Many growing businesses employ a combination of HDDs and SSDs in their datacenters to provide storage for users. Software-defined storage additions, such as Windows Storage Spaces, can help improve workload performance by using tiering and caching technologies with enabling hardware. When combined with this software, the new Intel processor-powered Dell PowerEdge R730xd can provide storage support for the increasing workload performance of your business. We found that the PowerEdge R730xd provided support for 16.5 times more file server IOPS, and up to 94.7 lower latency, than the PowerEdge R720xd. If your business needs storage and performance to support its growth, consider the new Dell PowerEdge R730xd.
Database server comparison: Dell PowerEdge R630 vs. Lenovo ThinkServer RD550Principled Technologies
We tested the OLTP performance of a 1U Dell PowerEdge R630, powered by Intel Xeon processors E5-2660 v3, running Microsoft Hyper-V and virtual machines running SQL Server 2014, and compared it to that of the Lenovo ThinkServer RD550 running the same software. For each server, we selected the maximum SATA SSD count that was configurable for each model. The Dell PowerEdge R630 outperformed the Lenovo ThinkServer RD550 by 14.9 percent and offered more than one and a half times the storage space for data in our configuration.
By selecting a server that handles more orders per minute and offers significantly more storage capacity potential than the competition, you get a not only faster, efficient experience for your database users, but also have the scaling potential for your storage needs ahead of your business growing.
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.
In the Principled Technologies labs, the space-efficient FX2 solution enabled with SanDisk DAS Cache supported over four times as many VMs than the Dell PowerEdge R820 with CacheCade supported. Because each VM delivered greater performance, this FX2 solution delivered up to 43 times the total performance of a Dell PowerEdge R820 server.
Consolidating your Dell PowerEdge R820 servers onto with a new Dell PowerEdge FX2 enclosure with an FC830 server, powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 v3, and FD332 storage blocks using SanDisk DAS Cache can give you a significant performance boost while saving precious data center space. A company can optimize precious data center space by replacing older servers with the Dell PowerEdge FX2 converged architecture, which takes up just 2U, and simultaneously achieve greater VM performance.
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.
Whether you’re looking for the highest possible performance per rack unit or the strongest RAS-enabled server to run your mission-critical databases, Dell has a server to meet your needs. Factors such as performance per rack, expansion capabilities, and flash storage options will also drive your server decision.
In our hands-on tests, we found that the Dell PowerEdge R820 server could handle up to 382,397 database orders per minute and had 73.6 percent greater performance per U of rack space than the R910.
The Dell PowerEdge R910 processed 440,475 OPM. Its high number of logical processors, maximum expansion capabilities, and support for RAS technologies make the Dell PowerEdge R910 an excellent choice for your mission-critical data center applications.
The new Dell PowerEdge R720 comes with more than just the power to handle your heavy mixed workloads – it offers many storage solutions to deliver the level of performance you need. In our tests, we found that that a configuration of all HDDs could support a total of 1,164 users accessing database, mail, and collaboration applications. The Dell PowerEdge R720 solution with CacheCade enabled increased the supported number of users to 2,929, an increase of 151.6 percent. Finally, the Hybrid solution increased the number of users to 7,574, or an increase of 550.7 percent over the HDD solution, providing you with numerous options and scalability to get the performance you need.
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.
Database server comparison: Dell PowerEdge R630 vs. Lenovo ThinkServer RD550Principled Technologies
We tested the OLTP performance of a 1U Dell PowerEdge R630, powered by Intel Xeon processors E5-2660 v3, running Microsoft Hyper-V and virtual machines running SQL Server 2014, and compared it to that of the Lenovo ThinkServer RD550 running the same software. For each server, we selected the maximum SATA SSD count that was configurable for each model. The Dell PowerEdge R630 outperformed the Lenovo ThinkServer RD550 by 14.9 percent and offered more than one and a half times the storage space for data in our configuration.
By selecting a server that handles more orders per minute and offers significantly more storage capacity potential than the competition, you get a not only faster, efficient experience for your database users, but also have the scaling potential for your storage needs ahead of your business growing.
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.
In the Principled Technologies labs, the space-efficient FX2 solution enabled with SanDisk DAS Cache supported over four times as many VMs than the Dell PowerEdge R820 with CacheCade supported. Because each VM delivered greater performance, this FX2 solution delivered up to 43 times the total performance of a Dell PowerEdge R820 server.
Consolidating your Dell PowerEdge R820 servers onto with a new Dell PowerEdge FX2 enclosure with an FC830 server, powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 v3, and FD332 storage blocks using SanDisk DAS Cache can give you a significant performance boost while saving precious data center space. A company can optimize precious data center space by replacing older servers with the Dell PowerEdge FX2 converged architecture, which takes up just 2U, and simultaneously achieve greater VM performance.
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.
Whether you’re looking for the highest possible performance per rack unit or the strongest RAS-enabled server to run your mission-critical databases, Dell has a server to meet your needs. Factors such as performance per rack, expansion capabilities, and flash storage options will also drive your server decision.
In our hands-on tests, we found that the Dell PowerEdge R820 server could handle up to 382,397 database orders per minute and had 73.6 percent greater performance per U of rack space than the R910.
The Dell PowerEdge R910 processed 440,475 OPM. Its high number of logical processors, maximum expansion capabilities, and support for RAS technologies make the Dell PowerEdge R910 an excellent choice for your mission-critical data center applications.
The new Dell PowerEdge R720 comes with more than just the power to handle your heavy mixed workloads – it offers many storage solutions to deliver the level of performance you need. In our tests, we found that that a configuration of all HDDs could support a total of 1,164 users accessing database, mail, and collaboration applications. The Dell PowerEdge R720 solution with CacheCade enabled increased the supported number of users to 2,929, an increase of 151.6 percent. Finally, the Hybrid solution increased the number of users to 7,574, or an increase of 550.7 percent over the HDD solution, providing you with numerous options and scalability to get the performance you need.
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.
Learn about the features that can help you modernize your mission critical applications, where security and performance can go hand in hand. From the wide range of SQL Server features available, we will take a closer look at In-Memory performance, Automatic Tuning, Advanced Security Features like Always Encrypted, Polybase and integration with Machine Learning through R and Python.
Being able to do without expensive and cumbersome external storage arrays can only benefit your organization. With Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs, you can get powerful virtualized database performance for all your production databases from within your server.
In our tests, the Dell PowerEdge R720 with Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs was able to support up to 328,774 orders per minute. Comparing these results to previously published test results for a differently configured R720 server shows that the PowerEdge R720 with Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs delivered exceptional virtualized database performance.
When we ran a separate test routing the reads and writes to disk by using significantly less RAM, the PowerEdgeR720 with PCIe Express Flash SSDs delivered similar high performance levels. Testing with these reduced amounts of memory demonstrated the ability of Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs to successfully drive database performance without relying solely on memory for performance.
For database applications in a virtualized infrastructure, the Dell PowerEdge R720 with Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs can provide you the performance you need without the costs and hassles of external storage with a large number of disks.
Better email response time using Microsoft Exchange 2013 with the Dell PowerE...Principled Technologies
In a market where servers can seem the same at a glance, look for the differences. Your email infrastructure choices will directly affect end-user experience for your UC&C applications. Equipped with more drives in its extra drive slots, the Dell PowerEdge R730xd delivered 31.7 percent better Exchange 2013 response times than a similarly configured, current-generation Supermicro server did. With better Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 response times, the PowerEdge R730xd can help deliver an improved experience for users in your organization.
With Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs, you can get powerful performance for your databases from using internal storage. In our tests, the Dell PowerEdge R820 with four Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs was able to support a maximum of 2,592 TPS, equal to that of a database cached in memory, which performed 2,555 TPS with the same system load.
For critical database applications, the Dell PowerEdge R820 with Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs can provide you the performance you need without the hassles of external storage with a large number of disks.
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.
Populating your data center with new, more powerful and energy efficient servers can deliver numerous benefits to your organization. By consolidating multiple older servers onto a new platform, you can save in the areas of data center space and port costs, management costs, and power and cooling costs.
In our tests, we found that the Lenovo ThinkServer RD630 could consolidate the workloads of three HP ProLiant DL385 G5 servers, while increasing overall performance by 82.6 percent and reducing power consumption by 58.8 percent, making the ThinkServer RD630 an excellent choice to reduce the costs associated with running your data center.
Boosting virtualization performance with Intel SSD DC Series P3600 NVMe SSDs ...Principled Technologies
When it comes time to make your server purchase or if you’re looking for an easy way to boost performance of existing infrastructure, consider upgrading your server’s internal storage. As our hands-on tests with a Dell EMC PowerEdge R630 environment running VMware Virtual SAN proved, Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SSDs could increase virtualized mixed-workload performance by as much as 59.9 percent compared to SATA SSDs while allowing you to run a large additional number of VMs. When you improve performance for your virtualized workloads, your employees and customers will benefit. By increasing performance with Intel NVMe SSDs on your Dell EMC PowerEdge R630 servers, you can potentially slash wait times and do more work on your servers without having to expand your infrastructure with additional storage arrays, which can translate to happier users and a more efficient infrastructure.
Effectively delivering computing resources for office workers via VDI requires powerful servers. The new 14th generation Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd server with three NVIDIA Tesla M10 GPUs and powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors supported 1.5 times as many VDI sessions as the previous-generation PowerEdge R730 server with two Tesla GPUs did. What’s more, it achieved this increase without using any additional rack space. If your organization is using a VDI solution or considering implementing one, the Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd can allow you to support more workers in 2U than the older-generation option.
Dell PowerEdge M520 server solution: Energy efficiency and database performancePrincipled Technologies
As energy prices continue to rise, building a power-efficient data center that does not sacrifice performance is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down while keeping application performance high. Choosing servers that pair high performance with new power-efficient technologies helps you do so. In our tests, the Dell PowerEdge M520 with Dell EqualLogic PS-M4110 arrays outperformed the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 server with HP StorageWorks D2200sb arrays by 113.5 percent in OPM. Not only did the Dell PowerEdge M520 blade server solution deliver higher overall performance, it also did so more efficiently, delivering 79.9 percent better database performance/watt than the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 solution.
This eight page technical report documents a series of tests that demonstrate the benefits of using large amounts of server memory for a large-scale Decision Support System workload on an eX5 platform
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.
Comparing desktop drive performance: Seagate Solid State Hybrid Drive vs. har...Principled Technologies
In our tests, the Seagate SSHD configuration outperformed all three hard drive configurations and delivered results comparable to a Seagate Client SSD configuration. It launched applications as much as 23.7 percent more quickly and delivered disk performance increases of up to 387.3 percent over the HDDs we tested.
By speeding up the tasks that users perform day in and day out, the Seagate Solid State Hybrid Drive can boost productivity and let you spend more of your day working and less of it waiting—without forcing you to choose between speed and storage capacity.
Get insight from document-based distributed MongoDB databases sooner and have...Principled Technologies
With additional drive bays and 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, Dell EMC PowerEdge R640 servers handled more Yahoo Cloud Serving Benchmark (YCSB) operations per second than previous-generation servers and handled them more efficiently
Power efficiency and cost: AMD Opteron 6300 series processor-based Dell Power...Principled Technologies
With advances in processing power, it’s now possible to upgrade your older 4U, four-socket servers to newer and more powerful 2U, four-socket servers and achieve powerful performance. Additionally, the servers you select should provide the high performance levels you expect while simultaneously providing great purchase cost value and maximizing performance per watt, in an effort to keep your data center costs low.
In our tests, we found that the AMD Opteron processor Model 6380-powered Dell PowerEdge R815 provided similar performance to its competitor, the HP ProLiant DL560 Gen8, while providing benefits in the realms of power-efficiency and value. The Dell PowerEdge R815 delivered a 47.4 percent lower per-VM cost than the HP ProLiant DL560 Gen8, while delivering 15.8 percent more OPM per watt than the HP server did.
Due to these possible savings with the Dell solution, we found that the AMD Opteron processor Model 6380-powered Dell PowerEdge R815 could deliver up to an 28.8 percent lower three-year TCO than the HP ProLiant DL560 Gen8.
What’s Dell PowerVault and what products does it include? What’s special about Dell PowerVault DL2100: Powered by Symantec Backup Exec and its alternative?
Raid the redundant array of independent disks technology overviewIT Tech
RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a technology allowing a higher level of storage reliability and performance from disk-drive components via the technique of arranging them into arrays.
A RAID array is a configuration with multiple physical disks set up to use RAID architecture like RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, etc. While the RAID array distributes data across multiple disks, it is considered as a single disk by the server operating system.
Learn more...
Deduplication without performance hits: Intel Xeon processor E5-2697v2-powere...Principled Technologies
Backing up business data with deduplication has the potential to clog network resources and slow down performance for your customers. Servers with powerful processors are crucial to running an efficient and secure infrastructure. We found that a Dell PowerEdge R720xd server powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v2 Series successfully overcame this hurdle in our tests. When we used NetVault Backup to dedupe and back up data while running database workloads, performance did not slow down. The Dell solution using source-based deduplication reduced backup storage space used by 39 times and reduced application server network traffic by 70.5 percent when compared with a traditional backup method. Strong processor and server combinations, such as the one we tested, can keep your business moving swiftly and save resources as you back up your data to keep it safe.
As this guide has shown, if your business could benefit from using a hyperconverged computer/storage solution rather than disparate dedicated appliances, a Nutanix storage cluster powered by Dell XC630 appliances could be the right way to go. Able to handle nine SQL Server 2014 OLTP workloads at over 340,000 OPM, 200 mailboxes in Microsoft Exchange 2013, as well as file/print and web server disk workloads, the powerful Dell appliances with the help of Intel processors can keep up with your current business, with room to grow in the future. With software-defined tiered storage, high availability, and a redundant network architecture, the small form factor of the Dell XC630 appliances can help keep your business moving.
Database performance: Dell PowerEdge R730xd vs. Lenovo ThinkServer RD650Principled Technologies
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 users, take note. In our datacenter, we found that the Dell PowerEdge R730xd server based on the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family with the Intel SSD DC S3610 Series handled up to 27.9 percent more orders per minute than the Lenovo ThinkServer RD650 did. With three times the SSDs, the PowerEdge R730xd delivered better response times—up to 24.6 percent for application latency and up to 93.1 percent for disk latency—than the ThinkServer RD650. Getting more performance per server and better response times means you can give customers a better, faster ecommerce experience. This can allow you to buy, store, and power fewer servers, helping stretch your IT budget further.
Boosting performance with the Dell Acceleration Appliance for DatabasesPrincipled Technologies
If your business is expanding and you need to support more users accessing your databases, it’s time to act. Upgrading your database infrastructure with a flash storage-based solution is a smart way to improve performance without adding more servers or taking up very much rack space, which comes at a premium. The Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases addresses this by providing strong performance when combined with your existing infrastructure or on its own.
We found that adding a highly available DAAD solution to our database application provided up to 3.01 times the Oracle Database 12c performance, which can make a big difference to your bottom line. Additionally, the DAAD delivered 3.14 times the database performance when replacing traditional storage completely, which could enable your infrastructure to keep up with your growing business’ needs.
Learn about the features that can help you modernize your mission critical applications, where security and performance can go hand in hand. From the wide range of SQL Server features available, we will take a closer look at In-Memory performance, Automatic Tuning, Advanced Security Features like Always Encrypted, Polybase and integration with Machine Learning through R and Python.
Being able to do without expensive and cumbersome external storage arrays can only benefit your organization. With Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs, you can get powerful virtualized database performance for all your production databases from within your server.
In our tests, the Dell PowerEdge R720 with Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs was able to support up to 328,774 orders per minute. Comparing these results to previously published test results for a differently configured R720 server shows that the PowerEdge R720 with Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs delivered exceptional virtualized database performance.
When we ran a separate test routing the reads and writes to disk by using significantly less RAM, the PowerEdgeR720 with PCIe Express Flash SSDs delivered similar high performance levels. Testing with these reduced amounts of memory demonstrated the ability of Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs to successfully drive database performance without relying solely on memory for performance.
For database applications in a virtualized infrastructure, the Dell PowerEdge R720 with Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs can provide you the performance you need without the costs and hassles of external storage with a large number of disks.
Better email response time using Microsoft Exchange 2013 with the Dell PowerE...Principled Technologies
In a market where servers can seem the same at a glance, look for the differences. Your email infrastructure choices will directly affect end-user experience for your UC&C applications. Equipped with more drives in its extra drive slots, the Dell PowerEdge R730xd delivered 31.7 percent better Exchange 2013 response times than a similarly configured, current-generation Supermicro server did. With better Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 response times, the PowerEdge R730xd can help deliver an improved experience for users in your organization.
With Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs, you can get powerful performance for your databases from using internal storage. In our tests, the Dell PowerEdge R820 with four Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs was able to support a maximum of 2,592 TPS, equal to that of a database cached in memory, which performed 2,555 TPS with the same system load.
For critical database applications, the Dell PowerEdge R820 with Dell PCIe Express Flash SSDs can provide you the performance you need without the hassles of external storage with a large number of disks.
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.
Populating your data center with new, more powerful and energy efficient servers can deliver numerous benefits to your organization. By consolidating multiple older servers onto a new platform, you can save in the areas of data center space and port costs, management costs, and power and cooling costs.
In our tests, we found that the Lenovo ThinkServer RD630 could consolidate the workloads of three HP ProLiant DL385 G5 servers, while increasing overall performance by 82.6 percent and reducing power consumption by 58.8 percent, making the ThinkServer RD630 an excellent choice to reduce the costs associated with running your data center.
Boosting virtualization performance with Intel SSD DC Series P3600 NVMe SSDs ...Principled Technologies
When it comes time to make your server purchase or if you’re looking for an easy way to boost performance of existing infrastructure, consider upgrading your server’s internal storage. As our hands-on tests with a Dell EMC PowerEdge R630 environment running VMware Virtual SAN proved, Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SSDs could increase virtualized mixed-workload performance by as much as 59.9 percent compared to SATA SSDs while allowing you to run a large additional number of VMs. When you improve performance for your virtualized workloads, your employees and customers will benefit. By increasing performance with Intel NVMe SSDs on your Dell EMC PowerEdge R630 servers, you can potentially slash wait times and do more work on your servers without having to expand your infrastructure with additional storage arrays, which can translate to happier users and a more efficient infrastructure.
Effectively delivering computing resources for office workers via VDI requires powerful servers. The new 14th generation Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd server with three NVIDIA Tesla M10 GPUs and powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors supported 1.5 times as many VDI sessions as the previous-generation PowerEdge R730 server with two Tesla GPUs did. What’s more, it achieved this increase without using any additional rack space. If your organization is using a VDI solution or considering implementing one, the Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd can allow you to support more workers in 2U than the older-generation option.
Dell PowerEdge M520 server solution: Energy efficiency and database performancePrincipled Technologies
As energy prices continue to rise, building a power-efficient data center that does not sacrifice performance is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down while keeping application performance high. Choosing servers that pair high performance with new power-efficient technologies helps you do so. In our tests, the Dell PowerEdge M520 with Dell EqualLogic PS-M4110 arrays outperformed the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 server with HP StorageWorks D2200sb arrays by 113.5 percent in OPM. Not only did the Dell PowerEdge M520 blade server solution deliver higher overall performance, it also did so more efficiently, delivering 79.9 percent better database performance/watt than the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 solution.
This eight page technical report documents a series of tests that demonstrate the benefits of using large amounts of server memory for a large-scale Decision Support System workload on an eX5 platform
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.
Comparing desktop drive performance: Seagate Solid State Hybrid Drive vs. har...Principled Technologies
In our tests, the Seagate SSHD configuration outperformed all three hard drive configurations and delivered results comparable to a Seagate Client SSD configuration. It launched applications as much as 23.7 percent more quickly and delivered disk performance increases of up to 387.3 percent over the HDDs we tested.
By speeding up the tasks that users perform day in and day out, the Seagate Solid State Hybrid Drive can boost productivity and let you spend more of your day working and less of it waiting—without forcing you to choose between speed and storage capacity.
Get insight from document-based distributed MongoDB databases sooner and have...Principled Technologies
With additional drive bays and 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, Dell EMC PowerEdge R640 servers handled more Yahoo Cloud Serving Benchmark (YCSB) operations per second than previous-generation servers and handled them more efficiently
Power efficiency and cost: AMD Opteron 6300 series processor-based Dell Power...Principled Technologies
With advances in processing power, it’s now possible to upgrade your older 4U, four-socket servers to newer and more powerful 2U, four-socket servers and achieve powerful performance. Additionally, the servers you select should provide the high performance levels you expect while simultaneously providing great purchase cost value and maximizing performance per watt, in an effort to keep your data center costs low.
In our tests, we found that the AMD Opteron processor Model 6380-powered Dell PowerEdge R815 provided similar performance to its competitor, the HP ProLiant DL560 Gen8, while providing benefits in the realms of power-efficiency and value. The Dell PowerEdge R815 delivered a 47.4 percent lower per-VM cost than the HP ProLiant DL560 Gen8, while delivering 15.8 percent more OPM per watt than the HP server did.
Due to these possible savings with the Dell solution, we found that the AMD Opteron processor Model 6380-powered Dell PowerEdge R815 could deliver up to an 28.8 percent lower three-year TCO than the HP ProLiant DL560 Gen8.
What’s Dell PowerVault and what products does it include? What’s special about Dell PowerVault DL2100: Powered by Symantec Backup Exec and its alternative?
Raid the redundant array of independent disks technology overviewIT Tech
RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a technology allowing a higher level of storage reliability and performance from disk-drive components via the technique of arranging them into arrays.
A RAID array is a configuration with multiple physical disks set up to use RAID architecture like RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, etc. While the RAID array distributes data across multiple disks, it is considered as a single disk by the server operating system.
Learn more...
Deduplication without performance hits: Intel Xeon processor E5-2697v2-powere...Principled Technologies
Backing up business data with deduplication has the potential to clog network resources and slow down performance for your customers. Servers with powerful processors are crucial to running an efficient and secure infrastructure. We found that a Dell PowerEdge R720xd server powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v2 Series successfully overcame this hurdle in our tests. When we used NetVault Backup to dedupe and back up data while running database workloads, performance did not slow down. The Dell solution using source-based deduplication reduced backup storage space used by 39 times and reduced application server network traffic by 70.5 percent when compared with a traditional backup method. Strong processor and server combinations, such as the one we tested, can keep your business moving swiftly and save resources as you back up your data to keep it safe.
As this guide has shown, if your business could benefit from using a hyperconverged computer/storage solution rather than disparate dedicated appliances, a Nutanix storage cluster powered by Dell XC630 appliances could be the right way to go. Able to handle nine SQL Server 2014 OLTP workloads at over 340,000 OPM, 200 mailboxes in Microsoft Exchange 2013, as well as file/print and web server disk workloads, the powerful Dell appliances with the help of Intel processors can keep up with your current business, with room to grow in the future. With software-defined tiered storage, high availability, and a redundant network architecture, the small form factor of the Dell XC630 appliances can help keep your business moving.
Database performance: Dell PowerEdge R730xd vs. Lenovo ThinkServer RD650Principled Technologies
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 users, take note. In our datacenter, we found that the Dell PowerEdge R730xd server based on the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family with the Intel SSD DC S3610 Series handled up to 27.9 percent more orders per minute than the Lenovo ThinkServer RD650 did. With three times the SSDs, the PowerEdge R730xd delivered better response times—up to 24.6 percent for application latency and up to 93.1 percent for disk latency—than the ThinkServer RD650. Getting more performance per server and better response times means you can give customers a better, faster ecommerce experience. This can allow you to buy, store, and power fewer servers, helping stretch your IT budget further.
Boosting performance with the Dell Acceleration Appliance for DatabasesPrincipled Technologies
If your business is expanding and you need to support more users accessing your databases, it’s time to act. Upgrading your database infrastructure with a flash storage-based solution is a smart way to improve performance without adding more servers or taking up very much rack space, which comes at a premium. The Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases addresses this by providing strong performance when combined with your existing infrastructure or on its own.
We found that adding a highly available DAAD solution to our database application provided up to 3.01 times the Oracle Database 12c performance, which can make a big difference to your bottom line. Additionally, the DAAD delivered 3.14 times the database performance when replacing traditional storage completely, which could enable your infrastructure to keep up with your growing business’ needs.
Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SS...Principled Technologies
If your organization runs critical, high-demand databases in environments such as Oracle Database, strong performance is not an option: it’s a must-have. Additionally, getting that necessary strong performance out of a single server can be essential for running a space and cost-efficient datacenter. In the Principled Technologies labs, we found that the Dell PowerEdge R930 offered strong performance for such transactional databases when configured with SATA SSDs. When we upgraded the servers to Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SSDs, performance doubled, increasing by 2.17 times, or 117 percent. If your datacenter needs a new powerhouse server, purchasing your Dell PowerEdge R930 with Intel NVMe SSDs for a cost increase of only 18 percent can double the performance you get from each server. This increases what your infrastructure can do within the same amount of space and lets you ultimately save money that would otherwise be spent purchasing additional servers and software.
Dell PowerEdge R930 with Oracle: The benefits of upgrading to PCIe storage us...Principled Technologies
Strong server performance is essential to companies running Oracle Database. The new Dell PowerEdge R930 provided strong performance with 22 SAS HDDs, but this performance improved when we replaced all of the drives with SAS solid-state drives. It improved further when we used a mix of HDDs and SDDs along with SanDisk DAS Cache. We saw the greatest performance boost when we used eight PCIe SSDs with SanDisk DAS Cache. The upgraded configuration of the Dell PowerEdge R930 with PCIe SSDs and SanDisk DAS Cache delivered 11.1 times the database performance of the all-HDD configuration. This makes the new Dell PowerEdge R930 a powerful platform with scalable storage options that can potentially translate into significant service improvements for your business and your customers, which helps in maximizing ROI.
Dell PowerEdge R930 with Oracle: The benefits of upgrading to Samsung NVMe PC...Principled Technologies
Strong server performance is essential to companies running Oracle Database. The new Dell PowerEdge R930 provided strong performance with 22 SAS HDDs, but this performance improved when we replaced all of the drives with SAS solid-state drives. It improved further when we used a mix of HDDs and SDDs along with a caching solution. We saw the greatest performance boost when we used eight Samsung-powered NVMe PCIe SSDs. The upgraded configurations of the Dell PowerEdge R930 with Samsung-powered NVMe PCIe SSDs delivered up to 13.9 times the database performance of the all-HDD configuration. This makes the new Dell PowerEdge R930 a powerful platform with scalable storage options that can potentially translate into significant service improvements for your business and your customers, which helps in maximizing ROI.
Scalability: Lenovo ThinkServer RD540 system and Lenovo ThinkServer SA120 sto...Principled Technologies
Enterprises and SMBs need servers that can provide reliable performance with the ability to scale out to match growth. The Lenovo ThinkServer RD540 and the ThinkServer SA120 DAS array can run transactional applications such as Microsoft Exchange Server while providing scalable storage to support these critical workloads. We found that in the HDD configuration, the ThinkServer RD540 and ThinkServer SA120 DAS device provided support for 3,800 Exchange users. When we added just two Intel 400GB SSDs as a CacheCade volume, the ThinkServer RD540 and ThinkServer SA120 not only supported 5,300 users—a 39.5 percent increase—but did so while improving response time 33.9 percent.
Dell PowerEdge R720 rack server solutions for virtual desktop infrastructures Principled Technologies
Getting more value out of your servers is a smart way to reduce datacenter and VDI costs. In our tests, the Dell PowerEdge R720 server not only cost up to 5.4 percent less per user than the HP server, it also consumed 3.8 percent less power per virtual desktop user than the HP server when running workloads. When extrapolated over an entire rack of servers and with datacenters full of these racks, the potential savings both in hardware costs and in power costs could be dramatic.
Dell PowerEdge R920 running Oracle Database: Benefits of upgrading with NVMe ...Principled Technologies
Strong server performance is essential to companies running Oracle Database. The new Dell PowerEdge R920 provides strong performance in its base configuration with 24 SAS hard disks, but this performance gets an enormous boost when running the configuration containing NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs. In our testing, the upgraded configuration of the Dell PowerEdge R920 delivered 14.9 times the database performance of the base configuration. In addition, in testing the raw I/O throughput of the NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs, we saw as much as 192.8 times the IOPS as compared to the base configuration. Given that the storage subsystem is critical in servers and specifically database applications, the performance improvements offered by NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs can lead to great service improvements for your customers, making this upgrade a very wise investment.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Handle more Oracle transactions and support more VMs with the Dell PowerEdge ...Principled Technologies
Compared to the HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen9 with Smart Array P440ar Controller
If your organization runs Oracle Database for OLTP workloads, moving to a Dell PowerEdge R7625 with PERC 12 could be a choice that improves your overall performance and allows you to consolidate your data center hardware. In our tests, the PowerEdge R7625 with PERC 12 delivered 6.3 times the total NOPM and supported 2.5 times the number of VMs the HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen9 server did. By harnessing the power of the latest in RAID controller technology, the PowerEdge R7625 can provide an upgraded Oracle Database experience compared to the competitor we tested.
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.
Similar to File server performance on the Intel processor-powered Dell PowerEdge R730xd with hybrid storage (20)
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.
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.
Improving database performance and value with an easy migration to Azure Data...Principled Technologies
Migrating from Azure Database for MySQL – Single Server to a Flexible Server solution was quick and provided performance and cost benefits
Don’t put off migrating your databases from Azure Database for MySQL – Single Server until the last minute—which is September 2024, when the service will end. Our hands-on testing shows that moving to Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server is a simple process that can actually improve your overall database performance and offer better value. With as much as 117 percent better OLTP performance on sysbench and up to 266 percent better performance per dollar, migrating your database to Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server with AMD EPYC processors can help you serve more database users and potentially improve your operating budget compared to the expiring Single Server option.
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.
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Securing your Kubernetes cluster_ a step-by-step guide to success !KatiaHIMEUR1
Today, after several years of existence, an extremely active community and an ultra-dynamic ecosystem, Kubernetes has established itself as the de facto standard in container orchestration. Thanks to a wide range of managed services, it has never been so easy to set up a ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster.
However, this ease of use means that the subject of security in Kubernetes is often left for later, or even neglected. This exposes companies to significant risks.
In this talk, I'll show you step-by-step how to secure your Kubernetes cluster for greater peace of mind and reliability.
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
DevOps and Testing slides at DASA ConnectKari Kakkonen
My and Rik Marselis slides at 30.5.2024 DASA Connect conference. We discuss about what is testing, then what is agile testing and finally what is Testing in DevOps. Finally we had lovely workshop with the participants trying to find out different ways to think about quality and testing in different parts of the DevOps infinity loop.
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
GenAISummit 2024 May 28 Sri Ambati Keynote: AGI Belongs to The Community in O...
File server performance on the Intel processor-powered Dell PowerEdge R730xd with hybrid storage
1. FILE SERVER PERFORMANCE ON THE INTEL PROCESSOR-POWERED
DELL POWEREDGE R730XD WITH HYBRID STORAGE
AUGUST 2014 (Revised)
A PRINCIPLED TECHNOLOGIES TEST REPORT
Commissioned by Dell
Storage constraints in your datacenter can put unnecessary limits on workload
performance and affect user experience. To balance workload reliability, performance,
and cost, IT admins must often configure a combination of hard-disk drives (HDDs) and
solid-state drives (SSDs) in the datacenter. With software-defined storage offerings such
as Microsoft® Windows® Storage Spaces, IT admins can pool these storage resources
together using flexible storage options in the new Dell PowerEdge R730xd, powered by
the Intel Xeon E5-2690 v3 processor. The result is a solution that, in our tests, delivered
improved file server performance for a potentially better user experience than with
prior generation solutions.
In the Principled Technologies labs, we tested file server-like performance of the
new Intel processor-powered Dell PowerEdge R730xd hybrid chassis, which combines
flash storage with high capacity HDDs, in conjunction with Microsoft Windows Storage
Spaces. We found that the PowerEdge R730xd with Microsoft Storage Spaces achieved
17.5 times the I/O operations per second (IOPS) of a previous-generation PowerEdge
R720xd server. In addition, the PowerEdge R730xd delivered up to 94.7 percent better
response times than the PowerEdge R720xd server did. With better I/O performance
than the previous-generation server and better response times for a better user
experience, the Intel processor-powered Dell PowerEdge R730xd with Windows Storage
Spaces can provide a reliable storage solution for your datacenter.
2. A Principled Technologies test report 2File server performance on the Intel processor-powered
Dell PowerEdge R730xd with hybrid storage
FINDING THE RIGHT STORAGE COMBINATION
There are many storage options to match the heavy movement of data in and
out of your business’ datacenter. SSDs have become popular for increasing performance
without sacrificing storage space. No single solution fits every organization, however, so
IT admins employ different strategies based on infrastructure design, function, and size.
A key priority is to always maintain—or better yet increase—workload performance.
To help maintain or increase workload performance, Windows Server® 2012
offers Storage Spaces for storage pooling. Virtual drives can create these storage spaces
by grouping storage, such as from HDDs and SSDs, together in a storage pool. This
allows flexibility for the creation of large storage spaces when needed and, if pool
capacity is low, the addition of drives. When admins group HDDs and SSDs together on
the Intel processor-powered Dell PowerEdge R730xd, Microsoft Storage Spaces offers
automatic storage tiering, optimizing performance by automatically rearranging data so
that frequently accessed “hot” data is processed by the faster 1.8” SATA SSDs while the
“cold” data remains stored on the slower HDDs.
To learn about how the Dell PowerEdge R730xd can improve file server
performance, we conducted a series of tests using Iometer. The sections below review
our tests and results in detail.
WHAT WE FOUND
In simulating file server performance, we created a 1TB file with Iometer and
tested the following:
Dell PowerEdge R720xd with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows file
share services with all 24 HDDs in a RAID10 volume
Dell PowerEdge R730xd with Windows Server 2012 R2 with file share
services and a tiered Windows Storage Spaces volume containing all eight
front-plane 3.5″ HDDs and 18 1.8″ SATA SSDs
Each run had 2-minute ramp-up times and 20-minute run times, and each
worker had a queue depth of four. We report the median results. For more information
about our Iometer configuration and testing details, see Appendix A and Appendix C.
We found that the Dell PowerEdge R730xd with Windows Storage Spaces
provided support for 17.5 times the file server operations per second of the PowerEdge
R720xd. As Figure 1 shows, the Dell PowerEdge R730xd achieved 98,694 IOPS.
3. A Principled Technologies test report 3File server performance on the Intel processor-powered
Dell PowerEdge R730xd with hybrid storage
Figure 1: The total number of
IOPS generated by each
solution. Higher numbers are
better.
We also found that the Dell PowerEdge R730xd with Windows Storage Spaces
provided support for 94.3 percent better average disk response time, 94.7 percent
better read disk response time, and 91.4 percent better write response time than the
PowerEdge R720xd (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Average disk, read
disk, and write disk response
time achieved by each
solution. Lower numbers are
better.
4. A Principled Technologies test report 4File server performance on the Intel processor-powered
Dell PowerEdge R730xd with hybrid storage
CONCLUSION
Many growing businesses employ a combination of HDDs and SSDs in their
datacenters to provide storage for users. Software-defined storage additions, such as
Windows Storage Spaces, can help improve workload performance by using tiering and
caching technologies with enabling hardware. When combined with this software, the
new Intel processor-powered Dell PowerEdge R730xd can provide storage support for
the increasing workload performance of your business. We found that the PowerEdge
R730xd provided support for 17.5 times the file server IOPS of the PowerEdge R720xd,
and up to 94.7 better response times than the PowerEdge R720xd did. If your business
needs storage and performance to support its growth, consider the new Dell PowerEdge
R730xd.
5. A Principled Technologies test report 5File server performance on the Intel processor-powered
Dell PowerEdge R730xd with hybrid storage
APPENDIX A – ABOUT THE COMPONENTS
About the Intel processor-powered Dell PowerEdge R730xd
Dell designed the two-socket, 2U Dell PowerEdge R730xd rack server to provide the scale-out storage efficiency
needed by big data users, including the option for hybrid internal storage tiering and six distinct storage configurations.
The configuration we tested had two 2.5″ rear HDD bays, eight 3.5″ front HDD bays, and 18 1.8″ front SSD bays.
Powered by the latest Intel® Xeon® processors E5-2690 v3, the PowerEdge R730xd has 24 DIMM slots to support up to
1.5 TB of memory, and supports up to four optional NVMe Express™ Flash PCIe® SSDs.
With redundant power supply units, hot-swappable hardware, and Dual SD™ card for Failsafe Hypervisors, the
Dell PowerEdge R730xd supports hardware high availability. The PowerEdge R730xd comes standard with iDRAC8 with
Lifecycle Controller and Dell OpenManage™, which all work to streamline management. For more details on the Dell
PowerEdge R730xd, visit www.dell.com/us/business/p/poweredge-r730xd/pd.
About Microsoft Windows Storage Spaces
Storage Spaces is a technology in Windows Server 2012 that allows for the creation of virtualized storage by
grouping industry-standard disks into storage pools, and the creation of virtual disks called storage spaces from the
available capacity in the storage pools. Storage Spaces offers automatic storage tiering for volumes that include both
HDDs and SSDs. This allows businesses to mix cheaper, slower HDDs for rarely accessed data with faster, more expensive
SSDs that will handle frequently accessed data in one volume. Learn more at
technet.microsoft.com/library/hh831739.aspx.
About Iometer
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
1.1.0 on each solution to simulate the same file workloads on the solutions. For more details about Iometer, see
www.iometer.org.
6. A Principled Technologies test report 6File server performance on the Intel processor-powered
Dell PowerEdge R730xd with hybrid storage
APPENDIX B – SYSTEM CONFIGURATION INFORMATION
Figure 3 provides detailed configuration information for the test systems.
System Dell PowerEdge R730xd Dell PowerEdge R720xd
Power supplies
Total number 2 1
Vendor and model number 0TPJ2XX03 Dell E1100E-S0
Wattage of each (W) 750 1100
Cooling fans
Total number 6 6
Vendor and model number San Ace 60 9GA0612P1J651 San Ace 60 9GA0612P1J611
Dimensions (h × w) of each 2.5′ × 2.25′ 2.5′ × 2.5′
Volts 12 12
Amps 1.2 1.5
General
Number of processor packages 2 2
Number of cores per processor 12 8
Number of hardware threads per
core
24 16
System power management policy Balanced Balanced
CPU
Vendor Intel Intel
Name Xeon Xeon
Model number E5-2690 v3 E5 2660
Socket type LGA 2011 LGA
Core frequency (GHz) 2.6 2.2
Bus frequency 8.0 GT/s 8.0 GT/s
L1 cache 12 × 32 KB 8 × 32 KB
L2 cache 12 × 256 KB 8 × 256 KB
L3 cache 30720 KB 20480 KB
Platform
Vendor and model number Dell PowerEdge R730xd Dell PowerEdge R720xd
Motherboard model number 0H21J3 0M1GCR
BIOS name and version Dell 0.3.23 Dell 2.2.3
BIOS settings Default Default
7. A Principled Technologies test report 7File server performance on the Intel processor-powered
Dell PowerEdge R730xd with hybrid storage
System Dell PowerEdge R730xd Dell PowerEdge R720xd
Memory module(s)
Total RAM in system (GB) 128 128
Vendor and model number Hynix HMA41GR7MF8N-TF HMT31GR7CFR4C-PB
Type DDR4-2133P DDR3-12800
Speed (MHz) 2,133 1,600
Speed running in the system (MHz) 2,133 1,333
Size (GB) 8 8
Number of RAM module(s) 16 16
Chip organization Double-sided Double-sided
Rank Dual Rank Dual Rank
Operating system
Name Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
Build number 11.0.9600.17239 11.0.9600.17207
File system NTFS NTFS
Language English English
RAID controller
Vendor and model number Dell PERC H730p mini Dell PERC H710p mini
Firmware version 25.2.1.0037_A02 21.3.0-0009
Driver version 6.602.7.0 5.2.220.64
Cache size (MB) 2GB 1GB
Vendor and model number Dell SXBLE7 N/A
Number of drives 18 N/A
Size (GB) 200 N/A
Type SATA N/A
Vendor and model number Dell ST2000NM0023 Dell ST9300653SS
Number of drives 8 24
Size (GB) 2 TB 300GB
RPM 7.2k 15k
Type SAS SAS
Vendor and model number Seagate® ST300MM0006 ST9146852SS
Number of drives 2 2
Size (GB) 300 GB 146 GB
RPM 10k 15K
Type SAS SAS
Ethernet adapters #1
Vendor and model number
Broadcom® NetXtreme® Gigabit
Ethernet
Intel Gigabit 10G 4P X540/I350 Rndc
Type LAN 10GB LAN
Driver 16.6.0.4 3.9.58.9101
8. A Principled Technologies test report 8File server performance on the Intel processor-powered
Dell PowerEdge R730xd with hybrid storage
System Dell PowerEdge R730xd Dell PowerEdge R720xd
Ethernet adapters #2
Vendor and model number Mellanox® ConnectX-3 Ethernet Intel Gigabit 4P X540/I350 rNDC
Type SFP LAN
Driver 4.70.10126.0 12.11.97.0
Ethernet adapters #3
Vendor and model number N/A Intel Ethernet Server Adapter X520-2
Type N/A 10GB SFP
Driver N/A 3.9.58.9101
Figure 3: Detailed configuration information of our test systems.
9. A Principled Technologies test report 9File server performance on the Intel processor-powered
Dell PowerEdge R730xd with hybrid storage
APPENDIX C – HOW WE TESTED
File server testing
Iometer RAID controller and drive configuration
On the R720xd, we created a RAID 1 on the two backplane HDDs to hold the OS. We then created a RAID 10 on
all 24 of the frontplane HDDs to house the Iometer file. On the R730xd, we changed the RAID controller to HBA mode,
putting all drives into passthrough mode. We then installed the OS on one of the two backplane drives. We created a
software RAID in Windows using the second backplane drive to provide redundancy. We then used Storage Spaces to
create a tiered volume using all of the frontplane HDDs and SSDs to house the Iometer file.
Installing Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Edition on Dell PowerEdge R730xd
1. Insert the installation media into the CD/DVD drive, and restart the server.
2. When the option appears, press F11 to enter the Boot Manager.
3. Select BIOS Boot Menu.
4. Select SATA Optical Drive, and press Enter.
5. Press any key when prompted to boot from DVD.
6. When the installation screen appears, click My language is English (United States).
7. Leave language, time/currency format, and input method as default, and click Next.
8. Click Install now.
9. When the installation prompts you, enter the product key.
10. Select Windows Server 2012 Datacenter (Server with a GUI), and click Next.
11. Check I accept the license terms, and click Next.
12. Click Custom: Install Windows only (advanced).
13. Select Drive 0 Unallocated Space, and click Next, at which point Windows begins automatically, and restarts
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 password you set up previously.
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 click OK.
5. In the left pane, click Check for updates, and install all available updates.
6. Close the Windows Update window.
Installing the file server role
1. Open the Server Manager, and click Manage Add Roles and Features.
2. On the Before You Begin screen, click Next.
3. Choose Role-based or feature-based installation, and click Next.
4. Choose the local server, and click Next.
5. Expand File and Storage Services File and iSCSI services, and check File Server and Storage Services. Click
Next.
6. Leave default features, and click Next.
7. Review the settings, and click Install.
Configuring Windows Storage Spaces
1. In the Server Manager windows, click File and Storage Services in the left pane.
2. Click Storage Pools.
3. Right-click the Primordial storage pool, and click New Storage Pool…
10. A Principled Technologies test report 10File server performance on the Intel processor-powered
Dell PowerEdge R730xd with hybrid storage
4. On the Before You Begin screen, click Next.
5. Enter a name for the new Pool, choose the group of disks, and click Next.
6. Check that all the disks have the correct Media Type (SSD or HDD), and choose all the available disks. Click Next.
7. Review your selections, and click Create.
8. Open Windows PowerShell.
9. Set the SSD tier variable:
PS C:UsersAdministrator> $SSDTier = Get-StoragePool <storage pool name> |
New-StorageTier -FriendlyName SSDTier -MediaType SSD
10. Set the HDD tier variable:
PS C:UsersAdministrator> $HDDTier = Get-StoragePool <storage pool name> |
New-StorageTier -FriendlyName HDDTier -MediaType HDD
11. Create the virtual disk with a 10GB cache and four columns:
PS C:UsersAdministrator> New-VirtualDisk -StoragePoolFriendlyName <storage
pool name> -FriendlyName KrisVDisk -StorageTiers $SSDTier,$HDDTier -
ResiliencySettingName Mirror -WriteCacheSize 10GB -NumberOfColumns 4 -
StorageTierSizes 1648GB,7448GB
12. Once the virtual disk has been created, click Run the Create Volume Wizard… link in the Volume section.
13. Choose the server and virtual disk you created, and click Next.
14. Set the volume size to the maximum capacity, and click Next.
15. Assign a drive letter, and click Next.
16. Set the File system to NTFS, the Allocation unit size to Default, and name the Volume. Click Next.
17. Review your selections, and click Create.
Installing Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 on R720xd and configuring the file server role
1. Boot the server, and insert the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 installation DVD in the DVD-ROM 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 check box, 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. Connect the machine to the Internet, and install all available Windows updates. Restart as necessary.
12. Enable remote desktop access.
13. Turn off all firewalls.
14. Change the hostname, and reboot when prompted.
15. Open Server Manager, and click Roles Add Roles.
16. Click Next on the Before You Begin screen.
17. Choose File Services, and click Next.
18. Click Next.
19. Leave default role services, and click Next.
20. Click Install.
21. When the install is finished, expand File Services in Server Manager.
22. Click on Share and Storage Management.
23. In the right pane, click Provision share…
24. Browse to the share volume, and click Next.
25. Click Yes, change NTFS permissions, and click Edit Permissions…
11. A Principled Technologies test report 11File server performance on the Intel processor-powered
Dell PowerEdge R730xd with hybrid storage
26. Click Add, add the Everyone user, give full control to Everyone, and click OK.
27. Click Next.
28. Leave defaults, and click Next.
29. Click Next.
30. Choose Users and groups have custom share permissions, and click Permissions…
31. Choose Full Control for Everyone, and click OK. Click Next.
32. Click Next.
33. Click Create, and close Server Manager when finished.
Configuring and running Iometer
We used 20 Windows 7-based Virtual Machines to act as client computers, split evenly across two Intel Sandy-
Bridge based servers, to drive the Iometer workload. Each client had two vCPUs and 4GB of RAM. Each client controlled
two workers all managed by a single instance of Iometer on a controller VM. We used Iometer to create a 1TB test file in
the shared folder created in Windows file services. The R720xd file was stored on a 24-disk hardware RAID 10, and the
R730xd file was stored on the tiered Storage Spaces volume.
Configuring the controller
1. Download the Iometer benchmark from www.iometer.org/doc/downloads.html.
2. Copy the file to the controller, and unzip the contents.
3. Double click the Iometer.exe file to start Iometer.
4. Highlight the controller system listed in the Topology window, and click the Disconnect Selected Worker button
at the top.
5. Click the Access Specifications tab, and click New.
6. Create the File Server access specification as shown in Appendix D.
Configuring the clients
1. Open Windows Explorer, right-click Computer, and choose Map Network Drive.
2. Click Browse, and navigate to the share folder you created on the SUT.
3. Click Finish.
4. Copy the Iometer directory to the client, and unzip the contents.
5. Open a command window to the Iometer directory.
6. Type Dynamo –i <IP of controller> -m <IP of Client> and hit Enter.
7. Repeat steps 1 through 4 on each client.
Executing the runs
1. On the controller VM, expand all the managers.
2. Highlight each worker, and check the box for the mapped drive you created that points to the SUT.
3. Highlight All Managers, and enter 4 as the queue depth.
4. With All Managers still highlighted, click the Access Specifications tab.
5. Choose the File Server specification you created previously, and click Add to move it to the left pane.
6. Click Test Setup.
7. Choose 20 minutes for the Run Time, and 2 minutes for the Ramp Up Time.
8. Leave the rest of the options as default, and click the Green flag to start the run.
9. Choose a name for the save file, and click OK.
10. Once the run is finished, reboot the SUT and all client and controller VMs.
11. We executed each run three times on each SUT.
13. A Principled Technologies test report 13File server performance on the Intel processor-powered
Dell PowerEdge R730xd with hybrid storage
ABOUT PRINCIPLED TECHNOLOGIES
Principled Technologies, Inc.
1007 Slater Road, Suite 300
Durham, NC, 27703
www.principledtechnologies.com
We provide industry-leading technology assessment and fact-based
marketing services. We bring to every assignment extensive experience
with and expertise in all aspects of technology testing and analysis, from
researching new technologies, to developing new methodologies, to
testing with existing and new tools.
When the assessment is complete, we know how to present the results to
a broad range of target audiences. We provide our clients with the
materials they need, from market-focused data to use in their own
collateral to custom sales aids, such as test reports, performance
assessments, and white papers. Every document reflects the results of
our trusted independent analysis.
We provide customized services that focus on our clients’ individual
requirements. Whether the technology involves hardware, software, Web
sites, or services, we offer the experience, expertise, and tools to help our
clients assess how it will fare against its competition, its performance, its
market readiness, and its quality and reliability.
Our founders, Mark L. Van Name and Bill Catchings, have worked
together in technology assessment for over 20 years. As journalists, they
published over a thousand articles on a wide array of technology subjects.
They created and led the Ziff-Davis Benchmark Operation, which
developed such industry-standard benchmarks as Ziff Davis Media’s
Winstone and WebBench. They founded and led eTesting Labs, and after
the acquisition of that company by Lionbridge Technologies were the
head and CTO of VeriTest.
Principled Technologies is a registered trademark of Principled Technologies, Inc.
All other product names are the trademarks of their respective owners.
Disclaimer of Warranties; Limitation of Liability:
PRINCIPLED TECHNOLOGIES, INC. HAS MADE REASONABLE EFFORTS TO ENSURE THE ACCURACY AND VALIDITY OF ITS TESTING, HOWEVER,
PRINCIPLED TECHNOLOGIES, INC. SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, RELATING TO THE TEST RESULTS AND
ANALYSIS, THEIR ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS OR QUALITY, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
ALL PERSONS OR ENTITIES RELYING ON THE RESULTS OF ANY TESTING DO SO AT THEIR OWN RISK, AND AGREE THAT PRINCIPLED
TECHNOLOGIES, INC., ITS EMPLOYEES AND ITS SUBCONTRACTORS SHALL HAVE NO LIABILITY WHATSOEVER FROM ANY CLAIM OF LOSS OR
DAMAGE ON ACCOUNT OF ANY ALLEGED ERROR OR DEFECT IN ANY TESTING PROCEDURE OR RESULT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL PRINCIPLED TECHNOLOGIES, INC. BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES IN
CONNECTION WITH ITS TESTING, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. IN NO EVENT SHALL PRINCIPLED TECHNOLOGIES,
INC.’S LIABILITY, INCLUDING FOR DIRECT DAMAGES, EXCEED THE AMOUNTS PAID IN CONNECTION WITH PRINCIPLED TECHNOLOGIES, INC.’S
TESTING. CUSTOMER’S SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDIES ARE AS SET FORTH HEREIN.