This document provides an overview of hardware planning and sizing considerations for SQL Server. It discusses that performance is the typical requirement for relational database management systems. While high performance is expected, typical server hardware configurations often result in unbalanced systems that are not optimized. The document advocates for balanced systems with no single bottleneck. It provides guidance on evaluating CPU, memory, I/O capabilities and storage to ensure a system can handle peak resource consumption. Baseline testing is recommended to compare hardware performance.

1. Hardware Planning & Sizing for
SQL Server
Davide Mauri
dmauri@solidq.com

2. Sponsor & Media Partners

3. Davide Mauri
 18 Years of experience on the SQL Server
Platform
 Specialized in Data Solution Architecture,
Database Design, Performance Tuning, Business
Intelligence
 Projects, Consulting, Mentoring & Training




Regular Speaker @ SQL Server events
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
President of UGISS (Italian SQL Server UG)
Mentor @ SolidQ

4. Requirements
What’s the typical RDBMS requirement?
Performance!

5. Expectations
So you would expect an OLTP server to be like
a…
F1 Car!

6. Expectations
Or, if you’re into Business Intelligence, you
would expect a great
(Fast)
Truck!

7. Reality
Let’s do a reality check. Typical servers are…
…Something Else…

8. Why this happens?
Huge misunderstanding on hardware
features…
«System is slow, we need an upgrade to improve
performance»
«Here’s 2 TB of more space»
«WTF!?!?!?»

9. Balanced Systems
The only way to go is to have balanced
systems
Balanced:
pay and use everything
no single bottleneck
nothing more than what you can consume

10. Just wasting money
Unbalanced system is just a money black hole
Wasted money on
Licenses
Hardware
HW/Storage Consultants
DBA
SYS Admins
Developers

11. Performance Pillars
Database
Design
• Logical
• Physical
Server
Index
Query
Hardware
• Configuration
• Maintenance
• Definition
• Maintenance
• Evolution
• Good T-SQL
• Tuning
• No
bottlenecks

12. The (simplified) I/O full stack
SQL Server
Windows
CPU
Memory
I/O Controller
Disk
Array
Performance

13. Is that a good system?
40 Cores (80 with HT)
128 GB RAM
SAN with 2 TB of disk space
?

14. Answer
My feeling?
Not really.
Some important data is missing.
How many disks?
How the SAN is connected to the server?

15. How to evaluate & balance a server
No easy way…but! How do you evaluate a car?
Put it on a standard test track
Measure peak performance
Measure peak resource consumption
Declare results
Compare results

16. How to evaluate & balance a server
Of course you’ll never get the declared values
in real-life usage
Still they are a good way to
Understand if that car is good for your
Compare it against other cars

17. Use published data
Let’s do some math with published or wellknown values
TPC Benchmarks
Let’s start to evaluate a Data Warehouse since
is much more simpler than a OLTP system

18. CPU
A minimum of 300MB/s of Maximum
Consumption Rate per core
For today’s CPUs
A four core processor is able to consume
1.2GB/sec of raw data
Is your system able to give that
throughput?

19. Memory
Memory usually has a very high bandwidth
A DDR3 Memory Pair can provide
10GB/Sec
No problems here 

20. PCI-X o PCIe BUS
PCI-X v1
X4 slot: 750 MB/sec
PCI-X v2
X4 slot: 1.5 – 1.8GB/sec

21. PCI-X o PCIe BUS
PCIe (per lane)
v1.x: 250 MB/s
v2.x: 500 MB/s
v3.0: 985 MB/s
v4.0: 1969 MB/s
PCIe v2.0 x16
8 GB/sec

22. Storage: Spindles
A «classic» HDD (a «spindle») the following
numbers:
Sequential IO
90MB/sec to 125MB/sec for a single drive
Random IO usually much lower
SQL Server tries to convert rnd to seq

23. Storage: Interconnection
How are your drives connected to the server?
DAS: Direct Attached Storage
SAN: Storage Area Network

24. Storage: DAS
Standards: (SCSI), SAS, SATA
Typically Integrated controller on the server
PCI Direct Access
Host-Bus Adapter (HBA) may or may be used

25. Storage: SAN
Host-Bus Adapter (HBA)
FC Switch
Cache
Storage Processor

26. Storage: SAN – The Numbers
4Gbit FC = 400MB/sec
8Gbit FC = 800MB/Sec
PCI-x4 or faster needed!
(Anyway PCIe is becoming the standard)

27. Building the server
 4 x 8-Core CPU
 4 * 8 * 300 MB/Sec = 9600 Mb/Sec = ~10Gb/Sec
 12 x 8Gbit FC HBA
 12 * 800 MB/Sec = 9600Mb/Sec = ~10Gb/Sec
 64 x 15K RPM Discs
 64 * 150MB/Sec = 9600 Mb/Sec = ~10Gb/Sec

28. Building the server
 SAN & PCIe Slots
 # Vary depending on model
 Eg: SAN supports 16Gbit:
 6 SAN
 12 PCIe 8x
 RAM
 As much as you can 

29. Database File Placing
LUN 1
DataFile1.ndf
LUN 2
DataFile2.ndf
LUN 3
DataFile3.ndf
LUN 4
DataFile4.ndf
LUN «n»
DataFileN.ndf
SAN 1
FILEGROUP
SAN 2
SAN «n»

30. Was it all worth it?

31. Performance Baselining: Storage
SQLIO
Free tool to measure IO from Microsoft
IOMeter
Free, open source, tool

32. Performance Baselining: System
Use TPC Databases and tools to measure
performance and compare different systems
www.tpc.org
OLTP
TPC-C & TPC-E
DW/BI/DSS
TPC-H & TPC-DS

33. Is that all?
 It’s ALL about hardware!
 Just keep in mind that it’s only a part of the
game
 Remember to measure latency (continuously!)
 Use SQL Server DMVS to monitor Wait Stats
 Use H/W monitoring tools

34. OLTP Workload Type Notes
Mainly random read / writes
Depending how much “pure” OLTP is
Read-Head are sequential
Optimize for Random I/O
Spindle count
IOPS & Latency is the key measure

35. DW Workload Type Notes
64-512KB reads
table and range scan
128-256KB writes
bulk load
Optimize for high aggregate throughput I/O
MB/Sec is the value to monitor

36. SSAS Workload Type Notes
Up to 64KB random reads, (Avg. 32KB)
Highly random and often fragmented data
Optimize for Random, 32KB blocks
IOPS & Latency is the key measure

37. Fast Track Data Warehouse
Reference architecture
Guide to create a balanced system optimized
for DW workload
Large Scans of Data
IBM, HP & DELL provides hardware

38. Parallel Data Warehouse
 Massively Parallel Processing (MPP)
Architecture
 Basically several Fast Track all together 
 Query is split and executed across all nodes

39. Parallel Data Warehouse

40. OLTP Appliance
 Unfortunately missing in action…
 Generalization much more complex than
DWH
 HP, IBM & DELL have specific whitepapers

41. OLTP Appliance
 Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 OLTP
Workload Benefits Using IBM® XIV® Storage
System Gen3 SSD Cache
 Achieving a High Performance OLTP
Database using SQL Server® and Dell™
PowerEdge™ R720 with Internal PCIe SSD
Storage

42. OLTP Appliance
 HP Reference Architecture for High
Performance SQL Server

43. THANKS!