supporting more users, saving space, and its affordability, an upgrade to the Intel-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a wise move when replacing your aging, older infrastructure.
Converged architecture advantages: Dell PowerEdge FX2s and FC830 servers vs. ...Principled Technologies
Based on our testing with heavy SQL Server 2014 database workloads, the converged architecture solution of a Dell PowerEdge FX2s chassis and FC830 servers delivered 3.9 times the performance of our legacy IBM solution. We also found the Dell PowerEdge FX2s and FC830 solution offered 73 percent lower cost per order compared to the legacy IBM System x3850 X5 solution. In addition, the PowerEdge FX2s and FC830 solution does not sacrifice traditional hardware redundancy while providing the same highly available database solution in a smaller rack space. If your business runs Microsoft SQL Server 2014, the converged architecture approach with Dell PowerEdge FX2s chassis and FC830 servers powered by Intel could bring a harmonious balance of performance, reliability, and cost efficiency to your data center.
Webinář: Provozujte datacentrum v kanceláři (Dell VRTX) / 5.9.2013Jaroslav Prodelal
Dokážete si představit, že byste provozovali své datacentrum v prostředí kanceláře? Ano, je to možné. Společnost Dell uvedla na trh novinku v podobě tzv. datacenter-in-a-box, které je optimalizované (odhlučnění, napájení) pro provoz i v kanceláři, samozřejmě jej můžete dát i do samostatné místnosti.
Dell VRTX v kombinuje v jedniném 5U šasí výpočetní výkon (až 4 2-CPU servery), diskové úložiště (až 24 HDD) a síť.
Ve webináři vás seznámíme s touto cenově velmi zajímavou novinkou a ukážeme rozdíl mezi tímto řešením a případnými alternativami v době samostaných serverů, diskového pole a síťových switchů.
Agenda:
------------
* co je Dell VRTX?
*segment zákazníků pro VRTX
* co VRTX nabízí
* řešení provozované na VRTX
* technické specifikace
* možná použití
* cena
* aktuální nabídky a promo akce
Offer faster access to critical data and achieve greater inline data reductio...Principled Technologies
Compared to a solution from another vendor (“Vendor B”), the PowerStore 7000T delivered a better inline data reduction ratio and better performance during simulated OLTP and other I/O workloads
Workstation heat and power usage: Lenovo ThinkStation P500 vs. HP Z440 Workst...Principled Technologies
A workstation that runs coolly and uses less power is a great asset to workers and the companies they work for. In our tests, both when idle and when under load, the Lenovo ThinkStation P500 generally ran at lower surface temperatures and used less power than the HP Z440 Workstation. These findings show that the Lenovo ThinkStation P500 could meet the needs of those who want to provide a reliable, comfortable work environment while using less power.
Converged architecture advantages: Dell PowerEdge FX2s and FC830 servers vs. ...Principled Technologies
Based on our testing with heavy SQL Server 2014 database workloads, the converged architecture solution of a Dell PowerEdge FX2s chassis and FC830 servers delivered 3.8 times the performance of our legacy HP solution. We also found the Dell PowerEdge FX2s and FC830 solution offered 72 lower cost per new order compared to the legacy HP ProLiant DL580 G7 solution. In addition, the PowerEdge FX2s and FC830 solution does not sacrifice traditional hardware redundancy while providing the same highly available database solution in a smaller rack space. If your business runs Microsoft SQL Server 2014, the converged architecture approach with Dell PowerEdge FX2s chassis and FC830 servers powered by Intel could bring a harmonious balance of performance, reliability, and cost efficiency to your data center.
Resource balancing comparison: VMware vSphere 6 vs. Red Hat Enterprise Virtua...Principled Technologies
Having ample resources to handle user requests is a necessity of modern virtualization solutions. Allocating and distributing those resources evenly, however, is imperative to the success of your business’s virtualized environment. In our tests, after powering on the other two servers in our three-node cluster and adding resource management features, VMware vSphere 6 improved performance by 183 percent over its baseline configuration of one active server and no resource management features. RHEV 3.5, in contrast, delivered only a 79 percent increase over its baseline. As you design your business’s infrastructure and applications, improvements such as those offered by VMware vSphere 6 DRS and Storage DRS can play a critical role by offering your users better application experiences. Optimized and modern resource management provided by VMware DRS can also help to lower your IT purchase and maintenance costs by reducing the number of servers necessary to run your applications.
Minimizing licensing costs for enterprise applications is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down. When your applications use per-core licensing, choosing higher-performance servers with fewer cores dramatically reduces your software-related spending. The Dell PowerEdge M820 blade solution with Compellent storage could deliver up to $96,236 in savings as compared to a single HP ProLiant BL680c G7 solution, and if consolidating multiple workloads, could deliver even more savings in licensing costs when running Microsoft SQL Server in a virtualized scenario – all while maintaining or exceeding previous performance levels.
VMmark virtualization performance of Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SANPrincipled Technologies
The storage you use for your virtualization solution can be a significant factor in its performance and effectiveness. Two Dell PowerEdge R720 servers, paired with Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN, ran 10 VMmark tiles for a total of 80 running VMs and achieved a score of 12.05@10 tiles, making it the top score running VMware ESXi 5.5 of the 32-core server configurations. For enterprises that need excellent virtualization performance, this makes Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN a wise investment.
Dell PowerEdge R920 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Migration and Benefits GuidePrincipled Technologies
The latest Dell PowerEdge R920 server is designed to provide highly scalable performance for large enterprises, with greater memory capacity, improved and expanded attached storage options, and processor architectures designed for high availability. Microsoft SQL Server 2014 is the perfect companion software to take advantage of the Dell PowerEdge R920’s impressive specifications. Upgrading has never looked more attractive, and with hardware/software upgrades must come data migration.
Migrating legacy database applications to the latest database technologies on newer Dell server platforms is a common task for businesses upgrading their hardware/software stack. As this guide shows, the process is straightforward and the cost benefits can be enormous. We calculated the savings attainable from multiple consolidation ratios, as well as how long it would take to pay off the replacement server. We found that a consolidation ratio of 13 to 1 could yield $531,725 in software savings, many times the cost of the replacement hardware itself. So not only will the business benefit from the massively-scalable current-generation Dell server technology paired with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 running SQL Server 2014, but you can save money in the process.
Increased database performance and reduced costs with Dell PowerEdge FX2 & VM...Principled Technologies
Holding onto legacy servers and storage can limit database performance and infrastructure agility along with wasting space and power. The Dell PowerEdge FX2 with VMware Virtual SAN can provide more value for your business now, while setting up your datacenter to adapt to changing workloads as business needs fluctuate. In our tests, the PowerEdge FX2 solution outperformed four legacy HP servers and a traditional storage array. It offered 2.8 times the database OPM of the legacy solution while saving over half a rack of datacenter space. It also improved energy efficiency by delivering 6.5 times the performance per watt. Finally, the PowerEdge FX2 solution was more cost efficient—offering a cost per OPM that was 9.7 percent less than the legacy HP solution. The Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution is designed to provide a converged, flexible, and cost-efficient database modernization platform.
Increasing performance with the Dell PowerEdge FX2 and VMware Virtual SANPrincipled Technologies
IT and business goals don’t have to compete: With a Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution powered by Intel Xeon processors and SanDisk SSDs with VMware Virtual SAN 6, you can get the database performance you need by bringing compute and data closer together while maximizing datacenter space, all within the constraints of a tightening budget. We found that the Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution outperformed an HP solution with legacy external SAN array and provided a lower cost per order along with lowering common operating costs. Configured with SanDisk SSDs and VMware Virtual San 6, the Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution delivered 3.1 times the performance and 4.2 times the performance per watt of the HP solution using a legacy SAN array. The entire Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution also took up 90 percent less space and cost half as much per database order it handled.
With numbers like that, it becomes clear that investing in servers for your old external storage array isn’t going to cut it. Moving to an all-in-one Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution with VMware Virtual SAN 6 can help you meet both your performance and budgeting goals.
See how Dell works efficiently with VMware to provide innovative architectures that are scalable and flexible. Learn about servers, networking, storage, and comprehensive systems management
As our tests show, investing in the powerful new Dell PowerEdge R920 running Oracle VM Server 3.2.8 with Oracle Database 12c VMs achieves cost savings without compromising performance. In our testing, a single Dell PowerEdge R920 could perform five times the work of a single HP ProLiant DL385 G6 server; the costs to power and cool the Dell PowerEdge would be 43 percent less than the five servers it could replace. The three-year software licensing costs of the Dell PowerEdge R920 server would be 22 percent lower than the licensing costs for the five-server solution. These dramatic savings—which come out to $212,091 for our single test environment — could grow to millions of dollars in a larger consolidation effort.
Database performance and memory capacity with the Intel Xeon processor E5-266...Principled Technologies
The Dell PowerEdge M620 offers 24 memory slots, 50 percent more than the 16 slots offered by the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8, which enables the Dell solution to provide greater performance while delivering memory error protection. We found that the Dell PowerEdge M620 solution, built on the new Intel Xeon processor E5-2600v2 Series, delivered 182.2 percent more database performance and 92.0 percent faster response times than the previous version Intel Xeon E5-2640 processor-based HP ProLiant BL460c Gen 8 solution, while providing 12.5 percent more available memory and error protection. The additional memory capacity of the Dell solution allowed us to engage FRM technologies and still have more overall RAM capacity compared to the 16-slot HP server. The Dell PowerEdge M620 offered maximum memory capacity and protection with Fault Resilient Memory to keep your database workloads running strong and available for your business needs.
A single-socket Dell EMC PowerEdge R7515 solution delivered better value on a...Principled Technologies
If your company is running important business applications in VMware vSAN clusters of servers that are several years old, chances are good that you’re considering upgrading to newer hardware. Our testing demonstrated that our clusters of single-socket Dell EMC PowerEdge R7515 servers and clusters of dual-socket HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 servers could both improve upon the database performance of a legacy cluster with five-year-old servers by more than 50 percent, with the Dell EMC cluster achieving 93.4 percent of the performance of the HPE cluster.
Managing clients with Dell Client Integration Pack 3.0 and Microsoft System C...Principled Technologies
Client management is an important part of any enterprise. Employees have workstations in their offices or notebooks that travel with them around the globe, and efficient updates and remote management capabilities keep an organization’s IT assets ordered and secure. Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 can provide a robust, efficient, management system for your IT infrastructure. Selecting clients that not only operate within your IT framework, but that have built-in software to integrate with it seamlessly to make client management tasks even easier is an intelligent strategy for your IT department.
In our tests, we found that Dell client management tools (Dell Client Integration Pack, Dell Client Configuration Toolkit, and Dell OpenManage Client Instrumentation) integrated in a typical SCCM 2012 environment reduced the steps it took to complete client management tasks by as much as 77 percent, and included a number of features that weren’t available with clients from HP and Lenovo.
Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases 2.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014: ...Principled Technologies
As this guide has shown, installing and configuring a Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with SQL Server 2014 powered by the Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases is a straightforward procedure. A key benefit from implementing DAAD 2.0 into your infrastructure is the ability to accelerate workloads without a complete storage area network redesign. This can be ideal for businesses that have snapshot and deduplication features within their software stack or are looking to improve database performance without investing in large storage solutions that may contain features they do not need. Consider DAAD 2.0 for your business—a storage acceleration solution that requires only 4U of rack space and can potentially give your database workloads a boost.
Moving your legacy database workloads to the Dell PowerEdge R930 can help you realize the benefits of consolidation, which can include savings in management costs, power usage, and cable management costs. More importantly, the licensing costs of the database application itself may be reduced by the consolidation effort. In addition to these benefits, greater database transactions per minute can keep your orders flowing smoothly.
We found that the Dell PowerEdge R930, powered by the Intel Xeon processor E7 v3 series, could consolidate three legacy servers running four Oracle Database 12c VMs each. The Dell PowerEdge R930 outperformed the legacy server with 4.4 times the overall database performance, delivering an average of 47.1 percent more performance per VM. By consolidating that many legacy servers, you can save up to 67 percent in rack space, 25 percent in database licenses, and even reduce other operating costs to improve your bottom line.
As the needs of your business grow, so must the power of your server infrastructure. Rather than purchasing replacement servers with base configurations, consider upgrading key components to ensure you get the performance you need.
We found that upgrading to the Dell PowerEdge R720 with the Intel Xeon processor E5-2697 v2, Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system, Intel SSD DC S3700 series drive, and Intel Ethernet CNA X520 series adapters supported 4.5 times as many VMs as the previous-generation Dell PowerEdge R710 solution.
When you purchase a server, wisely selecting these components offered by Dell and Intel can allow your business to hit the sweet spot of supporting all your users without breaking the bank. Incremental upgrades also leave room to grow and help your infrastructure handle growth for years to come.
Finally, these select upgrades could translate to savings for your business—fewer servers you need to purchase now to meet performance demands, and a longer lifespan for these servers as your business continues to grow.
VDI performance comparison: Dell PowerEdge FX2 and FC430 servers with VMware ...Principled Technologies
Replacing your legacy VDI servers with a new Intel Xeon processor E5-2670 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a great boon for your enterprise.
In the Principled Technologies (PT) labs, this space-efficient, affordable solution outperformed a five-year-old legacy server and traditional SAN by offering twice as many VDI users. Additionally, it achieved greater performance while using 91 percent less space and at a cost of only $167.89 per user in hardware costs.
By supporting more users, saving space, and its affordability, an upgrade to the Intel-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a wise move when replacing your aging, older infrastructure.
VDI performance comparison: Dell PowerEdge FX2 and FC430 servers with VMware ...Principled Technologies
Replacing your legacy VDI servers with a new Intel Xeon processor E5-2650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a great boon for your enterprise.
In the Principled Technologies (PT) labs, this space-efficient, affordable solution outperformed a legacy server and traditional SAN VSAN by offering 72 percent greater VDI users. Additionally, it achieved greater performance while using 91 percent less space and at a cost of only $176.52 per user.
By supporting more users, saving space, and its affordability, an upgrade to the Intel-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a wise move when replacing your aging, older infrastructure.
Converged architecture advantages: Dell PowerEdge FX2s and FC830 servers vs. ...Principled Technologies
Based on our testing with heavy SQL Server 2014 database workloads, the converged architecture solution of a Dell PowerEdge FX2s chassis and FC830 servers delivered 3.9 times the performance of our legacy IBM solution. We also found the Dell PowerEdge FX2s and FC830 solution offered 73 percent lower cost per order compared to the legacy IBM System x3850 X5 solution. In addition, the PowerEdge FX2s and FC830 solution does not sacrifice traditional hardware redundancy while providing the same highly available database solution in a smaller rack space. If your business runs Microsoft SQL Server 2014, the converged architecture approach with Dell PowerEdge FX2s chassis and FC830 servers powered by Intel could bring a harmonious balance of performance, reliability, and cost efficiency to your data center.
Webinář: Provozujte datacentrum v kanceláři (Dell VRTX) / 5.9.2013Jaroslav Prodelal
Dokážete si představit, že byste provozovali své datacentrum v prostředí kanceláře? Ano, je to možné. Společnost Dell uvedla na trh novinku v podobě tzv. datacenter-in-a-box, které je optimalizované (odhlučnění, napájení) pro provoz i v kanceláři, samozřejmě jej můžete dát i do samostatné místnosti.
Dell VRTX v kombinuje v jedniném 5U šasí výpočetní výkon (až 4 2-CPU servery), diskové úložiště (až 24 HDD) a síť.
Ve webináři vás seznámíme s touto cenově velmi zajímavou novinkou a ukážeme rozdíl mezi tímto řešením a případnými alternativami v době samostaných serverů, diskového pole a síťových switchů.
Agenda:
------------
* co je Dell VRTX?
*segment zákazníků pro VRTX
* co VRTX nabízí
* řešení provozované na VRTX
* technické specifikace
* možná použití
* cena
* aktuální nabídky a promo akce
Offer faster access to critical data and achieve greater inline data reductio...Principled Technologies
Compared to a solution from another vendor (“Vendor B”), the PowerStore 7000T delivered a better inline data reduction ratio and better performance during simulated OLTP and other I/O workloads
Workstation heat and power usage: Lenovo ThinkStation P500 vs. HP Z440 Workst...Principled Technologies
A workstation that runs coolly and uses less power is a great asset to workers and the companies they work for. In our tests, both when idle and when under load, the Lenovo ThinkStation P500 generally ran at lower surface temperatures and used less power than the HP Z440 Workstation. These findings show that the Lenovo ThinkStation P500 could meet the needs of those who want to provide a reliable, comfortable work environment while using less power.
Converged architecture advantages: Dell PowerEdge FX2s and FC830 servers vs. ...Principled Technologies
Based on our testing with heavy SQL Server 2014 database workloads, the converged architecture solution of a Dell PowerEdge FX2s chassis and FC830 servers delivered 3.8 times the performance of our legacy HP solution. We also found the Dell PowerEdge FX2s and FC830 solution offered 72 lower cost per new order compared to the legacy HP ProLiant DL580 G7 solution. In addition, the PowerEdge FX2s and FC830 solution does not sacrifice traditional hardware redundancy while providing the same highly available database solution in a smaller rack space. If your business runs Microsoft SQL Server 2014, the converged architecture approach with Dell PowerEdge FX2s chassis and FC830 servers powered by Intel could bring a harmonious balance of performance, reliability, and cost efficiency to your data center.
Resource balancing comparison: VMware vSphere 6 vs. Red Hat Enterprise Virtua...Principled Technologies
Having ample resources to handle user requests is a necessity of modern virtualization solutions. Allocating and distributing those resources evenly, however, is imperative to the success of your business’s virtualized environment. In our tests, after powering on the other two servers in our three-node cluster and adding resource management features, VMware vSphere 6 improved performance by 183 percent over its baseline configuration of one active server and no resource management features. RHEV 3.5, in contrast, delivered only a 79 percent increase over its baseline. As you design your business’s infrastructure and applications, improvements such as those offered by VMware vSphere 6 DRS and Storage DRS can play a critical role by offering your users better application experiences. Optimized and modern resource management provided by VMware DRS can also help to lower your IT purchase and maintenance costs by reducing the number of servers necessary to run your applications.
Minimizing licensing costs for enterprise applications is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down. When your applications use per-core licensing, choosing higher-performance servers with fewer cores dramatically reduces your software-related spending. The Dell PowerEdge M820 blade solution with Compellent storage could deliver up to $96,236 in savings as compared to a single HP ProLiant BL680c G7 solution, and if consolidating multiple workloads, could deliver even more savings in licensing costs when running Microsoft SQL Server in a virtualized scenario – all while maintaining or exceeding previous performance levels.
VMmark virtualization performance of Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SANPrincipled Technologies
The storage you use for your virtualization solution can be a significant factor in its performance and effectiveness. Two Dell PowerEdge R720 servers, paired with Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN, ran 10 VMmark tiles for a total of 80 running VMs and achieved a score of 12.05@10 tiles, making it the top score running VMware ESXi 5.5 of the 32-core server configurations. For enterprises that need excellent virtualization performance, this makes Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN a wise investment.
Dell PowerEdge R920 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Migration and Benefits GuidePrincipled Technologies
The latest Dell PowerEdge R920 server is designed to provide highly scalable performance for large enterprises, with greater memory capacity, improved and expanded attached storage options, and processor architectures designed for high availability. Microsoft SQL Server 2014 is the perfect companion software to take advantage of the Dell PowerEdge R920’s impressive specifications. Upgrading has never looked more attractive, and with hardware/software upgrades must come data migration.
Migrating legacy database applications to the latest database technologies on newer Dell server platforms is a common task for businesses upgrading their hardware/software stack. As this guide shows, the process is straightforward and the cost benefits can be enormous. We calculated the savings attainable from multiple consolidation ratios, as well as how long it would take to pay off the replacement server. We found that a consolidation ratio of 13 to 1 could yield $531,725 in software savings, many times the cost of the replacement hardware itself. So not only will the business benefit from the massively-scalable current-generation Dell server technology paired with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 running SQL Server 2014, but you can save money in the process.
Increased database performance and reduced costs with Dell PowerEdge FX2 & VM...Principled Technologies
Holding onto legacy servers and storage can limit database performance and infrastructure agility along with wasting space and power. The Dell PowerEdge FX2 with VMware Virtual SAN can provide more value for your business now, while setting up your datacenter to adapt to changing workloads as business needs fluctuate. In our tests, the PowerEdge FX2 solution outperformed four legacy HP servers and a traditional storage array. It offered 2.8 times the database OPM of the legacy solution while saving over half a rack of datacenter space. It also improved energy efficiency by delivering 6.5 times the performance per watt. Finally, the PowerEdge FX2 solution was more cost efficient—offering a cost per OPM that was 9.7 percent less than the legacy HP solution. The Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution is designed to provide a converged, flexible, and cost-efficient database modernization platform.
Increasing performance with the Dell PowerEdge FX2 and VMware Virtual SANPrincipled Technologies
IT and business goals don’t have to compete: With a Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution powered by Intel Xeon processors and SanDisk SSDs with VMware Virtual SAN 6, you can get the database performance you need by bringing compute and data closer together while maximizing datacenter space, all within the constraints of a tightening budget. We found that the Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution outperformed an HP solution with legacy external SAN array and provided a lower cost per order along with lowering common operating costs. Configured with SanDisk SSDs and VMware Virtual San 6, the Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution delivered 3.1 times the performance and 4.2 times the performance per watt of the HP solution using a legacy SAN array. The entire Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution also took up 90 percent less space and cost half as much per database order it handled.
With numbers like that, it becomes clear that investing in servers for your old external storage array isn’t going to cut it. Moving to an all-in-one Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution with VMware Virtual SAN 6 can help you meet both your performance and budgeting goals.
See how Dell works efficiently with VMware to provide innovative architectures that are scalable and flexible. Learn about servers, networking, storage, and comprehensive systems management
As our tests show, investing in the powerful new Dell PowerEdge R920 running Oracle VM Server 3.2.8 with Oracle Database 12c VMs achieves cost savings without compromising performance. In our testing, a single Dell PowerEdge R920 could perform five times the work of a single HP ProLiant DL385 G6 server; the costs to power and cool the Dell PowerEdge would be 43 percent less than the five servers it could replace. The three-year software licensing costs of the Dell PowerEdge R920 server would be 22 percent lower than the licensing costs for the five-server solution. These dramatic savings—which come out to $212,091 for our single test environment — could grow to millions of dollars in a larger consolidation effort.
Database performance and memory capacity with the Intel Xeon processor E5-266...Principled Technologies
The Dell PowerEdge M620 offers 24 memory slots, 50 percent more than the 16 slots offered by the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8, which enables the Dell solution to provide greater performance while delivering memory error protection. We found that the Dell PowerEdge M620 solution, built on the new Intel Xeon processor E5-2600v2 Series, delivered 182.2 percent more database performance and 92.0 percent faster response times than the previous version Intel Xeon E5-2640 processor-based HP ProLiant BL460c Gen 8 solution, while providing 12.5 percent more available memory and error protection. The additional memory capacity of the Dell solution allowed us to engage FRM technologies and still have more overall RAM capacity compared to the 16-slot HP server. The Dell PowerEdge M620 offered maximum memory capacity and protection with Fault Resilient Memory to keep your database workloads running strong and available for your business needs.
A single-socket Dell EMC PowerEdge R7515 solution delivered better value on a...Principled Technologies
If your company is running important business applications in VMware vSAN clusters of servers that are several years old, chances are good that you’re considering upgrading to newer hardware. Our testing demonstrated that our clusters of single-socket Dell EMC PowerEdge R7515 servers and clusters of dual-socket HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 servers could both improve upon the database performance of a legacy cluster with five-year-old servers by more than 50 percent, with the Dell EMC cluster achieving 93.4 percent of the performance of the HPE cluster.
Managing clients with Dell Client Integration Pack 3.0 and Microsoft System C...Principled Technologies
Client management is an important part of any enterprise. Employees have workstations in their offices or notebooks that travel with them around the globe, and efficient updates and remote management capabilities keep an organization’s IT assets ordered and secure. Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 can provide a robust, efficient, management system for your IT infrastructure. Selecting clients that not only operate within your IT framework, but that have built-in software to integrate with it seamlessly to make client management tasks even easier is an intelligent strategy for your IT department.
In our tests, we found that Dell client management tools (Dell Client Integration Pack, Dell Client Configuration Toolkit, and Dell OpenManage Client Instrumentation) integrated in a typical SCCM 2012 environment reduced the steps it took to complete client management tasks by as much as 77 percent, and included a number of features that weren’t available with clients from HP and Lenovo.
Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases 2.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014: ...Principled Technologies
As this guide has shown, installing and configuring a Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with SQL Server 2014 powered by the Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases is a straightforward procedure. A key benefit from implementing DAAD 2.0 into your infrastructure is the ability to accelerate workloads without a complete storage area network redesign. This can be ideal for businesses that have snapshot and deduplication features within their software stack or are looking to improve database performance without investing in large storage solutions that may contain features they do not need. Consider DAAD 2.0 for your business—a storage acceleration solution that requires only 4U of rack space and can potentially give your database workloads a boost.
Moving your legacy database workloads to the Dell PowerEdge R930 can help you realize the benefits of consolidation, which can include savings in management costs, power usage, and cable management costs. More importantly, the licensing costs of the database application itself may be reduced by the consolidation effort. In addition to these benefits, greater database transactions per minute can keep your orders flowing smoothly.
We found that the Dell PowerEdge R930, powered by the Intel Xeon processor E7 v3 series, could consolidate three legacy servers running four Oracle Database 12c VMs each. The Dell PowerEdge R930 outperformed the legacy server with 4.4 times the overall database performance, delivering an average of 47.1 percent more performance per VM. By consolidating that many legacy servers, you can save up to 67 percent in rack space, 25 percent in database licenses, and even reduce other operating costs to improve your bottom line.
As the needs of your business grow, so must the power of your server infrastructure. Rather than purchasing replacement servers with base configurations, consider upgrading key components to ensure you get the performance you need.
We found that upgrading to the Dell PowerEdge R720 with the Intel Xeon processor E5-2697 v2, Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system, Intel SSD DC S3700 series drive, and Intel Ethernet CNA X520 series adapters supported 4.5 times as many VMs as the previous-generation Dell PowerEdge R710 solution.
When you purchase a server, wisely selecting these components offered by Dell and Intel can allow your business to hit the sweet spot of supporting all your users without breaking the bank. Incremental upgrades also leave room to grow and help your infrastructure handle growth for years to come.
Finally, these select upgrades could translate to savings for your business—fewer servers you need to purchase now to meet performance demands, and a longer lifespan for these servers as your business continues to grow.
As our tests show, investing in the powerful new Dell PowerEdge R920 running Oracle Database 12c pluggable databases achieves cost savings without compromising performance. In our testing, a single Dell PowerEdge R920 was able to do nine times the work of a single HP ProLiant DL385 G6 server while the power and cooling costs dropped by 64 percent when compared to the nine servers it could replace. At 17 percent less, three-year software licensing savings were so dramatic that they paid back the new server costs in just six months, and over three years could save just under $300,000.
Dell PowerEdge M820 blades: Balancing performance, density, and high availabi...Principled Technologies
Finding a server that can deliver the right balance of high workload performance, density, and RAS features can help you meet both infrastructure and business goals at the same time.
In our tests, the single-width Dell PowerEdge M820 blade delivered 19.3 percent better Oracle Database 12c performance than the HP ProLiant BL680c G7 in half the space, meaning it could deliver 2.38 times more transactions per U. The value of the denser Dell PowerEdge M820 was clear in our cost analysis of the two systems. Because the Dell PowerEdge M820 takes up less space, you need fewer enclosures, less rack space, and can save on port costs. In our sample comparison of two performance-equivalent solutions, we found that the Dell PowerEdge M820 solution could save up to 42.1 percent compared to an HP ProLiant BL680c G7 solution. That’s money that you can use to buy even more servers for greater performance or to innovate elsewhere. We also found that the Dell PowerEdge M820 took high availability into account by utilizing key RAS features to help increase your workload uptime.
If you’re looking for a dense blade solution to lower costs with the power to handle your important workloads and keep them running, our study shows that the Dell PowerEdge M820 blade addresses all those concerns.
Hardware upgrades to improve database, SharePoint, Exchange, and file server ...Principled Technologies
Legacy tower servers that cannot meet workload demands can restrict business growth. By upgrading to the Dell PowerEdge T630, you can obtain immediate benefits for current IT performance needs and implement upgrades that will expand server capabilities to help meet future demands. We found that replacing a legacy server with the new Dell PowerEdge T630 tower server offered up to 97.9 percent lower workload latency, 131.9 percent more IOPS, and 421.9 percent more OPM when running the same workload. With component upgrades, the PowerEdge T630 supported more Exchange, SharePoint, and file server users, and more database VM instances. Help ensure that your applications have sufficient hardware resources to keep up with the needs of today and the future by choosing to upgrade to the new Dell PowerEdge T630 tower server.
Component upgrades from Intel and Dell can increase VM density and boost perf...Principled Technologies
As the needs of your business grow, so must the power of your server infrastructure. Rather than purchasing replacement servers with base configurations, consider upgrading key components to ensure you get the performance you need.
We found that upgrading to the Dell PowerEdge R730 with the Intel Xeon processor E5-2699 v3, Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system, Intel SSD DC S3700 series drive, and Intel Ethernet CNA X520 series adapters supported an extra 16 VMs, 67 percent more VMs than the previous-generation Dell PowerEdge R720 solution.
When you purchase a server, wisely selecting these components offered by Dell and Intel can allow your business to hit the sweet spot of supporting all your users without breaking the bank. The option to upgrade server components can provide your infrastructure with room to grow in the future, as your business needs increase.
Finally, these select upgrades could translate to savings for your business—fewer servers you need to purchase now to meet performance demands and a longer lifespan for these servers as your business continues to grow.
By upgrading from the legacy solution we tested to the new Intel processor-based Dell and VMware solution, you could do 18 times the work in the same amount of space. Imagine what that performance could mean to your business: Consolidate workloads from across your company, lower your power and cooling bills, and limit datacenter expansion in the future, all while maintaining a consistent user experience—the list of potential benefits is huge.
Try running DPACK, which can help you identify bottlenecks in your environment and inform you about your current performance needs. Then consider how the consolidation ratio we proved could be helpful for your company. The Intel processor-powered Dell PowerEdge R730 solution with VMware vSphere and Dell Storage SC4020, also powered by Intel, could be the right destination for your upgrade journey.
Consolidating Web servers with the Dell PowerEdge FX2 enclosure and PowerEdge...Principled Technologies
Consolidating Web servers to a new environment can save you a great deal on operating costs such as power and cooling, and the shared nature of converged infrastructure solutions can maximize these savings. In our tests, we found that the Dell PowerEdge FX2 enclosure with Intel Atom processor C2750-powered FM120 nodes provided better consolidation ratios and power efficiency than both the HP Moonshot 1500 shared infrastructure solution and the current-generation HP ProLiant DL320e Gen8 v2 rack server. The Dell PowerEdge FX2 could consolidate 12 legacy Web servers and deliver up to 6.7 times the power efficiency that legacy servers would use. It also delivered up to 110.1 percent more performance/watt compared to the current-generation Web server solutions we tested from HP.
As these results show, the Dell PowerEdge FX2 with FM120x4 microserver blocks could provide your organization with dramatic power savings through consolidation, all while providing the Web server performance you require.
Database performance in blade environments: Dell PowerEdge M1000e vs. Cisco U...Principled Technologies
Scalable and reliable compute performance, in conjunction with your 16Gb Fibre Channel capability with SAN-based storage, means you don’t have to worry about your application VMs losing performance as your business grows. In our tests, the Dell PowerEdge M1000e blade environment delivered up to 91.7 percent greater throughput while running a virtualized OLTP database workload than the similarly priced Cisco UCS 5108 blade environment. More importantly, the Dell M1000e blade environment delivered consistent scaling as we added blade servers, in contrast to the performance degradation we observed in the Cisco UCS 5108 blade environment. The Dell M1000e also left room to grow within the 10U, with eight additional half-height slots available for compute nodes in the future, whereas the Cisco UCS 5108 blade environment would require a second enclosure to house additional blades. Finally, both solutions were similarly priced, so there is no additional cost associated with the advantages of the Dell environment. For applications demanding dense compute environments, high throughput, and lower response rates, companies will find the Dell PowerEdge M1000e blade environment better able to scale to meet predictable performance requirements as their business grows.
Consolidate SAS 9.4 workloads with Intel Xeon processor E7 v3 and Intel SSD t...Principled Technologies
A key to modernizing your data center is to consolidate your legacy workloads through virtualization, which can help reduce complexity for your business. Fewer servers require fewer physical resources, such as power, cabling, and switches, and reduce the burden on IT for ongoing management tasks such as updates. In addition, integrating newer hardware technology into your data center can provide new features that strengthen your infrastructure, such as RAS features on the processor and disk performance improvements. Finally, using SAS 9.4 ensures that you have the latest features and toolsets that SAS can offer.
Compared to a legacy server, we found that a modern four-socket server powered by Intel Xeon processors E7-8890 v3 with Intel SSD DC P3700 Series provided 12 times the amount of SAS work, nearly 14 times the relative performance, and a shorter average time to complete the SAS workload. Running 12 virtual SAS instances also left capacity on the server for additional work. Consolidating your SAS workloads from legacy servers onto servers powered by Intel Xeon processors E7 v3 and SAS 9.4 can provide your business with the latest hardware and software features, reduce complexity in your data center, and potentially reduce costs for your business.
Ensure greater uptime and boost VMware vSAN cluster performance with the Del...Principled Technologies
The Dell EMC PowerEdge MX with VMware vSAN Ready Nodes delivered a 55.9% faster response time than a Cisco UCS solution and a 41.3% faster response time than an HPE Synergy solution
Server consolidation with the NEC Express5800/A2040b: Power and performance a...Principled Technologies
For your data center to keep pace with the growth of your business, your database servers must be able to run as many VMs as possible with the lowest amount of power per unit of performance, and do so in the smallest amount of rack space. If you have a collection of aging servers taking up too much space and using too much power in your data center, consider consolidating them into the NEC Express5800/A2040b server powered by the Intel Xeon processor E7-4890 v2. Based on our findings, a single NEC Express5800/A2040b can replace nine HP ProLiant DL385 G6 legacy servers with VMs running heavy database workloads. This means the NEC Express5800/A2040b server can deliver similar VM database performance while using 77.8 percent less rack space, freeing up your data center space for future growth and potentially saving you from costly infrastructure expansions. What’s more, the NEC Express5800/A2040b server delivered 57.0 percent power savings while running the same workload as the legacy server, which resulted in 123.7 percent better performance per watt. The added power efficiency can save your business in recurring power and cooling costs of your data center. These advantages, combined with steady performance, make the NEC Express5800/A2040b server a wise choice for your data center.
Consolidate and upgrade to save up to $172K: Dell PowerEdge R620 and Microso...Principled Technologies
Your growing business needs upgraded infrastructure to keep up with increased users and demand on your hardware. Adding memory and upgrading processors does not provide the same benefits to your infrastructure as a consolidation and upgrade can. Upgrading and consolidating your IT infrastructure to the Dell PowerEdge R620 running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014 can improve performance while saving money and rack space.
Based on our findings, a single Dell PowerEdge R620 can replace four four-year-old dual-socket servers with VMs running heavy SQL Server database workloads. We found that consolidating four older servers onto a Dell PowerEdge R620 and upgrading to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save up to $172,573 over three years, compared to keeping the four-year-old dual-socket servers. The Dell PowerEdge R620 can also consolidate 8U worth of legacy servers into 1U of space. If your business runs older versions of Microsoft SQL Server on end-of-life dual-socket servers, the Dell PowerEdge R620 with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save your company these costs while delivering better performance than the aging hardware and software.
OLTP with Dell hybrid arrays: Comparing the EqualLogic PS6210XS with the Equa...Principled Technologies
The effectiveness of your OLTP database environment can depend to an enormous degree on the storage system you select. We compared a database server solution using the Dell EqualLogic PS6210XS with a database server solution using the previous-generation Dell EqualLogic PS6110XS.
The EqualLogic PS6210XS solution was superior in all areas we tested. It delivered greater performance with faster response time, and used less power. The Dell EqualLogic PS6210XS is a clear improvement over the previous-generation Dell EqualLogic PS6110XS.
SQL Server 2016 database performance on the Dell PowerEdge R830 QLogic 16G Fi...Principled Technologies
Nothing lasts forever. When software manufacturers discontinue support for aging programs, as Microsoft has done for SQL Server 2005, businesses using these applications must take the step of migrating to new, updated versions. Coupling this upgrade with an upgrade to the hardware on which the applications run can take performance improvements to an even higher level.
In our testing, the modern four-socket Dell PowerEdge R830 powered by Intel Xeon processors E5-4650 v4 working with the powerful Dell Storage SC9000 array and running SQL Server 2016 delivered over five times the database performance of a legacy PowerEdge R820 solution running SQL Server 2005. The modern PowerEdge solution also delivered a faster response time.
Running modern, fully featured database software on four-year-old servers is possible, but far from optimal. Consolidating your SQL Server workloads from legacy servers onto Dell PowerEdge R830 servers powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 v4 product family is a way to streamline and modernize your datacenter.
Upgrade to Dell EMC PowerEdge R6515 servers and gain better OLTP and VDI perf...Principled Technologies
Additionally, PowerEdge R6515 servers with 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors could lower licensing costs and also empower your business to explore Kubernetes with VMware Tanzu
Get stronger SQL Server performance for less with Dell EMC PowerEdge R6515 cl...Principled Technologies
When it comes to hardware, getting greater performance often requires spending more. In our virtualized SQL Server 2019 testing of two current-generation servers in Hyper-V clusters, however, the less expensive option delivered stronger performance on our OLTP workload.
Investing in GenAI: Cost‑benefit analysis of Dell on‑premises deployments vs....Principled Technologies
Conclusion
Diving into the world of GenAI has the potential to yield a great many benefits for your organization, but it first requires consideration for how best to implement those GenAI workloads. Whether your AI goals are to create a chatbot for online visitors, generate marketing materials, aid troubleshooting, or something else, implementing an AI solution requires careful planning and decision-making. A major decision is whether to host GenAI in the cloud or keep your data on premises. Traditional on-premises solutions can provide superior security and control, a substantial concern when dealing with large amounts of potentially sensitive data. But will supporting a GenAI solution on site be a drain on an organization’s IT budget?
In our research, we found that the value proposition is just the opposite: Hosting GenAI workloads on premises, either in a traditional Dell solution or using a managed Dell APEX pay-per-use solution, could significantly lower your GenAI costs over 3 years compared to hosting these workloads in the cloud. In fact, we found that a comparable AWS SageMaker solution would cost up to 3.8 times as much and an Azure ML solution would cost up to 3.6 times as much as GenAI on a Dell APEX pay-per-use solution. These results show that organizations looking to implement GenAI and reap the business benefits to come can find many advantages in an on-premises Dell solution, whether they opt to purchase and manage it themselves or choose a subscription-based Dell APEX pay-per-use solution. Choosing an on-premises Dell solution could save your organization significantly over hosting GenAI in the cloud, while giving you control over the security and privacy of your data as well as any updates and changes to the environment, and while ensuring your environment is managed consistently.
Workstations powered by Intel can play a vital role in CPU-intensive AI devel...Principled Technologies
In three AI development workflows, Intel processor-powered workstations delivered strong performance, without using their GPUs, making them a good choice for this part of the AI process
Conclusion
We executed three AI development workflows on tower workstations and mobile workstations from three vendors, with each workflow utilizing only the Intel CPU cores, and found that these platforms were suitable for carrying out various AI tasks. For two of the workflows, we learned that completing the tasks on the tower workstations took roughly half as much time as on the mobile workstations. This supports the idea that the tower workstations would be appropriate for a development environment for more complex models with a greater volume of data and that the mobile workstations would be well-suited for data scientists fine-tuning simpler models. In the third workflow, we explored tower workstation performance with different precision levels and learned that using 16-bit floating point precision allowed the workstations to execute the workflow in less time and also reduced memory usage dramatically. For all three AI workflows we executed, we consider the time the workstations needed to complete the tasks to be acceptable, and believe that these workstations can be appropriate, cost-effective choices for these kinds of activities.
Enable security features with no impact to OLTP performance with Dell PowerEd...Principled Technologies
Get comparable online transaction processing (OLTP) performance with or without enabling AMD Secure Memory Encryption and AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization - Encrypted State
Conclusion
You’ve likely already implemented many security measures for your servers, which may include physical security for the data center, hardware-level security, and software-level security. With the cost of data breaches high and still growing, however, wise IT teams will consider what additional security measures they may be able to implement.
AMD SME and SEV-ES are technologies that are already available within your AMD processor-powered 16th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers—and in our testing, we saw that they can offer extra layers of security without affecting performance. We compared the online transaction processing performance of a Dell PowerEdge R7625 server, powered by AMD EPYC 9274F processors, with and without these two security features enabled. We found that enabling AMD Secure Memory Encryption and Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Encrypted State did not impact performance at all.
If your team is assessing areas where you might be able to enhance security—without paying a large performance cost—consider enabling AME SME and AMD SEV-ES in your Dell PowerEdge servers.
Improving energy efficiency in the data center: Endure higher temperatures wi...Principled Technologies
In high-temperature test scenarios, a Dell PowerEdge HS5620 server continued running an intensive workload without component warnings or failures, while a Supermicro SYS‑621C-TN12R server failed
Conclusion: Remain resilient in high temperatures with the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 to help increase efficiency
Increasing your data center’s temperature can help your organization make strides in energy efficiency and cooling cost savings. With servers that can hold up to these higher everyday temperatures—as well as high temperatures due to unforeseen circumstances—your business can continue to deliver the performance your apps and clients require.
When we ran an intensive floating-point workload on a Dell PowerEdge HS5620 and a Supermicro SYS-621CTN12R in three scenario types simulating typical operations at 25°C, a fan failure, and an HVAC malfunction, the Dell server experienced no component warnings or failures. In contrast, the Supermicro server experienced warnings in all three scenario types and experienced component failures in the latter two tests, rendering the system unusable. When we inspected and analyzed each system, we found that the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 server’s motherboard layout, fans, and chassis offered cooling design advantages.
For businesses aiming to meet sustainability goals by running hotter data centers, as well as those concerned with server cooling design, the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 is a strong contender to take on higher temperatures during day-to-day operations and unexpected malfunctions.
Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift: An easily deployable and powe...Principled Technologies
The 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor‑powered solution deployed in less than two hours and ran a Kubernetes container-based generative AI workload effectively
Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift: An easily deployable and powe...Principled Technologies
The 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor‑powered solution deployed in less than two hours and ran a generative AI workload effectively
Conclusion
The appeal of incorporating GenAI into your organization’s operations is likely great. Getting started with an efficient solution for your next LLM workload or application can seem daunting because of the changing hardware and software landscape, but Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors could provide the solution you need. We started with a Dell Validated Design as a reference, and then went on to modify the deployment as necessary for our Llama 2 workload. The Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift solution worked well for our LLM, and by using this deployment guide in conjunction with numerous Dell documents and some flexibility, you could be well on your way to innovating your next GenAI breakthrough.
Upgrade your cloud infrastructure with Dell PowerEdge R760 servers and VMware...Principled Technologies
Compared to a cluster of PowerEdge R750 servers running VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)
For organizations running clusters of moderately configured, older Dell PowerEdge servers with a previous version of VCF, upgrading to better-configured modern servers can provide a significant performance boost and more.
Upgrade your cloud infrastructure with Dell PowerEdge R760 servers and VMware...Principled Technologies
Compared to a cluster of PowerEdge R750 servers running VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5
If your company is struggling with underperforming infrastructure, upgrading to 16th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers running VCF 5.1 could be just what you need to handle more database throughput and reduce vSAN latencies. As an additional benefit to IT admins, we also found that the embedded VMware Aria Operation adapter provided useful infrastructure insights.
Realize 2.1X the performance with 20% less power with AMD EPYC processor-back...Principled Technologies
Three AMD EPYC processor-based two-processor solutions outshined comparable Intel Xeon Scalable processor-based solutions by handling more Redis workload transactions and requests while consuming less power
Conclusion
Performance and energy efficiency are significant factors in processor selection for servers running data-intensive workloads, such as Redis. We compared the Redis performance and energy consumption of a server cluster in three AMD EPYC two-processor configurations against that of a server cluster in two Intel Xeon Scalable two-processor configurations. In each of our three test scenarios, the server cluster backed by AMD EPYC processors outperformed the server cluster backed by Intel Xeon Scalable processors. In addition, one of the AMD EPYC processor-based clusters consumed 20 percent less power than its Intel Xeon Scalable processor-based counterpart. Combining these measurements gave us power efficiency metrics that demonstrate how valuable AMD EPYC processor-based servers could be—you could see better performance per watt with these AMD EPYC processor-based server clusters and potentially get more from your Redis or other data intensive applications and workloads while reducing data center power costs.
Improve performance and gain room to grow by easily migrating to a modern Ope...Principled Technologies
We deployed this modern environment, then migrated database VMs from legacy servers and saw performance improvements that support consolidation
Conclusion
If your organization’s transactional databases are running on gear that is several years old, you have much to gain by upgrading to modern servers with new processors and networking components and an OpenShift environment. In our testing, a modern OpenShift environment with a cluster of three Dell PowerEdge R7615 servers with 4th Generation AMD EPYC processors and high-speed 100Gb Broadcom NICs outperformed a legacy environment with MySQL VMs running on a cluster of three Dell PowerEdge R7515 servers with 3rd Generation AMD EPYC processors and 25Gb Broadcom NICs. We also easily migrated a VM from the legacy environment to the modern environment, with only a few steps required to set up and less than ten minutes of hands-on time. The performance advantage of the modern servers would allow a company to reduce the number of servers necessary to perform a given amount of database work, thus lowering operational expenditures such as power and cooling and IT staff time for maintenance. The high-speed 100Gb Broadcom NICs in this solution also give companies better network performance and networking capacity to grow as they embrace emerging technologies such as AI that put great demands on networks.
Boost PC performance: How more available memory can improve productivityPrincipled Technologies
With more memory available, system performance of three Dell devices increased, which can translate to a better user experience
Conclusion
When your system has plenty of RAM to meet your needs, you can efficiently access the applications and data you need to finish projects and to-do lists without sacrificing time and focus. Our test results show that with more memory available, three Dell PCs delivered better performance and took less time to complete the Procyon Office Productivity benchmark. These advantages translate to users being able to complete workflows more quickly and multitask more easily. Whether you need the mobility of the Latitude 5440, the creative capabilities of the Precision 3470, or the high performance of the OptiPlex Tower Plus 7010, configuring your system with more RAM can help keep processes running smoothly, enabling you to do more without compromising performance.
Deploy with confidence: VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 on next gen Dell PowerEdg...Principled Technologies
A Principled Technologies deployment guide
Conclusion
Deploying VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 on next gen Dell PowerEdge servers brings together critical virtualization capabilities and high-performing hardware infrastructure. Relying on our hands-on experience, this deployment guide offers a comprehensive roadmap that can guide your organization through the seamless integration of advanced VMware cloud solutions with the performance and reliability of Dell PowerEdge servers. In addition to the deployment efficiency, the Cloud Foundation 5.1 and PowerEdge solution delivered strong performance while running a MySQL database workload. By leveraging VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 and PowerEdge servers, you could help your organization embrace cloud computing with confidence, potentially unlocking a new level of agility, scalability, and efficiency in your data center operations.
Upgrade your cloud infrastructure with Dell PowerEdge R760 servers and VMware...Principled Technologies
Compared to a cluster of PowerEdge R750 servers running VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5
Conclusion
If your company is struggling with underperforming infrastructure, upgrading to 16th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers running VCF 5.1 could be just what you need to handle more database throughput and reduce vSAN latencies. We found that a Dell PowerEdge R760 server cluster running VCF 5.1 processed over 78 percent more TPM and 79 percent more NOPM than a Dell PowerEdge R750 server cluster running VCF 4.5. It’s also worth noting that the PowerEdge R750 cluster bottlenecked on vSAN storage, with max write latency at 8.9ms. For reference, the PowerEdge R760 cluster clocked in at 3.8ms max write latency. This higher latency is due in part to the single disk group per host on the moderately configured PowerEdge R750 cluster, while the better-configured PowerEdge R760 cluster supported four disk groups per host. As an additional benefit to IT admins, we also found that the embedded VMware Aria Operation adapter provided useful infrastructure insights.
Based on our research using publicly available materials, it appears that Dell supports nine of the ten PC security features we investigated, HP supports six of them, and Lenovo supports three features.
Increase security, sustainability, and efficiency with robust Dell server man...Principled Technologies
Compared to the Supermicro management portfolio
Conclusion
Choosing a vendor for server purchases is about more than just the hardware platform. Decision-makers must also consider more long-term concerns, including system/data security, energy efficiency, and ease of management. These concerns make the systems management tools a vendor offers as important as the hardware.
We investigated the features and capabilities of server management tools from Dell and Supermicro, comparing Dell iDRAC9 against Supermicro IPMI for embedded server management and Dell OpenManage Enterprise and CloudIQ against Supermicro Server Manager for one-to-many device and console management and monitoring. We found that the Dell management tools provided more comprehensive security, sustainability, and management/monitoring features and capabilities than Supermicro servers did. In addition, Dell tools automated more tasks to ease server management, resulting in significant time savings for administrators versus having to do the same tasks manually with Supermicro tools.
When making a server purchase, a vendor’s associated management products are critical to protect data, support a more sustainable environment, and to ease the maintenance of systems. Our tests and research showed that the Dell management portfolio for PowerEdge servers offered more features to help organizations meet these goals than the comparable Supermicro management products.
Increase security, sustainability, and efficiency with robust Dell server man...Principled Technologies
Compared to the Supermicro management portfolio
Conclusion
Choosing a vendor for server purchases is about more than just the hardware platform. Decision-makers must also consider more long-term concerns, including system/data security, energy efficiency, and ease of management. These concerns make the systems management tools a vendor offers as important as the hardware.
We investigated the features and capabilities of server management tools from Dell and Supermicro, comparing Dell iDRAC9 against Supermicro IPMI for embedded server management and Dell OpenManage Enterprise and CloudIQ against Supermicro Server Manager for one-to-many device and console management and monitoring. We found that the Dell management tools provided more comprehensive security, sustainability, and management/monitoring features and capabilities than Supermicro servers did. In addition, Dell tools automated more tasks to ease server management, resulting in significant time savings for administrators versus having to do the same tasks manually with Supermicro tools.
When making a server purchase, a vendor’s associated management products are critical to protect data, support a more sustainable environment, and to ease the maintenance of systems. Our tests and research showed that the Dell management portfolio for PowerEdge servers offered more features to help organizations meet these goals than the comparable Supermicro management products.
Scale up your storage with higher-performing Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS ...Principled Technologies
In our tests, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS outperformed similarly configured solutions from Vendor A, achieving more IOPS, better throughput, and more consistent performance on both NVMe-supported configurations and configurations backed by Elastic Block Store (EBS) alone.
Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS supports a full NVMe backed configuration, but Vendor A doesn’t—its solution uses EBS for storage capacity and NVMe as an extended read cache—which means APEX Block Storage for AWS can deliver faster storage performance.
Scale up your storage with higher-performing Dell APEX Block Storage for AWSPrincipled Technologies
Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS offered stronger and more consistent storage performance for better business agility than a Vendor A solution
Conclusion
Enterprises desiring the flexibility and convenience of the cloud for their block storage workloads can find fast-performing solutions with the enterprise storage features they’re used to in on-premises infrastructure by selecting Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS.
Our hands-on tests showed that compared to the Vendor A solution, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS offered stronger, more consistent storage performance in both NVMe-supported and EBS-backed configurations. Using NVMe-supported configurations, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS achieved 4.7x the random read IOPS and 5.1x the throughput on sequential read operations per node vs. Vendor A. In our EBS-backed comparison, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS offered 2.2x the throughput per node on sequential read operations vs. Vendor A.
Plus, the ability to scale beyond three nodes—up to 512 storage nodes with capacity of up to 8 PBs—enables Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS to help ensure performance and capacity as your team plans for the future.
Get in and stay in the productivity zone with the HP Z2 G9 Tower WorkstationPrincipled Technologies
We compared CPU performance and noise output of an HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation in High Performance Mode to Dell Precision 3660 and 5860 tower workstations in optimized performance modes
Conclusion
HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation users can change the BIOS settings to dial in the performance mode that best suits their needs: High Performance Mode, Performance Mode, or Quiet Mode. In good
news for both creative and technical professionals, we found that an Intel Core i9-13900 processor-powered HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation set to High Performance mode received higher CPU-based benchmark scores than both a similarly configured Dell Precision 3660 and a Dell Precision 5860 equipped with an Intel Xeon w5-2455x processor. Plus, the HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation was quieter while running CPU-intensive Cinebench 2024 and SPECapc for Solidworks 2022 workloads than both Dell Precision tower workstations. This means HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation users who prize performance over everything else can do so without sacrificing a quiet workspace.
Open up new possibilities with higher transactional database performance from...Principled Technologies
In our PostgreSQL tests, R7i instances boosted performance over R6i instances with previous-gen processors
If you use the open-source PostgreSQL database to run your critical business operations, you have many cloud options from which to choose. While many of these instances can do the job, some can deliver stronger performance, which can mean getting a greater return on your cloud investment.
We conducted hands-on testing with the HammerDB TPROC-C benchmark to see how the PostgreSQL performance of Amazon EC2 R7i instances, enabled by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, stacked up to that of R6i instances with previous-generation processors. We learned that small, medium-sized, and large R7i instances with the newer processors delivered better OLTP performance, with improvements as high as 13.8 percent. By choosing the R7i instances, your organization has the potential to support more users, deliver a better experience to those users, and even lower your cloud operating expenditures by requiring fewer instances to get the job done.
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 3DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 3. In this session, we will cover desktop automation along with UI automation.
Topics covered:
UI automation Introduction,
UI automation Sample
Desktop automation flow
Pradeep Chinnala, Senior Consultant Automation Developer @WonderBotz and UiPath MVP
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
Elevating Tactical DDD Patterns Through Object CalisthenicsDorra BARTAGUIZ
After immersing yourself in the blue book and its red counterpart, attending DDD-focused conferences, and applying tactical patterns, you're left with a crucial question: How do I ensure my design is effective? Tactical patterns within Domain-Driven Design (DDD) serve as guiding principles for creating clear and manageable domain models. However, achieving success with these patterns requires additional guidance. Interestingly, we've observed that a set of constraints initially designed for training purposes remarkably aligns with effective pattern implementation, offering a more ‘mechanical’ approach. Let's explore together how Object Calisthenics can elevate the design of your tactical DDD patterns, offering concrete help for those venturing into DDD for the first time!
Generating a custom Ruby SDK for your web service or Rails API using Smithyg2nightmarescribd
Have you ever wanted a Ruby client API to communicate with your web service? Smithy is a protocol-agnostic language for defining services and SDKs. Smithy Ruby is an implementation of Smithy that generates a Ruby SDK using a Smithy model. In this talk, we will explore Smithy and Smithy Ruby to learn how to generate custom feature-rich SDKs that can communicate with any web service, such as a Rails JSON API.
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
Designing Great Products: The Power of Design and Leadership by Chief Designe...
Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
1. JULY 2015
A PRINCIPLED TECHNOLOGIES TEST REPORT
Commissioned by Dell Inc.
COMPARING PERFORMANCE AND COST: DELL POWEREDGE VRTX WITH
ONE DELL POWEREDGE M830 SERVER VS. A LEGACY SOLUTION
0 SERVER NODES VS. A
LEGACY SOLUTION
Businesses using multiple outdated servers for email, database, and file and
print workloads stand to benefit greatly by consolidating these workloads onto a single
new server and running them in virtual machines. In tests in the Principled Technologies
datacenter, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with a Dell PowerEdge M830 blade server,
powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3, was able to simultaneously run email,
database, and simulated file and print workloads in a VMware® vSphere® ™ virtual
environment. The VRTX performed the work of nine older servers—four database
servers, four file and print servers, and one Exchange server. It achieved similar or even
better performance while requiring less space and power than a legacy disparate
hardware solution,1
which translates to a lower five-year TCO. Combining servers,
networking, and shared storage into an all-in-one solution, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX
can deliver big performance and savings.
1 In June 2013, Principled Technologies conducted testing comparing the performance of (1) the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with a Dell PowerEdge M620
server and (2) a legacy hardware solution. The results for the legacy solution that we cite in this report are from that earlier study. For more details,
see the report for that study, available at www.principledtechnologies.com/Dell/VRTX_performance_TCO_0713.pdf.
2. A Principled Technologies test report 2Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
REPLACE NINE OLDER SERVERS WITH ONE DELL POWEREDGE VRTX
We compared the performance, power consumption, space, and cost of running
typical office applications (email, database, and file/print server) on the following
solutions:
A Dell PowerEdge VRTX with a Dell PowerEdge M830 server powered by
the Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3, running VMware vSphere 5.5 with 10
Microsoft® Windows Server® 2012 R2 virtual machines (VMs) – four running
SQL Server® 2014, four acting as file/print servers, and two running a single
Exchange Server 2013 environment.
A legacy disparate hardware solution consisting of older HP tower servers,
a NETGEAR® switch, and an HP storage appliance. The legacy tower servers
all ran bare metal instances of Windows Server 2012. One ran SQL Server
2012, another ran a dedicated file/print server, and the last ran Exchange
Server 2010. By virtualizing four of the SQL workloads and four of the
file/print simulated workloads, we extrapolated the consolidation to nine
legacy servers.
We ran three benchmarks simultaneously to exercise the email, database, and
file and print applications all at once. The performance of the legacy hardware solution
we discuss in this report is from a June 2013 Principled Technologies study (available at
www.principledtechnologies.com/Dell/VRTX_performance_TCO_0713.pdf).2
For this
study, we ran multiples of the SQL Server and simulated file/print servers to
demonstrate a consolidation scenario and show an even bigger savings.
We also measured the power consumption of the Dell PowerEdge VRTX and the
legacy solution while idle and during the simultaneous workloads. For detailed
configuration information about the solutions we tested, see Appendix A. For testing
details, including the increased workload parameters we used, see Appendix B. For
detailed test results, see Appendix C.
2 For our 2013 study, we tested only three servers: one running SQL Server 2012, one running as a dedicated file/print server, and one running
Exchange Server 2010.
3. A Principled Technologies test report 3Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Dell PowerEdge VRTX with the Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3 optimized application
performance while reducing power consumption and providing headroom for future growth
Database performance
As Figure 1 shows, during our test running three workloads at the same time,
each of the four database VMs we ran on the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with the Intel Xeon
processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server outperformed a single
database server in our legacy disparate hardware solution. This means the VRTX
solution would be able to replace the four legacy database servers and deliver even
more database orders per minute per VM. For this test, we upgraded from SQL Server
2012, which we ran on the legacy database servers, to SQL Server 2014 to reflect the
newer technology now available.
Figure 1: While running
simultaneous email, database,
and simulated file and print
workloads, each database VM
on the Dell PowerEdge VRTX
with an Intel processor-
powered Dell PowerEdge
M830 server delivered 8.0
percent greater database
performance than a single
server in the legacy disparate
hardware solution.
Figure 2 compares the performance of all four database VMs on the Dell
PowerEdge VRTX with an Intel processor-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server to the
performance of the one legacy database server. As it shows, one Dell PowerEdge VRTX
with an Intel processor-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server delivered 4.3 times as
many orders per minute as a single legacy server.
4. A Principled Technologies test report 4Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Figure 2: While running
simultaneous email, database,
and simulated file and print
workloads, the four database
VMs on the Dell PowerEdge
VRTX with an Intel processor-
powered Dell PowerEdge
M830 server delivered total of
8,872 OPM, 4.3 times the
database performance of a
single server in the legacy
disparate hardware solution.
Simulated file and print performance
As Figure 3 shows, during our test running three workloads at the same time,
each of the four simulated file and print VMs we ran on the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
the Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server
outperformed a single file and print server in our legacy disparate hardware solution.
This means the VRTX solution would be able to replace the four legacy file and print
servers and deliver even greater performance. Instead of pushing the systems to the
maximum, we ran the utility at a low level of targeted IOPs to simulate a typical
business.
Figure 3: While running
simultaneous email,
database, and simulated file
and print workloads, each
file and print VM on the Dell
PowerEdge VRTX with an
Intel processor-powered Dell
PowerEdge M830 server
delivered 17.9 percent
greater file and print
performance than a single
server in the legacy disparate
hardware solution.
5. A Principled Technologies test report 5Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Exchange
For the email server we ran on the Dell PowerEdge VRTX, we upgraded from
Exchange 2010 to Exchange 2013 and from Microsoft Load Generator 2010 to LoadGen
2013. While we cannot directly compare the results from these two test scenarios due
to the differences between the two versions of Exchange, we compared the latency, or
response time, in milliseconds to learn about their relative performance. We found that
though latencies increased slightly—from 1.5 milliseconds on the legacy solution to 2.9
milliseconds on the new solution—they remained well within the average latency
threshold of 50 milliseconds that Microsoft sets. Increased load on the storage from the
additional workloads running simultaneously could account for the increase in latency.
However, such a small increase would not likely be noticeable to end users.
Power consumption
The compact Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830
with Dell PowerEdge VRTX not only supported more work than the legacy tower
solution with nine servers, it also used significantly less power while under heavier load
thanks to Dell’s performance-per-watt system power management policy. As Figure 4
shows, the Dell PowerEdge M830 server with Dell PowerEdge VRTX used 67.3 percent
less power while running our three simultaneous workloads than the legacy disparate
hardware solution did. This reduced consumption can translate directly to savings.
Figure 4: The Dell PowerEdge
VRTX with an Intel processor-
powered Dell PowerEdge
M830 server used less power
while running simultaneous
(and more robust) workloads
than the legacy disparate
hardware solution did.
In our tests, we used a Dell PowerEdge VRTX with only one server compared to
the simulated nine physical servers in the legacy hardware solution. Adding server
nodes and more or faster drives to the shared storage may achieve greater performance
gains, though the current configuration still had plenty of room for growth. Additionally,
adding new application VMs to your VMware vSphere environment may give the Intel
6. A Principled Technologies test report 6Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution scalability and room
to grow as the demands of your business continue to increase. With a legacy disparate
hardware solution, achieving similar results may require purchasing additional servers
that take up more space and consume more power.
Reduced space and physical complexity
In addition to the extra space that legacy disparate hardware solutions
encompass, they often have a great deal of complexity when it comes to hardware
pieces and cabling. If your business’ location has premium square footage value,
accommodating your legacy solution can mean sacrificing precious space. The Dell
PowerEdge VRTX is a compact all-in-one solution that fits easily under a desk and uses
minimal cabling because the solution resides in one chassis.
Though the solution is unlikely to be in a server rack in a small or remote office,
we looked at the rack-equivalent space each solution would occupy to make a universal
size comparison. We found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution would fit into just 5U
of rack-equivalent space—an 88.6 percent reduction in the space that the legacy
solution would take up (a massive 44U).
For each U of rack-equivalent space, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with one Intel
Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server delivered a whopping
9.5 times the database performance, in orders per minute, than the four database
servers in the legacy disparate hardware solution (see Figure 5).
Figure 5: The compact form
factor of the Dell PowerEdge
VRTX means that, with one
Intel processor-powered Dell
PowerEdge M830 server, it
packs more performance into
less space than the legacy
disparate hardware solution.
As Figure 6 shows, regardless of the server configuration, the Dell PowerEdge
VRTX solution powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5 v3 family also used only 6 cables,
31 fewer than the legacy disparate hardware solution.
7. A Principled Technologies test report 7Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Dell PowerEdge VRTX
Ethernet cables Power cables
Total by type 2 4
Total cables 6
Legacy disparate hardware solution
Ethernet cables Power cables
HP ProLiant ML310 G5 8 4
HP ProLiant ML370 G5 2 1
HP ProLiant ML110 G6 8 4
NETGEAR ProSAFE® Smart Switch 1 1
Storage 6 2
Total by type 25 12
Total cables 37
Figure 6: The Dell PowerEdge VRTX reduced cabling complexity compared to the legacy disparate hardware
solution.
Dell PowerEdge VRTX with one Dell PowerEdge M830 server offered more performance per
TCO dollar, lower five-year TCO, and a rapid ROI
Choosing to keep a legacy disparate hardware solution might seem convenient
and cost-effective. However, we found that purchasing and running the Dell PowerEdge
VRTX with the Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server
could deliver as much as a 48.5 percent lower five-year total cost of ownership (TCO)
than continuing to use the legacy solution (see Figure 7).
Figure 7: The Dell PowerEdge VRTX with one Dell PowerEdge M830 server could deliver a 48.5 percent
lower TCO over five years than continuing to use the legacy disparate hardware solution.
8. A Principled Technologies test report 8Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Savings in licensing, management, and support offset the larger acquisition
costs of the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with an Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell
PowerEdge M830 server. After five years, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution is $97,895
less expensive, saving 48.5 percent (see Figure 8).
Dell PowerEdge VRTX with one Dell
PowerEdge M830 server
Legacy disparate hardware solution
Acquisition cost $67,471 $14,216
Year 1 costs $7,332 $37,562
Year 2 costs $7,332 $37,562
Year 3 costs $7,332 $37,562
Year 4 costs $7,332 $37,562
Year 5 costs $7,332 $37,562
Total $104,131 $202,026
Figure 8: The Dell PowerEdge VRTX with a Dell PowerEdge M830 server costs up to $97,895 less than the legacy solution after
five years. (Totals may not sum due to rounding.)
With the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with an Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-
powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server, we found that a business could achieve payback,
or a return on investment (ROI), in as little as 22 months (see Figures 9 and 10).
Figure 9: The Dell PowerEdge
VRTX with an Intel processor-
powered Dell PowerEdge M830
server can deliver payback in as
little as 22 months.
Payback category
Dell PowerEdge VRTX with Dell
PowerEdge M830 server
Legacy disparate hardware
solution
Difference
One-time initial investment $67,471 $14,216 $53,255
Monthly cost $611 $3,130 $2,519
Payback period $53,255 ÷ $2,519 = 22 months
Figure 10: The Dell PowerEdge VRTX with one Dell PowerEdge M830 server can pay back your investment in 22 months, so by
the 22nd month, the return of investment is complete.
9. A Principled Technologies test report 9Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Using the calculations from our TCO analysis, we found that the Dell PowerEdge
VRTX with an Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server
delivered 2.3 times as many database orders per minute per TCO dollar spent (see
Figure 11).
Figure 11: The Dell PowerEdge
VRTX with one Intel
processor-powered Dell
PowerEdge M830 server
delivered 8.4 times as many
OPM per TCO dollar. Higher
numbers are better.
For complete details and assumptions of our TCO analysis, see Appendix D.
ALL-IN-ONE SHARED INFRASTRUCTURE
The Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution with an M-series server is an all-in-one
solution designed to handle the performance needs of a small-to-medium business or
remote office. Here, we provide information about each of the components we used as
part of this solution.
About the Dell PowerEdge VRTX
The Dell PowerEdge VRTX is a compact, all-in-one solution in a 5U rack-able
tower chassis. Designed to be quiet under normal operating conditions, the Dell
PowerEdge VRTX can be stowed under a desk in a small office without disrupting
conversations. Its four bays house a variety of different compute nodes, providing a
space-saving alternative to four separate tower or rack servers. In addition to space
savings, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX provides administrators with a unified interface, the
Chassis Management Controller, for performing routine systems management tasks.
The Dell PowerEdge VRTX chassis supports up to 48 TB of shared internal storage that
is presentable as virtual drives to single or multiple compute nodes, and provides
optional pass-through and eight PCIe® slots for additional device connectivity. The
chassis-integrated storage can be configured with 25 bays for 2.5-inch drives, which we
tested in this report, or with 12 bays for 3.5-inch drives. The Dell PowerEdge VRTX
integrated switch contains multiple external network ports for easy expansion or
integration into any computing environment.
Dell
PowerEdge
VRTX with 12
3.5-inch drives
Dell
PowerEdge
VRTX with 25
2.5-inch drives
10. A Principled Technologies test report 10Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
For more information about the Dell PowerEdge VRTX, visit
www.dell.com/poweredge.
About the Dell PowerEdge M830 server
According to Dell, the PowerEdge M830 blade server “offers exceptional
flexibility, reliability and efficiency to run business-critical applications in data centers
yet to come.”
The M830 supports up to 72 Intel processor cores and 48 DIMMS of DDR4
memory, which offers tremendous computational horsepower for heavy-use workloads.
With the M830, you can power through compute-intensive workloads with 50 percent
more processing cores per socket than previous generation Intel processors.
For more information about the Dell PowerEdge M830 blade server, visit
www.dell.com/us/partner/p/poweredge-m830/pd.
About the Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 v3 product family
According to Intel, the Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 v3 product family provides
“high-density, energy-efficient compute resources to support larger workloads and high
virtual machine densities in your data center or cloud.” It also delivers benefits in
performance, power efficiency, virtualization, and security.
The E5-4600 v3 product family delivers up to 49 percent increased average
performance than processors from the previous generation. Other features include the
following:
Intel Advanced Vector Extensions 2 (AVX2)
Intel QuickAssist Technology for offloading cryptographic/data
compression
Up to 18 cores and 36 threads per socket
Up to 45 MB of last-level cache
Next-generation DDR4 memory support
Intel AES-NI data encryption/decryption
The Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 v3 product family also uses Intel Intelligent
Power technology and Per-core P states to maximize energy efficiency.
Learn more at
www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/product-briefs/xeon-e5-
4600-v3-brief.pdf.
11. A Principled Technologies test report 11Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
WHAT WE TESTED
Database testing
To create our real-world ecommerce workload, we used the DVD Store Version
2.1 benchmarking tool. DS2 models an online DVD store, where customers log in, search
for movies, and make purchases. DS2 reports these actions in orders per minute that
the system could handle, to show what kind of performance customers could expect.
The DS2 workload also performs other actions, such as adding new customers, to
exercise the wide range of database functions you would need to run your ecommerce
environment. For more details about the DS2 tool, see
www.delltechcenter.com/page/DVD+Store.
File and print testing
To test the file and print capabilities of the solutions, we simulated workloads
using the Iometer benchmark. Iometer measures IOPS on single and clustered systems.
Iometer performs I/O operations to stress a system, and then records the performance
of these I/O operations and the system stress they create. We used Iometer version 1.1
on each solution to simulate the same file and print workloads on the solutions. For
more details about Iometer, see www.iometer.org.
Mail testing
To test the solutions’ mail server performance, we used the Microsoft Load
Generator 2013 (LoadGen) benchmark, performing tasks to simulate a heavy user
generating mail activity. For our workloads, we used the following settings:
Number of users: 500
Mailbox Profile: 250MB
Action Profile: Outlook_200
For more details about LoadGen, see
www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DDEC1642-F6E3-4D66-A82F-
8D3062C6FA98&displaylang=en.
12. A Principled Technologies test report 12Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
IN CONCLUSION
Keeping a legacy disparate hardware solution composed of nine older servers
instead of choosing the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX powered by the Intel Xeon processor
E5-4650 v3 family may cost more than one would expect. We found that the Dell
PowerEdge VRTX with an Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge
M830 server could do the work of nine legacy servers running email, database, and
file/print server workloads. The VRTX ran all nine workloads in VMs, achieving a slight
performance boost on the database and file/print workloads while using much less
datacenter space and reducing power consumption by 38.4 percent.
The VRTX achieved these savings using 88.6 percent less rack-equivalent space
than the legacy disparate hardware solution and with one-third as many cables, to
reduce complexity and reduce the burden of space in small offices.
Despite a larger initial investment, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with an Intel Xeon
processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server could actually lower the
total cost of ownership over five years by as much as 48.5 percent, delivering a solid
return on investment in less than two years.
As our test results show, investing in the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution
powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 v3 family could provide a compact
solution to optimize application performance and reduce complexity at a lower lifetime
cost than a legacy solution composed of nine older servers.
13. A Principled Technologies test report 13Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
APPENDIX A – SYSTEM CONFIGURATION INFORMATION
Figures 12 and 13 provide detailed configuration information for the test systems.
System Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution
Enclosure
Compute node enclosure Dell PowerEdge VRTX
General dimensions of compute node enclosure
Height (inches) 8
Width (inches) 19
Depth (inches) 29.5
U size in server rack equivalent (U) 5
Power supplies
Total number 4
Vendor and model number Dell 80 Plus Platinum E1100E-S0 (P/N 0YT39Y)
Wattage of each (W) 1,100
Cooling fans
Total number 6
Vendor and model number Delta Electronics, Inc.
Dimensions (h × w) of each 60 mm × 60 mm
Volts 12
Chassis RAID controller
Vendor and model number Dell SPERC8
Firmware version 23.11.46-0079
Cache size (GB) 1
Chassis shared hard drives
Hard drive #1
Vendor and model number Dell ST300MM0006
Number of drives 14
Size (GB) 300
RPM 10k
Type SAS 6.0 Gbps
Hard drive #2
Vendor and model number Dell C06VX
Number of drives 2
Size (TB) 400
RPM SSD
Type SAS 12.0 Gbps
Chassis USB ports
Number 2
Type 2.0
Platform
Vendor and model number Dell PowerEdge M830
Motherboard model number 0W4W8N
Motherboard chipset Intel C610
14. A Principled Technologies test report 14Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
System Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution
BIOS name and version Dell BIOS 1.0.6
BIOS settings Default
General
Number of processor packages 4
Number of cores per processor 12
Number of hardware threads per core 2
System power management policy Performance/watt
CPU
Vendor Intel
Name Xeon E5-4650 v3
Stepping C1
Socket type Socket 2011-3 LGA
Core frequency (GHz) 2.10
L1 cache 32 KB (per core)
L2 cache 256 KB (per core)
L3 cache 30 MB (shared)
Memory modules
Total RAM in system (GB) 128
Vendor and model number
Hynix Semiconductor
M393A1G43DB0-CPB
Type PC4-2133P
Speed (MHz) 2,133
Speed in the system currently running @ (MHz) 2,133
Timing/latency (tCL-tRCD-iRP-tRASmin) 13-13-13-33
Size (GB) 8
Number of RAM modules 16
Chip organization Double-sided
Rank Dual
RAID controller
Vendor and model number Dell PERC H730 Mini
Firmware version 25.2.2-0001
Cache size (GB) 1024 MB
Network adapter
Vendor and model number Broadcom® NetXtreme® II 10 Gb Ethernet BCM57810s
Type Integrated
Number of Network Adapters 2
USB ports
Number 2
Type 3.0
Figure 12: Detailed configuration information for the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution.
15. A Principled Technologies test report 15Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Server HP ProLiant ML110 G6 HP ProLiant ML310 G5 HP ProLiant ML370 G5
General dimensions of server
Height (inches) 14.4 17.0 17.5
Width (inches) 6.9 7.9 8.6
Depth (inches) 16.8 24.0 28.5
U size in server rack
equivalent (U)
4 5 5
Power supplies
Total number 1 1 1
Vendor and model number
Delta Electronics®
DPS300AB
Delta Electronics DPS-
410DB
HP Switching Power Supply
DPS-800GB A
Wattage of each (W) 300 410 850
Cooling fans
Total number 1 1 3
Vendor and model number HP 576930-001 HP 459188-001 Nidec Beta V35633-94
Dimensions (h × w) of each 92 mm × 25 mm 120 mm × 25 mm 130 mm × 125 mm
Volts 12 12 12
General
Motherboard model
number
576924-001 A61TR1 434719-001
Motherboard chipset Intel 3400 Chipset Intel 3210 Chipset Intel C600
BIOS name and version
HP System BIOS -
0270126_TAN
ProLiant System BIOS -
W05
ProLiant System BIOS P57
BIOS settings Performance Performance Performance
Number of processor
packages
1 1 2
Number of cores per
processor
4 4 4
Number of hardware
threads per core
2 1 1
System power
management policy
Static High Performance Static High Performance Static High Performance
CPU
Vendor Intel Intel Intel
Name Xeon X3460 Xeon X3370 Xeon E5450
Stepping B1 E0 E0
Socket type LGA 1156 LGA 775 LGA 771
Core frequency (GHz) 2.80 3.00 3.00
L1 cache 32 KB (per core) 32 KB (per core) 32 KB (per core)
L2 cache 256 KB (per core) 12 MB (shared) 12 MB (shared)
L3 cache (MB) 8 N/A N/A
Memory modules
Total RAM in system (GB) 4 4 8
Vendor and model number
Samsung® M391B5673EH1-
CH9
Micron®
MT18HTF25672AY-800E1
Samsung M395T5160QZ4
16. A Principled Technologies test report 16Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Server HP ProLiant ML110 G6 HP ProLiant ML310 G5 HP ProLiant ML370 G5
Type PC3-10600E DDR3 PC2-6400E DDR2 DDR2-5300F
Speed (MHz) 1,333 800 666
Speed in the system
currently running @ (MHz)
1,333 800 666
Timing/latency (tCL-tRCD-
iRP-tRASmin)
9-9-9-24 6-6-6-18 5-5-5-15
Size (GB) 2 2 4
Number of RAM modules 4 2 8
Chip organization Double-Sided Double-sided Double-sided
RAID controller
Vendor and model number HP Smart Array B110i HP Smart Array E200 HP Smart Array P400
Cache size (MB) N/A 128 256
Hard drive #1
Vendor and model number
Hitachi®
HDS721032CLA362
HP DF0792A9844 HP EG0146FAWHU
Number of drives 1 2 2
Size (GB) 320 72 146
RPM 7.2K 15K 10K
Type SATA SAS SAS
Hard drive #2
Vendor and model number N/A ST500NM001 N/A
Number of drives N/A 2 N/A
Size (GB) N/A 500 N/A
RPM N/A 7.2 N/A
Type N/A SAS N/A
Network adapter
Vendor and model number
Intel Pro/1000 PT Dual Port
Server Adapter
Intel Pro/1000 PT Server
Adapter
Intel Pro/1000 PT Dual Port
Server Adapter
Type PCIe PCIe PCIe
Number of ports 2 1 2
Network adapter 2
Vendor and model number HP NC 107i PCIe Gigabit
Intel Pro/1000 PT Server
Adapter
N/A
Type Integrated PCIe N/A
Number of ports 1 1 N/A
USB ports
Number 6 2 4
Type 2.0 2.0 2.0
Figure 13: Detailed configuration information for the towers in the legacy hardware solution.
17. A Principled Technologies test report 17Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
APPENDIX B – HOW WE TESTED
Our test scenario used one PowerEdge M830 and a PowerEdge R710, which we used for our infrastructure
server and to host client VMs. Figure 14 presents the virtual machines in our test environment.
VM name vCPUs Memory OS OS drive Additional drive
ExchangeCAS
8 sockets,
each w/ 1
core
16 GB
Windows Server
2012 R2
Standard
100 GB stored
on VRTX HDDs
None
ExchangeMB
8 sockets,
each w/ 1
core
16 GB
Windows Server
2012 R2
Standard
100 GB stored
on VRTX HDDs
750 GB, Thick
Provisioned Eager
Zeroed, Stored on VRTX
HDDS
Iometer
4 sockets,
each w/ 1
core
8 GB
Windows Server
2012 R2
Standard
100 GB stored
on VRTX HDDs
50 GB, Thick Provisioned
Eager Zeroed, Stored on
VRTX SSDs
SQL
8 sockets,
each w/ 1
core
8 GB
Windows Server
2012 R2
Standard
100 GB stored
on VRTX HDDs
100 GB, Thick
Provisioned Eager
Zeroed, Stored on VRTX
SSDs
DVD Store
client
1 socket
w/ 4
cores
8 GB
Windows Server
2012 R2
Standard
100 GB stored
on R710 HDDs
None
Exchange
AD/DNS
1 socket
w/ 1 core
8 GB
Windows Server
2012 R2
Standard
100 GB stored
on R710 HDDs
None
LoadGen
client
1 socket
w/ 4
cores
8 GB
Windows Server
2008 R2
Enterprise
100 GB stored
on R710 HDDs
None
NAT
1 socket
w/ 4
cores
8 GB
Windows Server
2012 R2
Standard
100 GB stored
on R710 HDDs
None
VMware
vCenter
Server
2 sockets,
each w/ 1
core
8 GB
VMware vCenter
Server Appliance
5.5
25 GB stored
on R710 HDDs
100 GB, Thin
Provisioned, Stored on
the R710 disks
Figure 14: The virtual machines in our test environment.
We also followed the following guidelines:
1. All OS drives were thin provisioned.
2. All VMs hosted on the blade server were stored on the VRTX storage.
3. All VMs hosted by the infrastructure server were stored on the infrastructure’s drives.
4. On all OSes, we installed all Windows updates available up to 05/15/2015.
In addition to its first drive, ExchangeMB had a 100 GB, Thick Provisioned Eager Zeroed drive stored on the OS
storage volume used for storing backups.
18. A Principled Technologies test report 18Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Installing and configuring the infrastructure server
We configured a Dell PowerEdge R710 server with VMware vSphere (ESXi) 5.5.0 with Dell Drivers to host the
Active Directory® VMs and the VMware vCenter VM.
Installing VMware vSphere 5.5 with Dell Drivers (ESXi) on the Dell PowerEdge R710
1. Insert the ESXi 5.5 disk, and select Boot from disk.
2. On the Welcome screen, press Enter.
3. On the End User License Agreement (EULA) screen, press F11.
4. On the Select a Disk to install or Upgrade Screen, select the relevant volume to install ESXi on, and press Enter.
5. On the Please Select a Keyboard Layout screen, press Enter.
6. On the Enter a Root Password screen, assign a root password, and confirm the password by entering it again.
Press Enter to continue.
7. On the Confirm Install Screen, press F11 to install.
8. On the Installation complete screen, press Enter to reboot.
Configuring ESXi after installation
1. On the ESXi 5.5 screen, press F2, enter the root password, and press Enter.
2. On the System Customization screen, select Troubleshooting Options, and press Enter.
3. On the Troubleshooting Mode Options screen, select enable ESXi Shell, and press Enter.
4. Select Enable SSH, press Enter, and press Esc.
5. On the System Customization screen, select Configure Management Network.
6. On the Configure Management Network screen, select IPv4 Configuration.
7. On the IPv4 Configuration screen, select Set static IP; enter an IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway;
and press Enter.
8. On the Configure Management Network screen, press Esc. When the installer asks if you want to apply the
changes, press Y.
9. Log in as root with the vSphere client.
10. Select the Configuration tab, and click Networking.
11. Click Add Networking…
12. Create a virtual machine network called PRIV-NET, and select the adapter with access to the private test
network.
13. Click OK.
14. Select the Configuration tab, and click DNS and routing.
15. Type a name, and select test.local for domain.
Setting up two VMs to host the Microsoft Windows® Active Directory server and the NAT
server
1. In your web browser, connect to the vSphere server, and browse to the ESXi host hosting the management VMs
(in our case, the PowerEdge R710).
2. Right-click the ESXi host, and choose New Virtual Machine.
19. A Principled Technologies test report 19Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
3. On the Create New Virtual Machine window, select custom, and click Next.
4. Assign a name to the virtual machine, and click Next.
5. Select the LUN for the storage, and click Next.
6. Select Virtual Machine Version 11, and click Next.
7. Choose Windows, select Microsoft Windows Server 2012, and click Next.
8. Choose the VM’s virtual hardware options, and click Next (see each VM’s section below for additional VM
configuration data).
Select one virtual processor socket, and one core per virtual socket.
Select 4GB RAM.
Select the NIC interface with access to the private test network.
Leave the default option for SCSI controller.
9. Choose to create a new virtual disk, and click Next.
10. Make the OS virtual disk size 100 GB, choose thin provisioned, specify external storage, and click Next.
11. Keep the default virtual device node (0:0), and click Next.
12. Click Finish.
13. Right-click the VM, and select Edit Settings.
14. Click the Resources tab, and click Memory.
15. Select Reserve all guest memory, and click OK.
16. Connect the VM virtual CD-ROM to the Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 installation disk.
17. Start the VM.
Installing Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard Edition
1. Connect the installation media and power on the VM.
2. When the option appears, press F11 to enter the Boot Manager.
3. Select the connected boot media, and press Enter.
4. Press any key when prompted to boot from DVD.
5. When the installation screen appears, click My language is English.
6. Leave language, time/currency format and input method as default, and click Next.
7. Click Install now.
8. When the Windows Setup window appears, click No thanks when prompted to go online to install updates.
9. Select Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard (Server with a GUI), and click Next.
10. Check I accept the license terms, and click Next.
11. Click Custom: Install Windows only (advanced).
12. Press Alt+A to open advanced partition options. Delete any partitions until there is only Drive 0 Unallocated
Space.
13. Select Drive 0 Unallocated Space, and click Next, at which point Windows will begin installing, and will restart
automatically after completing.
14. When the Settings page appears, fill in the Password and Reenter Password fields with the same password.
15. Log in with the previously set up password.
20. A Principled Technologies test report 20Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Configuring Windows Update
1. In the left pane of the Server Manager window, click Local Server.
2. In the main frame, next to Windows Update, click Not configured.
3. In the Windows Update window, in the main pane, click Let me choose my settings.
4. Under Important updates, select Never check for updates (not recommended), and then click OK.
5. In the left pane, click Check for updates, and install all available updates.
6. Close the Windows Update window.
Configuring Windows Firewall
1. In Server Manager, click ToolsWindows Firewall with Advanced Security.
2. In the Overview section, click Windows Firewall Properties.
3. In the Domain Profile tab, for Firewall state, click Off.
4. In the Private Profile tab, for Firewall state, click Off.
5. In the Public Profile tab, for Firewall state, click Off.
6. Click OK.
7. Close the Windows Firewall Properties window.
Setting up Remote Desktop
1. In the Local Server tab of the Server Manager window, next to Remote Desktop, click Disabled.
2. In the System Properties window that appears, in the Remote Desktop section, select the Allow remote
connections to this computer radio button, and click OK when the warning message appears.
3. Uncheck Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication
(recommended), and click OK.
Disabling IE Enhanced Security Configuration
1. In the Local Server tab of the Server Manager window, next to IE Enhanced Security Configuration, click On.
2. In the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration window, select the Off radio buttons for both
Administrators and Users, and click OK.
Installing VMware Tools
1. Install VMware Tools. For more information, see
kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=340.
Repeat the virtual machine, OS installation, and OS configuration described above to create a VM for the NAT server.
Installing Active Directory and DNS services
1. Power on the Active Directory VM.
2. On the Active Directory server, open Windows PowerShell®.
3. Run the following command: Install-WindowsFeature RSAT-ADDS
4. When the installation is finished, close PowerShell.
5. On the VM, open Server Manager.
6. On the Welcome screen, click 2, and click Add roles and features.
7. At the initial Before you begin screen, click Next three times.
21. A Principled Technologies test report 21Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
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8. At the Server Roles screen, select Active Directory Domain Services.
9. On the pop-up window, click Add Features.
10. Click Next three times.
11. Verify the desired role is being installed, and click Install.
12. Once installation has finished, close the Add roles and features wizard.
13. In Server Manager, click the flag at the top, and select the Promote this server to a domain controller link.
14. Select Add a new forest, enter a root domain name of test.local and click Next.
15. On the Domain Controller Options screen, enter a password, and click Next.
16. On the DNS Options screen, click Next.
17. On the Additional Options screen, click Next.
18. On the Paths screen, click Next.
19. On the Review Options screen, click Next.
20. On the Prerequisites screen, verify all prerequisites have passed, and click Install.
21. Once Active Directory Domain Services finishes installing, click Finish, and restart the system.
Installing the NAT on the NAT server
Before installing the network address translation (NAT) service, you will need to plug a second network cable
into the R710 server that has access to the internet and configure vSphere to make that connection available as a
second NIC for the NAT VM.
1. On the NAT server, open the Add Roles and Feature Wizard.
2. On the Before you Being screen, click Next.
3. On the Installation Type screen, click Next.
4. On the Server Selection screen, click Next.
5. On the Server Roles screen, select Remote Access, and click Next.
6. On the Features screen, click Next.
7. On the Remote Access screen, click Next.
8. On the Role Services screen, select Routing, click Add Features on the popup, and click Next.
9. On The Web Server Role (IIS) screen, click Next.
10. On the Role Services screen, click Next.
11. On the Confirmation screen, click Install.
12. Once the installation is complete, click Close.
13. From Administrative Tools, open Routing and Remote Access…
14. In the left panel, right-click the target server and select Configure and Enable Routing and Remote Access.
15. In the Routing and Remote Access Server Setup Wizard, click Next.
16. On the Configuration screen, select Network Address Translation (NAT).
17. On the NAT Internet Connection screen, select the Ethernet port that will provide internet connection and click
Next.
18. On the Completion screen, click Finish. When setting static IP address, the vCenter server’s IP can now be used
as the gateway on the isolated testing network.
22. A Principled Technologies test report 22Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Configuring the VMware vSphere environment for the VRTX server
Installing and configuring vCenter Server
1. In the vSphere client, select File, then Deploy OVF Template.
2. In the Deploy OVF Template window, click Browse, then browse to the location of the vCenter Server Appliance
.ovf file, click Open, and click Next.
3. On the OVF Template Details screen, click Next.
4. In the Name and Location screen, enter vCenter Server for the name, and click Next.
5. In the Storage screen, select the appropriate datastore, and click Next.
6. In the Disk Format screen, select Thin Provision, and click Next.
7. In the Network Mapping screen, select the private test network.
8. In the Ready to Complete screen, check the Power on after deployment checkbox, and click Finish.
9. In the vSphere client, right-click the new vCenter, and select Open Console.
10. Note the instructions and the address to use for configuration.
11. Open a web browser to the address listed in the console.
12. Log in with root and the password vmware
13. In the vCenter Server Setup window, check the box to accept the license agreement, and click Next.
14. In the Configure Options screen, select the Configure with default settings, and click Next.
15. In the Review Configuration screen, click Start. Setup will complete, and a new database will be configured
automatically. When it is finished, click Close.
16. Click the Admin Tab.
a. In the current administrator password section, enter vmware
b. Enter a new password into both password fields.
Configuring the VRTX shared storage
1. Open a web browser, and enter the address listed for the CMC IP on the front LCD display.
2. Log in with the appropriate credentials.
3. Expand Storage.
4. Click Storage.
5. Click the Setup tab.
a. Under Assignment Mode, select the Multiple Assignment radio button, and click Apply.
b. To confirm the Operation Successful message box, click OK.
6. Configure virtual disks:
a. Click StorageVirtual Disks.
b. On the Virtual Disks tab, click Create.
i. For Media Type, select HDD.
ii. For Choose a virtual disk type, select RAID 10.
iii. Select the 10 available 300 GB hard disk drives.
iv. For the first volume (to be used for Microsoft Exchange), enter 850GB and click Create Virtual
Disk.
v. To confirm the message box indicating Operation Successful, click OK.
23. A Principled Technologies test report 23Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
vi. Repeat steps i through iv for the next external volume (to be used for system operating
systems), choosing 500GB.
vii. For Media Type select SDD.
viii. For Choose a virtual disk type, select RAID 1.
ix. Select the two available 400 GB SSDs.
x. For the first volume (to be used for Microsoft SQL Server), enter 120GB and click Create Virtual
Disk.
xi. To confirm the message box indicating Operation Successful, click OK.
xii. Repeat steps ix through for the next external volume (to be used for Iometer), choosing 100GB.
c. On the Virtual Disks tab, click Manage.
i. Select the Virtual Disks Action drop-down menu for Virtual Disk 0, and initialize the drives.
ii. Click Apply.
iii. To confirm the message box indicating Operation Successful, click OK.
iv. Repeat steps i through iii for the remaining virtual disks.
d. Allow shared LUN access to all slots. On the Virtual Disks tab, click Assign.
i. Use the drop-down menu for all virtual disks and SLOT-01, and select Full Access.
ii. Use the drop-down menu for all virtual disks and SLOT-02, and select Full Access.
iii. Use the drop-down menu for all virtual disks and SLOT-03, and select Full Access.
iv. Use the drop-down menu for all virtual disks and SLOT-04, and select Full Access.
v. Click Apply.
vi. To confirm the Operation Successful message box, click OK.
Configuring the VMware vSphere environment for the VRTX server
Configuring boot properties of the Dell PowerEdge M830 server
1. Open a web browser, and enter the address listed for the CMC IP on the front LCD display.
2. Log in with the appropriate credentials.
3. Expand Server Overview, and select Slot-01.
4. Click the Setup Tab. Perform the following steps in the iDRAC settings:
a. Check the Enable LAN checkbox.
b. Check the Enable IPv4 checkbox.
c. Check the DHCP checkbox.
d. Check the IPMI Over LAN checkbox.
e. Click Apply iDRAC Network Settings.
f. To confirm changes to the iDRAC network settings, click OK.
5. Power on the server.
a. Click the Power Tab.
b. Select Power On Server.
c. Click Apply.
d. To confirm server control action, click OK.
e. To confirm operation was successful, click OK.
6. Click the Properties tab.
7. Click Launch Remote Console.
24. A Principled Technologies test report 24Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
8. On new browser page, click Continue to website (not recommended) if prompted.
a. If a message appears indicating a pop-up was blocked, select Always allow pop-ups from this site.
b. Close the browser tab for the iDRAC.
c. Click Launch Remote Console.
d. If a message appears indicating the Web page wants to run an add-on called “Virtual Console from
Dell Inc.,” select Allow for all websites.
9. A new window appears showing the console for the server to configure. Select PowerReset System.
10. Change the boot disk order in System Setup.
a. When prompted during POST, press F2 to enter System Setup.
b. Click System BIOS.
c. Click Boot Settings.
d. Click BIOS Boot Settings.
e. Scroll down, and click Hard Disk Drive Sequence.
i. Highlight the SD card or USB drive entry, and move it to the top using the + key.
ii. Click OK.
f. Click Back twice.
g. Click Finish.
h. Click Yes.
i. Click Finish.
j. Click OK. The system will restart.
Installing VMware vSphere 5.5 (ESXi) on the Dell PowerEdge M830 server
1. Mount the ESXi 5.5 ISO via the iDRAC, and boot the M830 to that ISO.
2. On the Welcome screen, press Enter.
3. On the End User License Agreement (EULA) screen, press F11.
4. On the Select a Disk to install or Upgrade Screen, select the an SD card or USB drive to install ESXi on, and press
Enter.
5. On the Please Select a Keyboard Layout screen, press Enter.
6. On the Enter a Root Password Screen, assign a root password, and confirm the password by entering it again.
Press Enter to continue.
7. On the Confirm Install Screen, press F11 to install.
8. On the Installation complete screen, press Enter to reboot.
Configuring VMware vSphere (ESXi) embedded on the server
1. Complete configuration of ESXi host:
a. Press F2.
b. Enter the root account password, and press Enter.
c. Select Configure Management Network, and press Enter.
d. Select Network Adapters.
e. Select the adapter that connects your server to the private testing network.
f. Press Esc.
g. To restart networking, press Y.
25. A Principled Technologies test report 25Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
h. Select Troubleshooting Options.
i. Select Enable ESXi shell, and press Enter.
ii. Select Enable SSH, and press Enter.
iii. Press Esc.
i. To log out, press Esc.
Adding the M830 to the vCenter Server
1. In a web browser, navigate to the vCenter IP, click Log in to vSphere Web Client, and log in using root and your
password.
2. In the left panel, select vCenter, then Datacenters.
3. Right-click in the empty panel, and select New Datacenter.
4. In the New Datacenter window, give the Datacenter a name and click OK. We used VRTX-01
5. Select your test datacenter.
6. On the left panel, select Hosts, then click Add a host.
7. On the Name and Location screen, enter the IP address for the R710 client and click Next.
8. On the Connection settings screen, enter the User name and Password and click Next.
9. On the Host summary screen, click Next.
10. On the Assign license screen, click Next.
11. On the Lockdown mode screen, click Next.
12. On the VM location screen, click Next.
Configuring the external volumes
1. In the vSphere client, select the target host.
2. Click the Configuration tab.
3. Click Storage, and click Add Storage…
4. Choose Disk/LUN.
5. Select the disk, and click Next.
6. Accept the default of VMFS-5 for the file system.
7. Review the disk layout, and click Next.
8. Enter the datastore name, and click Next.
9. Accept the default of using maximum capacity, and click Next.
10. Click Finish.
11. Repeat for all volumes available through the Shared PERC 8 Mini.
Creating the first VM
1. Using the vSphere client, connect to the vCenter Server.
2. Right-click the cluster, and choose New Virtual Machine.
3. On the Configuration screen, choose Custom, and click Next.
4. On the Name and Location screen, add a name, select the datacenter, and click Next.
5. On the specific Host screen, choose the PowerEdge M830 blade and click Next.
6. On the Storage screen, select the OS datastore on the external storage, and click Next.
26. A Principled Technologies test report 26Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
7. On the Virtual Machine Version screen, choose Virtual Machine Version 8, and click Next.
8. On the Guest Operating System screen, choose Windows, select Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit), and
click Next.
9. On the CPUs screen, choose 1 virtual socket, and 4 virtual processors per core, and click Next.
10. On the Memory screen, choose 8 GB RAM, and click Next.
11. On the Network screen, click 1 for the number of NICs, select the NIC connected to the isolated testing network,
and click Next.
12. On the SCSI Controller screen, leave the default virtual storage controller, and click Next.
13. On the Select a Disk screen, choose to create a new virtual disk, and click Next.
14. On the Create a Disk screen, make the OS virtual disk size 100 GB, and choose thin provisioned.
15. On the Advanced Options screen, leave the default virtual device node (0:0), and click Next.
16. On the Ready to Complete screen, click Finish.
17. Right-click the VM, select Upgrade Virtual Hardware, and click Yes.
18. Start the VM.
19. Attach the Windows Server 2012 R2 ISO image to the VM, and install Windows Server 2012 R2 on your VM.
Installing the operating system on the VMs
Repeat the sections above regarding the initial creation of the virtual machines and installation of Windows
Server 2012 R2 Standard.
Cloning the VM
1. Using the vSphere Client, right-click the first VM and select Template, then Clone to Template.
2. On the Name and Location screen, enter a Template Name.
3. On the Host / Cluster screen, select the management server.
4. On the Datastore screen, select a datastore, and click Next.
5. On the Ready to Complete screen, click Finish.
The template created will be used to clone out the rest of the VMs.
Installing and configuring Microsoft Exchange Servers
We installed Microsoft Exchange 2013 SP3 CAS server and mailbox server on two VMs residing on the Dell
PowerEdge M830.
Configuring the Exchange 2013 VMs on the VRTX
After cloning, modify the Exchange 2013 VMs to contain the following settings:
Memory: 16 GB
Virtual Processors: 8
Additional virtual disks for the mailbox server.
o 1 × 750GB virtual disk for mailbox storage (Thick-provisioned, eager-zeroed)
o 1 × 100GB virtual disk for log storage (Thick-provisioned, eager-zeroed)
After adding the drives from the vSphere client, configure additional drives in Windows using the following steps.
1. In the taskbar, click the Server Manager icon.
2. In the left pane, expand Storage, and click Disk Management.
27. A Principled Technologies test report 27Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
3. Right-click the first volume, and choose Initialize Disk.
4. In the right pane, right-click the volume, and choose New Simple VoIume…
5. At the welcome window, click Next.
6. At the Specify Volume Size window, leave the default selection, and click Next.
7. At the Assign Drive Letter or Path window, choose a drive letter, and click Next.
8. At the Format Partition window, choose NTFS, and click Next.
9. At the Completing the New Simple Volume Wizard window, click Finish.
Testing overview
We used the RAID 10 consisting of 300GB hard drives on the VRTX shared storage to store the Exchange
mailbox. We added two virtual drives to the Exchange Mailbox: one for Exchange data and one for logs.
For our workloads, we used the following settings:
Users: 750
Mailbox Profile: 250MB mailboxes
Action Profile: Outlook_200
Client Type: Outlook 2007 Cached
Configuring the Active Directory server
Installing the Active Directory Domain Services role
Before completing this step, you will need to apply a static IP address for the server. In our case, we used
192.168.1.10.
1. Launch Server Manager, and select Add roles and features.
2. Click Next at the Add Roles and Features Wizard.
3. Select Role-based or feature-based installation, and click Next.
4. Select the AD server from the server pool, and click Next.
5. Select Active Directory Domain Services from the list of Roles, click the Add Features button to add features that
are required by Active Directory Domain Services, and click Next.
6. Accept the defaults selected by setup at the Select Features screen, and click Next.
7. Click Next at the AD DS screen.
8. Select Restart the destination server automatically if required at the confirmation screen, and click Install.
9. Click the yellow warning triangle in the server manager window.
10. Click Promote this server to a domain controller.
11. Select Add a new forest, type in the Root domain name (fqdn), and click Next. For our testing, we used
test.local
12. Type in and confirm the password, and click Next.
13. Click Next at the DNS Options screen.
14. Verify the NetBIOS name, and click Next.
15. Accept the default paths, and click Next.
16. Review the options, and click Next.
17. Verify the prerequisite check passes successfully, and click Install.
28. A Principled Technologies test report 28Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Preparing AD for Exchange
1. Create a reverse lookup zone:
a. Click the start button, and type DNS in the search field.
b. Open the DNS manager by clicking on it in the results field.
c. Expand your Active Directory domain, and click on Reverse Lookup Zones.
d. Click ActionNew Zone.
e. Click Next on the Welcome screen.
f. Chose Primary Zone, and click Next.
g. Leave default replication scope, and click Next.
h. Choose IPv4, and click Next.
i. Enter the IP address of your domain (192.168.3 for our example).
j. Choose Allow both nonsecure and secure dynamic updates, and click Next.
k. Click Finish.
2. Insert the Exchange 2012 SP1 Installation ISO in the AD VM DVD drive.
3. In Windows Explorer, double-click the Exchange DVD icon.
4. In the Exchange installation folder, hold down shift, and right-click.
5. Choose Open a command window here.
6. Run the following command: Setup.exe /PrepareSchema
/IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms
7. When the previous command completes, run the following command: Setup.exe /PrepareAD
/OrganizationName:”organization name” /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms
8. Close the command window when the setup finishes.
Installing Active Directory Certificate Services
1. Launch Server Manager, and select Add roles and features.
2. Click Next at the Add Roles and Features Wizard.
3. Select Role-based or feature-based installation, and click Next.
4. Choose Active Directory Certificate Services.
5. Click Add Features, if prompted, to install any required features.
6. Click Next.
7. Click Next.
8. Click Next.
9. Choose Certificate Authority and Certification Authority Web Enrollment.
10. Click Add Features, if prompted, to install any required features.
11. Click Next.
12. Leave defaults, and click Next.
13. Click Install.
14. Click Close when the install finishes.
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15. Click on the yellow warning symbol in the Server Manager, and click Configure Active Directory Certificate
Services
16. Leave defaults, and click Next.
17. Check both Certification Authority and Certification Authority Web Enrollment, and click Next.
18. Choose Enterprise CA, and click Next.
19. Choose Root CA, and click Next.
20. Choose Create a new private key, and click Next.
21. Leave defaults, and click Next.
22. Leave defaults, and click Next.
23. Leave 5 years, and click Next.
24. Leave default locations, and click Next.
25. Click Configure.
26. Close when the configuration finishes.
27. Open Internet Explorer and navigate to localhost/certsrv/Default.asp to verify that the installation
succeeded.
Installing Exchange Server 2013 SP1 Mailbox and Client Access Server roles
Using the template, clone two VMs: one for the Exchange Client Access Server, or CAS, and the other for the
Exchange Mailbox Server. Edit the hardware settings in each. The Mailbox server should have eight vCPUs (eight virtual
sockets each with one core) and 16 GB of memory. Using the Exchange datastore, add a 750 GB disk and a 100 GB disk
to the Mailbox server for the Exchange mailbox and Exchange logs respectively. Set static IPs on both VMs and join the
domain.
1. On the Exchange Mailbox Server, log into the server using domain administrator credentials.
2. Open Windows PowerShell and run the following command:
Install-WindowsFeature AS-HTTP-Activation, Desktop-Experience, NET-
Framework-45-Features, RPC-over-HTTP-proxy, RSAT-Clustering, RSAT-
Clustering-CmdInterface, RSAT-Clustering-Mgmt, RSAT-Clustering-
PowerShell, Web-Mgmt-Console, WAS-Process-Model, Web-Asp-Net45, Web-
Basic-Auth, Web-Client-Auth, Web-Digest-Auth, Web-Dir-Browsing, Web-Dyn-
Compression, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Http-Logging, Web-Http-Redirect, Web-
Http-Tracing, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Filter, Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,
Web-Metabase, Web-Mgmt-Console, Web-Mgmt-Service, Web-Net-Ext45, Web-
Request-Monitor, Web-Server, Web-Stat-Compression, Web-Static-Content,
Web-Windows-Auth, Web-WMI, Windows-Identity-Foundation
3. Restart the server.
4. Download the Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 4.0, Core Runtime 64-bit
(go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkId=258269).
5. Run UcmaRuntimeSetup.exe.
6. When the installation completes, click Finish.
7. Navigate to the location of the Exchange installation media, and double-click Setup.exe.
8. At the Check for Updates? screen, check the Connect to the Internet and check for updates checkbox, and click
Next.
30. A Principled Technologies test report 30Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
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9. When the updates complete, click Next.
10. At the Introduction screen, click Next.
11. At the License Agreement screen, check the box to accept the terms, and click Next.
12. At the Recommended Settings screen, check the Don’t use recommended settings checkbox, and click Next.
13. At the Server Role Selection, select Mailbox or Client Access role, and click Next.
14. At the Installation Space and Location screen, leave the default location for the installation, and click Next.
15. At the Malware Protection Settings, select Yes to disable, and click Next.
16. At the Readiness Checks screen, allow the verification to complete. If there are no failures, click Install.
17. When the installation completes, click Finish, and restart the server.
18. Repeat steps 1 –17 for the Exchange CAS server.
Configuring Exchange
1. On the CAS server, open the Exchange Admin Center by using a browser and navigating to
https://localhost/ecp
2. Enter the domain administrator credentials, and click Sign in.
3. If prompted, select the language and time zone, and click Save.
4. In the left pane, click Mail Flow, then click Send Connectors.
5. On the Send Connectors page, click the New icon.
6. In the New Send Connector wizard, specify SMTP as the name and select Internet as the type. Click Next.
7. In the Network settings screen, choose MX record associated with recipient domain, and click Next.
8. In the Address space screen, click the Add icon.
9. In the Add domain window, enter * in the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) field, and click Save.
10. Click Next.
11. In the Source Server screen, click the Add icon.
12. In the Select a Server window, select the mailbox server, click Add, and then click OK.
13. Click Finish.
14. In the left pane of the EAC, click servers, select the name of the CAS server, and click Edit.
15. Click Outlook Anywhere, and enter the appropriate FQDN of the Client Access Server for the external and
internal hostname field. For example, exchangeserver.test.local
16. Choose NTLM as the authentication method, and click Save.
17. Click Virtual Directories, and then click the Configure external access domain icon.
18. In the Select the Client Access servers to use with the external URL window, click the Add icon.
19. Select the CAS server, and click Add. Click OK.
20. Type the FQDN of the CAS server in the Enter the domain, and click Save.
21. Log into the Active Directory server using administrator credentials, and complete the following steps:
a. Open Server Manager, then click ToolsDNS.
b. In DNS Manager, expand the Active Directory server nameForward Lookup Zonestest.local in
the left pane.
c. In the right pane, verify or create the DNS records as presented in Figure 15.
31. A Principled Technologies test report 31Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Type
Host or child
domain/alias name
FQDN
FQDN of mail
server
Mail Exchanger (MX) Leave blank domain.com casserver.domain.com
Alias (CNAME) Autodiscover Autodiscover.domain.com casserver.domain.com
Alias (CNAME) Owa Owa.domain.com casserver.domain.com
Figure 15: DNS records.
22. Log back into your CAS server.
23. In the Exchange Power Shell, run the following commands, replacing “$HostName” with the host name (not
FQDN) of your CAS server.
Set-EcpVirtualDirectory "$HostNameECP (Default Web Site)" -InternalUrl
((Get-EcpVirtualDirectory "$HostNameECP (Default Web
Site)").ExternalUrl)
Set-WebServicesVirtualDirectory "$HostNameEWS (Default Web Site)" -
InternalUrl ((get-WebServicesVirtualDirectory "$HostNameEWS (Default Web
Site)").ExternalUrl)
Set-ActiveSyncVirtualDirectory "$HostNameMicrosoft-Server-ActiveSync
(Default Web Site)" -InternalUrl ((Get-ActiveSyncVirtualDirectory
"$HostNameMicrosoft-Server-ActiveSync (Default Web Site)").ExternalUrl)
Set-OabVirtualDirectory "$HostNameOAB (Default Web Site)" -InternalUrl
((Get-OabVirtualDirectory "$HostNameOAB (Default Web
Site)").ExternalUrl)
Set-OwaVirtualDirectory "$HostNameOWA (Default Web Site)" -InternalUrl
((Get-OwaVirtualDirectory "$HostNameOWA (Default Web
Site)").ExternalUrl)
Set-PowerShellVirtualDirectory "$HostNamePowerShell (Default Web Site)"
-InternalUrl ((Get-PowerShellVirtualDirectory "$HostNamePowerShell
(Default Web Site)").ExternalUrl)
Get-OfflineAddressBook | Set-OfflineAddressBook -
GlobalWebDistributionEnabled $True -VirtualDirectories $Null
24. Create a folder at the root of C: on the CAS server, and share it to Everyone with read/write permissions.
25. Log back into the Exchange admin center, and navigate to Serverscertificates.
26. Choose the CAS server in the drop-down menu, and click the plus sign to create a new certificate.
27. Choose Create a request for a certificate from a certification authority, and click Next.
28. Name the certificate, and click Next.
29. Do not request a wildcard certificate, and click Next.
30. Click Browse, choose the CAS server, and click OK. Click Next.
31. Leave defaults, and click Next.
32. Leave defaults, and click Next.
32. A Principled Technologies test report 32Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
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33. Enter your organization information, and click Next.
34. Enter the path to the share you created on the CAS server, and click Finish. Example:
cassharemyrequest.REQ
35. Log into the AD server, and open Internet Explorer.
36. Browse to localhost/CertSrv
37. Click Request a certificate.
38. Choose advanced certificate request.
39. Choose Submit a certificate request by using a base-64-endcoded CMC…
40. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the share folder on the CAS server where the certificate request is
stored.
41. Open the certificate with notepad and copy the content between BEGIN NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST and END
NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST.
42. Paste the copied content into the Saved Request window.
43. Choose Web Server in the Certificate Template drop-down menu, and click Submit.
44. Choose Base 64 encoded, and download the certificate.
45. Copy the new certificate into the share folder on the CAS server.
46. Log back into the CAS server and open the Exchange Admin Center.
47. Go to ServersCertificates, and highlight the certificate you began before (should say Pending request in the
status column).
48. Click Complete on the right side.
49. Type the path to the certificate, including the certificate name, and click OK. Example:
cassharecertnew.CER
50. Verify that the status has changed to Valid.
51. Edit the new entry, and click Edit.
52. Go to services and check SMTP and IIS, click Save.
53. Click Yes on the warning message.
54. Run the following steps on the CAS and AD servers.
a. Click Start, and type MMC
b. Click FileAdd/Remove Snap-in
c. Choose Certificates, and click Add.
d. Choose Computer account, and click Next.
e. Choose Local computer, and click Finish.
f. Click OK.
g. Expand CertificatesTrusted Root Certificate AuthoritiesCertificates
h. Click ActionAll TasksImport
i. Click Next.
j. Browse to the share folder on the CAS server, and choose the new certificate you created. Click
Next.
k. Leave defaults, and click Next.
33. A Principled Technologies test report 33Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
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l. Click Finish.
m. Click OK on the Import was successful message.
55. Log into the CAS server and open the Exchange admin center.
56. Navigate to ServersDatabases.
57. Restart the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service on the MB server.
58. Using the Edit button, disable the maintenance schedule and enable circular logging for each mailbox database.
59. Dismount and remount the databases.
60. Open the Exchange Management shell, and enter the following to move the paths of the default mailbox:
Move-Databasepath “DatabaseName” –EdbFilepath “E:NewlocationDBname.edb” –
LogFolderpath “F:Newlocation”
61. When prompted, type A and press Enter.
62. Open Exchange Management Shell, and enter the following:
Get-OutlookAnywhere |Set-OutlookAnywhere -ExternalHostname cas.domain.com -
DefaultAuthenticationMethod NTLM -ExternalClientsRequireSsl $true
Installing and configuring the Exchange 2013 mail test clients and completing LoadGen
configuration on the Exchange 2013
For our testing, we used one virtual client machine to run LoadGen 2013. To create the mail clients, we installed
several software components. We followed this process for each installation:
Installing Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Enterprise Edition
1. Insert the installation DVD for Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Enterprise into the DVD drive.
2. At the Language Selection Screen, click Next.
3. Click Install Now.
4. Select Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise (Full Installation), and click Next.
5. Click the I accept the license terms checkbox, and click Next.
6. Click Custom.
7. Click Next.
8. At the User’s password must be changed before logging on warning screen, click OK.
9. Enter the desired password for the administrator in both fields, and click the arrow to continue.
10. At the Your password has been changed screen, click OK.
11. Click Start, type change power-saving settings and press Enter.
12. Click Change plan settings.
13. Change the Turn off the display drop-down menu to Never.
14. Click Save changes, and close the Power Options, Screen Saver Settings, and Personalization screens.
To set up this server, we had to install several additional software components. The following subsections detail
the necessary installation processes.
Joining the domain
1. Set a static IP.
2. Select StartControl PanelNetwork ConnectionsLocal Area Connection.
34. A Principled Technologies test report 34Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
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3. Click Properties.
4. Highlight Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), and click Properties.
5. Select the Use the following DNS server addresses radio button, and enter the IP of the DNS server in the
Preferred DNS server field. Click OK.
6. Right-click My Computer, and select Properties.
7. Under the Computer Name tab, click Change.
8. In the Computer Name Changes screen, under the Member of section, select the Domain radial box, and type
test.local
9. Select OK to start joining the domain.
10. When the screen appears asking for a person qualified on the domain, type Administrator as the username
and Password1 as the password.
11. At the Welcome pop-up window and the window warning that you must reset the computer for the changes to
take effect, click OK.
12. At the System Properties screen, click OK.
13. When a pop-up appears asking if you want to restart now, click Yes to restart your computer.
Installing Internet Information Services
1. Click StartAdministrative ToolsServer Manager.
2. On the left pane, click Roles.
3. Click Add Roles.
4. Click the Application Server checkbox.
5. When the Add features required for Application Server? screen appears, click Add Required Features.
6. Click Next.
7. Click Next.
8. At the Select Role Services page for Application Server, click the Web Server (IIS) Support checkbox.
9. Click Add Required Support Role Services.
10. Click Next.
11. Click Next.
12. At the Select Role Services page for Web Server (IIS), click IIS 6 Management Compatibility, ASP, and CGI
checkboxes; and click Next.
13. Click Install.
14. Click Close.
Installing Load Generator
Download and install Load Generator 2013 using all defaults.
Importing the certificate and editing the hosts file
1. Click Start, and type MMC
2. Click FileAdd/Remove Snap-in
3. Choose Certificates, and click Add.
4. Choose Computer account, and click Next.
35. A Principled Technologies test report 35Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
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5. Choose Local computer, and click Finish.
6. Click OK.
7. Expand CertificatesTrusted Root Certificate AuthoritiesCertificates.
8. Click ActionAll TasksImport.
9. Click Next.
10. Browse to the share folder on the CAS server, and choose the new certificate you created. Click Next.
11. Leave defaults, and click Next.
12. Click Finish.
13. Click OK on the Import was successful message.
14. Open the Notepad program, and use FileOpen to open the hosts file stored at
C:WindowsSystem32driversetc
15. Add the IP and FQDN of the CAS server.
16. Save and close Notepad.
Preparing Load Generator
1. Log into the mail client.
2. Select StartAll ProgramsMicrosoft ExchangeExchange Load Generator 2013.
3. When the Load Generator screen appears, select Start a new test.
4. Select Create a new test configuration, and click Continue.
5. Change the total length of simulation to 1 hour.
6. In the Specify test settings screen, type Password1 as the Directory Access Password and Mailbox Account
Master Password, and click Continue with recipient management.
7. Create 750 users in the Mailbox Database, and click Continue.
8. To accept defaults for Advanced recipient settings, click Continue.
9. In the Specify test user groups screen, select the plus sign to add a user group.
10. Change the Client Type to Outlook 2007 Cached, the action profile to Outlook_200, and the Mailbox size to 250
MB, and click Continue.
11. In Remote configurations, check the checkbox to enable distributing the workload, enter the computer names of
all of the test clients, and click Continue.
12. Click Save the configuration file as, and name it testcfg.xml
13. Click Start the initialization phase (recommended before running the test).
14. Once you have initialized the database, create a backup copy of the Exchange mailbox databases.
Installing and configuring Microsoft SQL Server 2014
We installed Microsoft SQL Server 2014 on a VM residing on the second Dell PowerEdge M830.
Configuring the SQL Server VM (VRTX only)
1. After cloning, modify the SQL VM to contain the following settings:
o Memory: 16 GB
o Virtual Processors: 8
o Additional virtual disks:
36. A Principled Technologies test report 36Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
1 × 100GB virtual disks for SQL database and log data (Thick provisioned, eager-zeroed)
Installing SQL Server 2014
1. Open the console for the VM or connect to the VM with RDP.
2. Mount the installation ISO to the VM.
3. Click Run SETUP.EXE. If Autoplay does not begin the installation, navigate to the SQL Server 2014 DVD, and
double-click.
4. If the installer prompts you with a .NET installation prompt, click Yes to enable the .NET Framework Core role.
5. In the left pane, click Installation.
6. On the Product Key screen, enter a product key for standard, and click Next.
7. At the Setup Support Rules screen, wait for the rule check to complete. If there are no failures or relevant
warnings, click OK.
8. Select the Specify a free edition and from the drop-down menu, select Evaluation. Click Next.
9. Click the checkbox to accept the license terms, and click Next.
10. If no failures are displayed after the setup support files are installed, click Next.
11. At the Setup Role screen, choose SQL Server Feature Installation.
12. At the Feature Selection screen, select Database Engine Services, Full-Text and Semantic Extractions for Search,
Client Tools Connectivity, Client Tools Backwards Compatibility, Management Tools – Basic, and Management
Tools – Complete. Click Next.
13. At the Installation Rules screen, click Next after the check completes.
14. At the Instance configuration screen, leave the default selection of default instance, and click Next.
15. At the Disk Space Requirements screen, click Next.
16. At the Server Configuration screen, check that NT AUTHORITYSYSTEM is selected for SQL Server Agent and SQL
Server Database Engine. Click Next.
17. Assuming there are no failures, click Next.
18. At the Database Engine Configuration screen, select Mixed Mode.
19. Enter and confirm a password for the system administrator account.
20. Click Add Current user. This may take several seconds.
21. Click Next.
22. At the Error and usage reporting screen, click Next.
23. At the Installation Configuration Rules screen, check that there are no failures or relevant warnings, and click
Next.
24. At the Ready to Install screen, click Install.
25. After installation completes, click Close.
26. Create a SQL Server login for the ds2user (see the Configuring the database (Data generation overview) section
for the specific script to use).
27. Copy the pre-created DVD Store backup to the specified backup volume.
28. Download and install any available updates for Microsoft SQL Server 2014. We installed SQL Server 2014 SP1
and CU5.
37. A Principled Technologies test report 37Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Configuring the database workload client
For our testing, we used a single client machine for the Microsoft SQL Server client. To create this client, we
created a Windows Server 2013 R2 VM, assigned a static IP address, and installed .NET 3.5. We used this client to drive
the DVD Store benchmark we ran against the SQL database.
Configuring the database
Data generation overview
We generated the data using the Install.pl script included with DVD Store version 2.1 (DS2), providing the
parameters for our 10GB database size and the database platform on which we ran: Microsoft SQL Server. We ran the
Install.pl script on a utility system running Linux. The database schema was also generated by the Install.pl script.
After processing the data generation, we transferred the data files and schema creation files to a Windows-
based system running SQL Server 2014. We built the 10GB database in SQL Server 2014, and then performed a full
backup, storing the backup file on the C: drive for quick access. We used that backup file to restore the server between
test runs.
The only modification we made to the schema creation scripts were the specified file sizes for our database. We
explicitly set the file sizes higher than necessary to ensure that no file-growth activity would affect the outputs of the
test. Besides this file size modification, the database schema was created and loaded according to the DVD Store
documentation. Specifically, we followed the steps below:
1. We generated the data and created the database and file structure using database creation scripts in the DS2
download. We made size modifications specific to our 10GB database and the appropriate changes to drive
letters.
2. We transferred the files from our Linux data generation system to a Windows system running SQL Server.
3. We created database tables, stored procedures, and objects using the provided DVD Store scripts.
4. We set the database recovery model to bulk-logged to prevent excess logging.
5. We loaded the data we generated into the database. For data loading, we used the import wizard in SQL Server
Management Studio. Where necessary, we retained options from the original scripts, such as Enable Identity
Insert.
6. We created indices, full-text catalogs, primary keys, and foreign keys using the database-creation scripts.
7. We updated statistics on each table according to database-creation scripts, which sample 18 percent of the
table data.
8. On the SQL Server instance, we created a ds2user SQL Server login using the following Transact SQL (TSQL)
script:
USE [master]
GO
CREATE LOGIN [ds2user] WITH PASSWORD=N’’,
DEFAULT_DATABASE=[master],
DEFAULT_LANGUAGE=[us_english],
CHECK_EXPIRATION=OFF,
38. A Principled Technologies test report 38Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
CHECK_POLICY=OFF
GO
9. We set the database recovery model back to full.
10. We created the necessary full text index using SQL Server Management Studio.
11. We created a database user and mapped this user to the SQL Server login.
12. We then performed a full backup of the database. This backup allowed us to restore the databases to a pristine
state relatively quickly between tests.
Figure 16 shows our initial file size modifications.
Logical name Filegroup Initial size (MB)
Database files
primary PRIMARY 3.25
cust1 DS_CUST_FG 5,767
cust2 DS_CUST_FG 5,767
ind1 DS_IND_FG 2,621
ind2 DS_IND_FG 2,621
ds_misc DS_MISC_FG 2,621
orders1 DS_ORDERS 2,621
orders2 DS_ORDERS 2,621
Log files
ds_log Not Applicable 20,480
Figure 16: Our initial file size modifications.
Installing and configuring Iometer
We installed Iometer using all defaults on a VM residing on the second Dell PowerEdge M830.
Configuring the Iometer VM (VRTX only)
After cloning, modify the Iometer VM to contain the following settings:
o Memory: 8 GB
o Virtual Processors: 4
o Additional virtual disks:
1 × 50GB virtual disk for Iometer target (Thick provisioned, eager-zeroed)
Installing and configuring Iometer on the VM
1. Download the Iometer 1.1 package for Windows from www.iometer.org/doc/downloads.html.
2. Double-click the installer, and click Run.
3. At the Welcome window, click Next.
4. At the License Agreement window, click I Agree.
5. At the Choose Components window, leave the defaults selected, and click Next.
6. At the Choose Install Location window, change the Destination Folder to C:Iometer 1.1, and click Install.
7. When the installation completes, click Finish.
39. A Principled Technologies test report 39Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
8. Copy the relevant access specification file to the VM.
Configuring the Iometer workloads (both legacy and VRTX)
We set up Iometer to deliver a light file/print server-like I/O load through the duration of the tests. Below we
review the specific configuration of our Iometer workload.
Iometer workload specifications
50GB dataset, 1 Outstanding I/O per target (sectors)
512KB transfer request size
100ms transfer delay
1 Burst I/O
80% read, 100% random
45 minute run time
60 second ramp up time
Cycling – normal
Running the test
Test start and run times
We ran all workloads concurrently in order to start and record all performance counters for this report. The
specific testing parameters we used for each benchmark are included in the setup sections, and specifics for launching
these tests are described below.
About running the LoadGen test
To run the test, we installed the LoadGen client and server components and simulated 750 Exchange users
targeting the Exchange VM using LoadGen’s Exchange_200 Workload profile. We ran the LoadGen benchmark for 45
minutes, and beginning at the 15-minute mark, we used a 30-minute measurement window for performance
monitoring.
For more details about LoadGen, see www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=14060.
About running the DVD Store tests
We created a series of batch files, SQL scripts, and shell scripts to automate the complete test cycle. DVD Store
outputs an orders-per-minute metric, which is a running average calculated through the test. In this report, we report
the last OPM reported by each client/target pair.
Each complete test cycle consisted of the general steps listed below.
1. Clean up prior outputs from the target system and the client driver system.
2. Drop the database from the target.
3. Restore the database on the target.
4. Shut down the target.
5. Reboot the host and client system.
6. Wait for a ping response from the server under test (the hypervisor system), the client system, and the target.
7. Let the test server idle for 20 minutes.
8. Start the DVD Store driver on the client.
40. A Principled Technologies test report 40Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
We used the following DVD Store parameters for testing:
ds2sqlserverdriver.exe --target=<target_IP> --ramp_rate=10 --run_time=30 --
n_threads=12 --db_size=10GB --think_time=0.1 --detailed_view=Y --
warmup_time=15
About running the Iometer tests
1. Log into the Iometer machine.
2. Open the Iometer specification for the machine.
3. Click the start button.
4. After all access specifications finish running, remove the result files from the machine.
41. A Principled Technologies test report 41Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
APPENDIX C – DETAILED TEST RESULTS
Figure 17 shows the results of our database, mail, and file and print testing as well as power data for the Dell
PowerEdge VRTX with a Dell PowerEdge M830 server. The median run was determined by OPM.
Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830
server
Run 1 Run 2 Run 3 Median run
Power
Idle power (W) 390.9 389.4 390.3 389.4
Active power (W) 420.9 418.0 418.0 418.0
Database
Orders per minute 8,867 8,872 8,877 8,872
Mail
Average latency (ms) 2.9 2.9 3.0 2.9
File and print
IOPS 36.3 36.3 36.3 36.3
Figure 17: Detailed run results for the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with one Dell PowerEdge M830 server.
Figure 18 shows the results of our database, mail, and file and print testing as well as power data for the legacy
disparate hardware solution we tested. The median run was determined by OPM.
Legacy, disparate hardware Run 1 Run 2 Run 3 Median run
Power
Idle power (W) 660.2 671.4 662.9 671.4
Active power (W) 679.7 678.7 678.1 678.7
Database
Orders per minute 2,050 2,053 2,053 2,053
Mail
Average latency (ms) 1.22 1.4 1.5 1.4
File and print
IOPS 7.8 7.7 7.8 7.7
Figure 18: Detailed run results for the legacy disparate hardware solution from our testing.
42. A Principled Technologies test report 42Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
APPENDIX D – TCO CALCULATIONS
In this appendix, we estimate and compare five-year costs for the two solutions we tested in this report. Each
solution supports one SQL Server 2014 Standard Edition instance, one Microsoft Exchange 2013 Standard Edition
instance, and one instance for file/print—in three VMs on the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution and on individual servers in
the legacy solution.
Dell PowerEdge VRTX—we include acquisition costs and annual costs to run the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution
we tested in this report.
Legacy solution—we compared performance of the Dell PowerEdge VRTX to a set of three 4- to 5-year-old HP
servers, a shared HP storage array, and a switch. We estimate costs for this solution.
Assumptions
General
We use current U.S. dollars for all calculations.
We assume all tasks are executed by a system administrator earning in salary and benefits the equivalent of
$56.09 an hour.3
For the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution, we assume an existing VMware vCenter server that is not included in this
cost analysis.
We consider only the costs that are platform specific. We thus omit staff costs for tasks that would be common
to the two solutions and would require equal or similar effort and cost for the two solutions. These include the
cost of setting up and maintaining the SQL Server and Exchange databases, updating the operating system
versions, and updating the SQL server versions as updates become available over the five-year TCO timeframe.
We include only server licensing in this model and omit client access license costs and other client licensing.
For the legacy solution, we assume the business would repurpose legacy equipment from other uses, so it would
need to purchase software for both the legacy and VRTX solutions.
We include software license costs with acquisition costs and software support costs with annual costs.
We do not include datacenter costs such as space or build costs because we assume the company would install
these solutions in the main office or a branch office, not in a centralized enterprise data center.
Acquisition costs
Acquisition costs for both solutions include software licenses for Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft SQL
Server, and Microsoft Exchange Server. Costs for the Dell PowerEdge M830 server also include VMware vSphere
license costs.
Acquisition costs for the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution include hardware and five-year hardware support,
software licenses, and setup costs.
Acquisition costs for the Dell PowerEdge M830 server include the 29 percent discount available for this server
model in the Dell online store.
3
swz.salary.com/salarywizard/Systems-Administrator-II-Salary-
Details.aspx?hdcbxbonuse=off&isshowpiechart=true&isshowjobchart=false&isshowsalarydetailcharts=false&isshownextsteps=false
&isshowcompanyfct=false&isshowaboutyou=false
43. A Principled Technologies test report 43Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Yearly costs
Costs for both solutions include Microsoft Software Assurance costs, energy costs for power and cooling, and
hardware management costs.
We include costs to power and cool the solutions using power utilization measurements we made during
testing. We estimate cooling costs equal to power costs.
For the legacy solution, we assume the business purchases post-warranty hardware support each year from the
vendor for the servers and storage array. We include that in yearly costs, not acquisition costs.
We also include estimates of the cost of additional downtime for the aging legacy servers. We estimate
negligible downtime for VRTX and 10 hours per server per year for the older legacy servers. We estimate the
cost of that downtime at $300 an hour assuming a number of users are affected each time one of the servers
becomes unavailable.
Costs for the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution also include staff costs for the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution to
manage the VMware VSphere 5 virtualization.
Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution cost
Figure 19 shows the costs we calculated for the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution.
Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830
server
Unit
Cost per
unit
Quantity description Quantity Total cost
Acquisition costs
Hardware
Dell PowerEdge VRTX
platform
Platform with
29% discount
$20,891 One VRTX 1 $20,891
Dell PowerEdge M820 blade
server
Server with 29%
discount
$28,089 One blade 1 $28,089
Software licenses
Windows Server 2012
Standard Edition (Software
Assurance)
Each server with
up to two
processors. Up to
two VMs per
license.
$883
One server with four
processors requires a
license pack for each
VM.
10 $8,830
Microsoft SQL Server 2014
Standard (Software
Assurance)
One license per
SQL VM
$898
One SQL Server VM
for each legacy SQL
server
4 $3,592
Microsoft Exchange Server
2013 (Software Assurance)
One license per
Exchange VM
$708
Two Exchange VMs
per legacy exchange
server
2 $1,416
VMware vSphere 5 Standard
Basic support
One per
processor
$995
Number of
processors
4 $3,980
Setup Cost per hour $56 Number of hours 12 $673
Total acquisition costs $44,000
44. A Principled Technologies test report 44Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830
server
Unit
Cost per
unit
Quantity description Quantity Total cost
Annual costs
Software support
Windows Server 2012
Standard Edition (Software
Assurance)
Each server with
up to two
processors
$221
One server with four
processors requires a
license pack for each
VM.
10 $2,210
Microsoft SQL Server 2012
Standard (Software
Assurance)
One license per
SQL VM
$225
One SQL Server VM
for each legacy SQL
server
4 $898
Microsoft Exchange Server
2013 (Software Assurance)
One server $177
Two Exchange VMs
per legacy exchange
server
2 $354
VMware vSphere 5 Standard
Basic support
One per
processor per
year
$273
Number of
processors
4 $1,092
Energy cost for power and
cooling Platform $759
One VRTX 1 $759
Hardware management Cost per hour $56 Number hours 12 $673
VMware management Cost per hour $56 Number hours 24 $1,346
Total annual costs $7,332
Average cost per month $611
Figure 19: Cost analysis for the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with one Dell PowerEdge M830 server. (Totals may not sum due to
rounding.)
45. A Principled Technologies test report 45Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Legacy solution costs
Figure 20 shows the costs we calculated for the legacy solution.
Legacy costs Unit
Cost per
unit
Quantity description Quantity Total cost
Acquisition costs
Software licenses
Windows Server 2012
Standard Edition (processor
licenses)
Each server with
up to two
processors. Up to
two VMs per
license.
$883
Servers with one or
two processors each
9 $7,947
Microsoft SQL Server 2012
Standard (processor licenses)
One server $898
Servers with SQL
installed
4 $3,592
Microsoft Exchange Server
2013 Standard (server
licenses)
One server $708
Servers with
Exchange
1 $708
Setup
Cost per hour $56 Number hours 36 $2,019
Total acquisition costs $14,266
Annual costs
Support
Windows Server 2012
Standard Edition (Software
Assurance)
Each server with
up to two
processors
$221
Servers with one or
two processors each
9 $1,989
Microsoft SQL Server 2012
Standard (Software
Assurance)
One server $225
Servers with SQL
installed
4 $898
Microsoft Exchange 2013
Standard (Software
Assurance)
One server $177
Server with Exchange
installed
1 $177
Hardware support - SQL
Server
HP extended
support
agreement with
one year term for
one server
$338 One year 4 $1,352
Hardware support -
Exchange server
HP extended
support
agreement with
one year term for
one server
$986 One year 1 $986
Hardware support - File
server
HP extended
support
agreement with
one year term for
one server
$214 One year 4 $856
46. A Principled Technologies test report 46Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
Legacy costs Unit
Cost per
unit
Quantity description Quantity Total cost
Hardware support - storage
array
HP extended
support
agreement with
one year term for
one server
$1,553 One year 1 $1,553
Energy cost for power and
cooling
Legacy
configuration
$2,401 One year 1 $2,401
Hardware management
Per solution $50
Estimate at two
hours a month per
server + one hour a
month for storage
array per year
228 $11,400
Downtime cost
Per hour
downtime cost
$300
Each server down for
multiple hours a year
54 $16,200
Legacy annual costs $37,812
Average cost per month $3,151
Figure 20: Cost analysis for the legacy solution. (Totals may not sum due to rounding.)
47. A Principled Technologies test report 47Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with
one Dell PowerEdge M830 server vs. a legacy solution
ABOUT PRINCIPLED TECHNOLOGIES
Principled Technologies, Inc.
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Durham, NC, 27703
www.principledtechnologies.com
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