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 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.
Watch your transactional database performance climb with Intel Optane DC pers...Principled Technologies
Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers with Intel Optane DC persistent memory handled more transactions per minute than configurations with NAND flash NVMe drives or SATA SSDs
Workstation heat and power usage: Lenovo ThinkStation P500 vs. HP Z440 Workst...Principled Technologies
A workstation that runs coolly and uses less power is a great asset to workers and the companies they work for. In our tests, both when idle and when under load, the Lenovo ThinkStation P500 generally ran at lower surface temperatures and used less power than the HP Z440 Workstation. These findings show that the Lenovo ThinkStation P500 could meet the needs of those who want to provide a reliable, comfortable work environment while using less power.
A single-socket Dell EMC PowerEdge R7515 solution delivered better value on a...Principled Technologies
If your company is running important business applications in VMware vSAN clusters of servers that are several years old, chances are good that you’re considering upgrading to newer hardware. Our testing demonstrated that our clusters of single-socket Dell EMC PowerEdge R7515 servers and clusters of dual-socket HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 servers could both improve upon the database performance of a legacy cluster with five-year-old servers by more than 50 percent, with the Dell EMC cluster achieving 93.4 percent of the performance of the HPE cluster.
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.
As our tests show, investing in the powerful new Dell PowerEdge R920 running Oracle Database 12c pluggable databases achieves cost savings without compromising performance. In our testing, a single Dell PowerEdge R920 was able to do nine times the work of a single HP ProLiant DL385 G6 server while the power and cooling costs dropped by 64 percent when compared to the nine servers it could replace. At 17 percent less, three-year software licensing savings were so dramatic that they paid back the new server costs in just six months, and over three years could save just under $300,000.
Dell PowerEdge 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.
Watch your transactional database performance climb with Intel Optane DC pers...Principled Technologies
Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers with Intel Optane DC persistent memory handled more transactions per minute than configurations with NAND flash NVMe drives or SATA SSDs
Workstation heat and power usage: Lenovo ThinkStation P500 vs. HP Z440 Workst...Principled Technologies
A workstation that runs coolly and uses less power is a great asset to workers and the companies they work for. In our tests, both when idle and when under load, the Lenovo ThinkStation P500 generally ran at lower surface temperatures and used less power than the HP Z440 Workstation. These findings show that the Lenovo ThinkStation P500 could meet the needs of those who want to provide a reliable, comfortable work environment while using less power.
A single-socket Dell EMC PowerEdge R7515 solution delivered better value on a...Principled Technologies
If your company is running important business applications in VMware vSAN clusters of servers that are several years old, chances are good that you’re considering upgrading to newer hardware. Our testing demonstrated that our clusters of single-socket Dell EMC PowerEdge R7515 servers and clusters of dual-socket HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 servers could both improve upon the database performance of a legacy cluster with five-year-old servers by more than 50 percent, with the Dell EMC cluster achieving 93.4 percent of the performance of the HPE cluster.
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.
As our tests show, investing in the powerful new Dell PowerEdge R920 running Oracle Database 12c pluggable databases achieves cost savings without compromising performance. In our testing, a single Dell PowerEdge R920 was able to do nine times the work of a single HP ProLiant DL385 G6 server while the power and cooling costs dropped by 64 percent when compared to the nine servers it could replace. At 17 percent less, three-year software licensing savings were so dramatic that they paid back the new server costs in just six months, and over three years could save just under $300,000.
Dell 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.
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
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.
Back up deduplicated data in less time with the Dell DR6000 Disk Backup Appli...Principled Technologies
Backing up data is a key component in data protection. However, long backup windows can cause headaches for IT and users while slowing down the network. We found that using source-side deduplication and Rapid CIFS technology to back up data to the Dell DR6000 Disk Backup Appliance was faster—with the average rate of data backup at 8.99 TB per hour. The backup to the DR6000 completed in two-thirds the time that the backup to the industry-leading deduplication appliance completed. Backing up to the DR6000 consumed less than one-sixth the bandwidth needed to back up to the industry-leading deduplication appliance. In addition, the DR6000 needed less rack space and cost a third less than the competition. The solution to lengthy backup windows is clear: Save time and network bandwidth with source-side deduplication built into the Dell DR6000 Disk Backup Appliance.
VDI performance comparison: Dell PowerEdge FX2 and FC430 servers with VMware ...Principled Technologies
Replacing your legacy VDI servers with a new Intel Xeon processor E5-2650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a great boon for your enterprise.
In the Principled Technologies (PT) labs, this space-efficient, affordable solution outperformed a legacy server and traditional SAN VSAN by offering 72 percent greater VDI users. Additionally, it achieved greater performance while using 91 percent less space and at a cost of only $176.52 per user.
By supporting more users, saving space, and its affordability, an upgrade to the Intel-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a wise move when replacing your aging, older infrastructure.
Run compute-intensive Apache Hadoop big data workloads faster with Dell EMC P...Principled Technologies
Moving compute-intensive, Hadoop big data workloads to current-generation Dell EMC PowerEdge R640 servers powered by 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors could allow your organization to better meet the data analysis challenges of today. Faster analysis of large data sets means getting insight into your organization, products, and services sooner, which could help your organization grow and beat its competition.
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.
Your datacenter is capable of doing great things—if you let it. Upgrades from Intel for compute, storage, and networking components can help your business support new services and expand your customer base. In our hands-on testing, we found that new Intel processors, high-bandwidth network components, and SATA or PCIe SSDs working together can boost your datacenter’s capabilities, which could translate to better business operations for your organization.
By upgrading from the legacy solution we tested to the new Intel processor-based Dell and VMware solution, you could do 18 times the work in the same amount of space. Imagine what that performance could mean to your business: Consolidate workloads from across your company, lower your power and cooling bills, and limit datacenter expansion in the future, all while maintaining a consistent user experience—the list of potential benefits is huge.
Try running DPACK, which can help you identify bottlenecks in your environment and inform you about your current performance needs. Then consider how the consolidation ratio we proved could be helpful for your company. The Intel processor-powered Dell PowerEdge R730 solution with VMware vSphere and Dell Storage SC4020, also powered by Intel, could be the right destination for your upgrade journey.
SQL Server 2016 database performance on the Dell EMC PowerEdge FC630 QLogic 1...Principled Technologies
Upgrading the hardware running your SQL Server to a space-efficient modular Dell EMC modern environment can help your company achieve a great deal of database work in a small amount of space. With the Dell Express Flash technology, adding a caching solution such as Samsung AutoCache can make the environment even more efficient.
In the PT labs, we ran a mixed database workload on six Dell EMC PowerEdge FC630 servers, powered by Intel Xeon E5-2667 processors, in three PowerEdge FX2 enclosures. The solution included the QLogic QLE2692 16Gb FC adapter with StorFusion Technology, Dell EMC Storage SC9000 all-flash storage, and Dell EMC PowerEdge Express Flash NVMe Performance PCIe SSDs.
With no caching solution, the 36 SQL Server 2016 VMs on the six servers achieved a total of 431,839 orders per minute while an Oracle workload ran on 12 VMs. When we added a caching solution to accelerate the SQL database volumes, the performance across the 36 SQL Server 2016 VMs doubled to 871,580. These numbers show the power of server-side caching to alleviate pressure on the storage array allowing you to get even more out of the Dell EMC modern environment.
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.
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.
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.
Now that SSDs have become more affordable, including them in your new servers makes great business sense. In our testing, both Intel S3520 SATA SSDs and Intel P3520 NVMe PCIe SSDs helped the new server we tested deliver many times more database work than a four-year-old server with hard drives—17 times and 30 times respectively. While both Intel SSD options are strong, we saw greater performance per dollar from three NVMe SSDs than from six SATA SSDs. This confirms Joel’s belief that Intel P3520 NVMe PCIe SSDs would bring greater value to his company.
Demartek evaluated the Lenovo S3200 SAN supporting multiple workloads and saw tremendous results. Read this report and find out why the S3200 should be considered for your SAN deployments!
In our tests, Cisco UCS Director provisioned servers in up to 12.9 percent less time than provisioning them manually and reduced steps by as much as 88.4 percent.
So what do our findings mean for your organization? By reducing the amount of time and number of steps it takes to provision servers with the automation of Cisco UCS Director, you can help save your systems administrators time so they can work on more strategic projects or even reduce the number of staff you require. Moving from manual provisioning to automated provisioning with Cisco UCS Director can have a significant impact on your management budget by streamlining routine tasks—and the savings could only be expected to grow along with your server count.
Adding Intel Optane DC SSDs to an HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 server cluster improved response times by 26% and produced 52% more input/output operations per second while using one fewer server
Move your private cloud to Dell EMC PowerEdge C6420 server nodes and boost Ap...Principled Technologies
Powered by 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, Dell EMC PowerEdge C6420 server nodes handled 2X the operations per second of older HPE ProLiant XL170r Gen9 nodes
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.
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.
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
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.
Back up deduplicated data in less time with the Dell DR6000 Disk Backup Appli...Principled Technologies
Backing up data is a key component in data protection. However, long backup windows can cause headaches for IT and users while slowing down the network. We found that using source-side deduplication and Rapid CIFS technology to back up data to the Dell DR6000 Disk Backup Appliance was faster—with the average rate of data backup at 8.99 TB per hour. The backup to the DR6000 completed in two-thirds the time that the backup to the industry-leading deduplication appliance completed. Backing up to the DR6000 consumed less than one-sixth the bandwidth needed to back up to the industry-leading deduplication appliance. In addition, the DR6000 needed less rack space and cost a third less than the competition. The solution to lengthy backup windows is clear: Save time and network bandwidth with source-side deduplication built into the Dell DR6000 Disk Backup Appliance.
VDI performance comparison: Dell PowerEdge FX2 and FC430 servers with VMware ...Principled Technologies
Replacing your legacy VDI servers with a new Intel Xeon processor E5-2650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a great boon for your enterprise.
In the Principled Technologies (PT) labs, this space-efficient, affordable solution outperformed a legacy server and traditional SAN VSAN by offering 72 percent greater VDI users. Additionally, it achieved greater performance while using 91 percent less space and at a cost of only $176.52 per user.
By supporting more users, saving space, and its affordability, an upgrade to the Intel-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a wise move when replacing your aging, older infrastructure.
Run compute-intensive Apache Hadoop big data workloads faster with Dell EMC P...Principled Technologies
Moving compute-intensive, Hadoop big data workloads to current-generation Dell EMC PowerEdge R640 servers powered by 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors could allow your organization to better meet the data analysis challenges of today. Faster analysis of large data sets means getting insight into your organization, products, and services sooner, which could help your organization grow and beat its competition.
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.
Your datacenter is capable of doing great things—if you let it. Upgrades from Intel for compute, storage, and networking components can help your business support new services and expand your customer base. In our hands-on testing, we found that new Intel processors, high-bandwidth network components, and SATA or PCIe SSDs working together can boost your datacenter’s capabilities, which could translate to better business operations for your organization.
By upgrading from the legacy solution we tested to the new Intel processor-based Dell and VMware solution, you could do 18 times the work in the same amount of space. Imagine what that performance could mean to your business: Consolidate workloads from across your company, lower your power and cooling bills, and limit datacenter expansion in the future, all while maintaining a consistent user experience—the list of potential benefits is huge.
Try running DPACK, which can help you identify bottlenecks in your environment and inform you about your current performance needs. Then consider how the consolidation ratio we proved could be helpful for your company. The Intel processor-powered Dell PowerEdge R730 solution with VMware vSphere and Dell Storage SC4020, also powered by Intel, could be the right destination for your upgrade journey.
SQL Server 2016 database performance on the Dell EMC PowerEdge FC630 QLogic 1...Principled Technologies
Upgrading the hardware running your SQL Server to a space-efficient modular Dell EMC modern environment can help your company achieve a great deal of database work in a small amount of space. With the Dell Express Flash technology, adding a caching solution such as Samsung AutoCache can make the environment even more efficient.
In the PT labs, we ran a mixed database workload on six Dell EMC PowerEdge FC630 servers, powered by Intel Xeon E5-2667 processors, in three PowerEdge FX2 enclosures. The solution included the QLogic QLE2692 16Gb FC adapter with StorFusion Technology, Dell EMC Storage SC9000 all-flash storage, and Dell EMC PowerEdge Express Flash NVMe Performance PCIe SSDs.
With no caching solution, the 36 SQL Server 2016 VMs on the six servers achieved a total of 431,839 orders per minute while an Oracle workload ran on 12 VMs. When we added a caching solution to accelerate the SQL database volumes, the performance across the 36 SQL Server 2016 VMs doubled to 871,580. These numbers show the power of server-side caching to alleviate pressure on the storage array allowing you to get even more out of the Dell EMC modern environment.
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.
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.
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.
Now that SSDs have become more affordable, including them in your new servers makes great business sense. In our testing, both Intel S3520 SATA SSDs and Intel P3520 NVMe PCIe SSDs helped the new server we tested deliver many times more database work than a four-year-old server with hard drives—17 times and 30 times respectively. While both Intel SSD options are strong, we saw greater performance per dollar from three NVMe SSDs than from six SATA SSDs. This confirms Joel’s belief that Intel P3520 NVMe PCIe SSDs would bring greater value to his company.
Demartek evaluated the Lenovo S3200 SAN supporting multiple workloads and saw tremendous results. Read this report and find out why the S3200 should be considered for your SAN deployments!
In our tests, Cisco UCS Director provisioned servers in up to 12.9 percent less time than provisioning them manually and reduced steps by as much as 88.4 percent.
So what do our findings mean for your organization? By reducing the amount of time and number of steps it takes to provision servers with the automation of Cisco UCS Director, you can help save your systems administrators time so they can work on more strategic projects or even reduce the number of staff you require. Moving from manual provisioning to automated provisioning with Cisco UCS Director can have a significant impact on your management budget by streamlining routine tasks—and the savings could only be expected to grow along with your server count.
Adding Intel Optane DC SSDs to an HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 server cluster improved response times by 26% and produced 52% more input/output operations per second while using one fewer server
Move your private cloud to Dell EMC PowerEdge C6420 server nodes and boost Ap...Principled Technologies
Powered by 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, Dell EMC PowerEdge C6420 server nodes handled 2X the operations per second of older HPE ProLiant XL170r Gen9 nodes
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.
Get better database analytics performance at a lower cost with Dell EMC Power...Principled Technologies
In our hands-on testing, a Dell EMC PowerEdge R840 server with RM5 Series value SAS and CD5 Series data center NVMe SSDs outperformed a configuration with enterprise SATA SSDs. The solution with value SAS SSDs delivered 106 percent more operations per second and just over 50 percent lower latency than the SATA-based configuration. Data center NVMe SSDs boosted this performance even further, producing 137 percent more OPS and 57 percent better response times than the configuration with SATA drives. Value SAS and data center NVMe SSDs also provided up to 132 percent higher analytics performance per dollar than the enterprise SATA SSDs we tested. With value SAS and data center NVMe SSDs from KIOXIA, your business can consider a future beyond SATA.
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.
Get significantly better transactional database performance for less from a D...Principled Technologies
No one wants to be forced to choose between performance and cost when upgrading their flash storage. With RM5 Series value SAS and CD5 Series data center NVMe SSDs, you might not have to. In our hands-on testing, a Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd server with value SAS SSDs outperformed the same server with enterprise SATA SSDs. Data center NVMe SSDs boosted performance even further. In addition, the KIOXIA drives we tested delivered more transactional database performance per dollar than enterprise SATA
SSDs. If your business is asking, “What does life after SATA look like?”, value SAS and data center NVMe SSDs
from KIOXIA provide an answer.
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.
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.
SQL Server 2016 database performance on the Dell PowerEdge R830 QLogic 16G Fi...Principled Technologies
Nothing lasts forever. When software manufacturers discontinue support for aging programs, as Microsoft has done for SQL Server 2005, businesses using these applications must take the step of migrating to new, updated versions. Coupling this upgrade with an upgrade to the hardware on which the applications run can take performance improvements to an even higher level.
In our testing, the modern four-socket Dell PowerEdge R830 powered by Intel Xeon processors E5-4650 v4 working with the powerful Dell Storage SC9000 array and running SQL Server 2016 delivered over five times the database performance of a legacy PowerEdge R820 solution running SQL Server 2005. The modern PowerEdge solution also delivered a faster response time.
Running modern, fully featured database software on four-year-old servers is possible, but far from optimal. Consolidating your SQL Server workloads from legacy servers onto Dell PowerEdge R830 servers powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 v4 product family is a way to streamline and modernize your datacenter.
File server performance on the Intel processor-powered Dell PowerEdge R730xd ...Principled Technologies
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.
Consolidate SAS 9.4 workloads with Intel Xeon processor E7 v3 and Intel SSD t...Principled Technologies
A key to modernizing your data center is to consolidate your legacy workloads through virtualization, which can help reduce complexity for your business. Fewer servers require fewer physical resources, such as power, cabling, and switches, and reduce the burden on IT for ongoing management tasks such as updates. In addition, integrating newer hardware technology into your data center can provide new features that strengthen your infrastructure, such as RAS features on the processor and disk performance improvements. Finally, using SAS 9.4 ensures that you have the latest features and toolsets that SAS can offer.
Compared to a legacy server, we found that a modern four-socket server powered by Intel Xeon processors E7-8890 v3 with Intel SSD DC P3700 Series provided 12 times the amount of SAS work, nearly 14 times the relative performance, and a shorter average time to complete the SAS workload. Running 12 virtual SAS instances also left capacity on the server for additional work. Consolidating your SAS workloads from legacy servers onto servers powered by Intel Xeon processors E7 v3 and SAS 9.4 can provide your business with the latest hardware and software features, reduce complexity in your data center, and potentially reduce costs for your business.
SQL Server 2016 database performance on the Dell PowerEdge R930 QLogic 16G Fi...Principled Technologies
As support ends for aging software and applications, such as SQL Server 2005, migrating to a new, updated version is inevitable and necessary. This migration presents a unique opportunity to upgrade the hardware running these applications, too—a real change to your datacenter.
In our test, the modern four-socket Dell PowerEdge R930 powered by Intel Xeon E7-8860 v4 processors working with the powerful Dell Storage SC9000 array and running SQL Server 2016 got over six times the database performance of a legacy solution running SQL Server 2005. The modern PowerEdge solution also delivered a faster response time.
As you move to a more modern, fully featured database software, why not also move to a powerful, modern server hardware solution as well? Consolidating your SQL Server workloads from legacy servers onto Dell PowerEdge R930 servers powered by Intel Xeon E7 v4 processors can let you do more with less, streamline your datacenter, and reduce costs.
Get better Oracle Database performance when you upgrade to the Dell PowerEdge...Principled Technologies
Compared to the previous-gen Dell PowerEdge R7525 with PERC 11
Even if your Oracle Database servers are running well, you could improve performance by switching out previous-generation hardware for the latest technology. Our testing found that this was true for various OLTP workload types, including a CPU-targeted database workload, an IO-targeted workload, and a Balanced CPU/IO workload, with the Dell PowerEdge R7625 with PERC 12 offering as much as 2.39 times the Oracle Database performance that the previous-gen PowerEdge R7525 with PERC 11 did. In addition, the PowerEdge R7625 with PERC 12 had lower %iowait across the board, again showing that upgrading to the latest-generation server can improve database performance for various workload profiles. By moving to a new PowerEdge R7625, your
organization can support more customers and realize better system efficiency, which ultimately provides the opportunity to consolidate onto fewer systems to reduce operating costs.
Hardware upgrades to improve database, SharePoint, Exchange, and file server ...Principled Technologies
Legacy tower servers that cannot meet workload demands can restrict business growth. By upgrading to the Dell PowerEdge T630, you can obtain immediate benefits for current IT performance needs and implement upgrades that will expand server capabilities to help meet future demands. We found that replacing a legacy server with the new Dell PowerEdge T630 tower server offered up to 97.9 percent lower workload latency, 131.9 percent more IOPS, and 421.9 percent more OPM when running the same workload. With component upgrades, the PowerEdge T630 supported more Exchange, SharePoint, and file server users, and more database VM instances. Help ensure that your applications have sufficient hardware resources to keep up with the needs of today and the future by choosing to upgrade to the new Dell PowerEdge T630 tower server.
The PowerEdge R750 solution boosted performance compared to a previous-generation PowerEdge R740 with PERC 10
Conclusion
Companies increasingly turn to big data applications to solve business problems such as understanding customer habits and behavior, maintaining electronic health records, and detecting fraud. In a 2022 survey of executives, 97.0 percent had invested in big data initiatives, and 73.7 percent said their organizations had appointed a Chief Data Officer (CDO), up from 12 percent in 2012.
With so much data at play, storage becomes an essential consideration for companies as they select hardware platforms to run their vital workloads. Two primary requirements for storage are fast performance and redundancy. Companies seek storage that can quickly put actionable insights into the hands of decision makers. At the same time, it is a fact of life that storage media occasionally fails, and no company wants to risk the potentially very large expense of losing vital business data.
In our testing with a disk-intensive TeraSort big data workload, we found that a current-generation Dell PowerEdge R750 server with a Broadcom-based Dell PERC 11 RAID controller with NVMe SSDs outperformed a previous-generation PowerEdge R740 server with a Dell PERC 10 RAID controller. The newer PowerEdge R750 solution completed the workload in 13.9 percent less time and with 16.3 percent better throughput, indicating that it could speed the delivery of insights to decision makers. With its PERC 11 RAID controller, it also offers RAID support for today’s speedy NVMe SSDs. Data-driven organizations must weigh the cost savings of putting off purchases of newer servers against the benefits of investing in those same newer, more powerful servers with RAID support for NVMe drives. Our testing shows that with the Dell PowerEdge R750 server with a Broadcom technology-based Dell PERC 11 RAID controller, buyers need not choose between redundancy and high performance.
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.
Investing in GenAI: Cost‑benefit analysis of Dell on‑premises deployments vs....Principled Technologies
Conclusion
Diving into the world of GenAI has the potential to yield a great many benefits for your organization, but it first requires consideration for how best to implement those GenAI workloads. Whether your AI goals are to create a chatbot for online visitors, generate marketing materials, aid troubleshooting, or something else, implementing an AI solution requires careful planning and decision-making. A major decision is whether to host GenAI in the cloud or keep your data on premises. Traditional on-premises solutions can provide superior security and control, a substantial concern when dealing with large amounts of potentially sensitive data. But will supporting a GenAI solution on site be a drain on an organization’s IT budget?
In our research, we found that the value proposition is just the opposite: Hosting GenAI workloads on premises, either in a traditional Dell solution or using a managed Dell APEX pay-per-use solution, could significantly lower your GenAI costs over 3 years compared to hosting these workloads in the cloud. In fact, we found that a comparable AWS SageMaker solution would cost up to 3.8 times as much and an Azure ML solution would cost up to 3.6 times as much as GenAI on a Dell APEX pay-per-use solution. These results show that organizations looking to implement GenAI and reap the business benefits to come can find many advantages in an on-premises Dell solution, whether they opt to purchase and manage it themselves or choose a subscription-based Dell APEX pay-per-use solution. Choosing an on-premises Dell solution could save your organization significantly over hosting GenAI in the cloud, while giving you control over the security and privacy of your data as well as any updates and changes to the environment, and while ensuring your environment is managed consistently.
Workstations powered by Intel can play a vital role in CPU-intensive AI devel...Principled Technologies
In three AI development workflows, Intel processor-powered workstations delivered strong performance, without using their GPUs, making them a good choice for this part of the AI process
Conclusion
We executed three AI development workflows on tower workstations and mobile workstations from three vendors, with each workflow utilizing only the Intel CPU cores, and found that these platforms were suitable for carrying out various AI tasks. For two of the workflows, we learned that completing the tasks on the tower workstations took roughly half as much time as on the mobile workstations. This supports the idea that the tower workstations would be appropriate for a development environment for more complex models with a greater volume of data and that the mobile workstations would be well-suited for data scientists fine-tuning simpler models. In the third workflow, we explored tower workstation performance with different precision levels and learned that using 16-bit floating point precision allowed the workstations to execute the workflow in less time and also reduced memory usage dramatically. For all three AI workflows we executed, we consider the time the workstations needed to complete the tasks to be acceptable, and believe that these workstations can be appropriate, cost-effective choices for these kinds of activities.
Enable security features with no impact to OLTP performance with Dell PowerEd...Principled Technologies
Get comparable online transaction processing (OLTP) performance with or without enabling AMD Secure Memory Encryption and AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization - Encrypted State
Conclusion
You’ve likely already implemented many security measures for your servers, which may include physical security for the data center, hardware-level security, and software-level security. With the cost of data breaches high and still growing, however, wise IT teams will consider what additional security measures they may be able to implement.
AMD SME and SEV-ES are technologies that are already available within your AMD processor-powered 16th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers—and in our testing, we saw that they can offer extra layers of security without affecting performance. We compared the online transaction processing performance of a Dell PowerEdge R7625 server, powered by AMD EPYC 9274F processors, with and without these two security features enabled. We found that enabling AMD Secure Memory Encryption and Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Encrypted State did not impact performance at all.
If your team is assessing areas where you might be able to enhance security—without paying a large performance cost—consider enabling AME SME and AMD SEV-ES in your Dell PowerEdge servers.
Improving energy efficiency in the data center: Endure higher temperatures wi...Principled Technologies
In high-temperature test scenarios, a Dell PowerEdge HS5620 server continued running an intensive workload without component warnings or failures, while a Supermicro SYS‑621C-TN12R server failed
Conclusion: Remain resilient in high temperatures with the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 to help increase efficiency
Increasing your data center’s temperature can help your organization make strides in energy efficiency and cooling cost savings. With servers that can hold up to these higher everyday temperatures—as well as high temperatures due to unforeseen circumstances—your business can continue to deliver the performance your apps and clients require.
When we ran an intensive floating-point workload on a Dell PowerEdge HS5620 and a Supermicro SYS-621CTN12R in three scenario types simulating typical operations at 25°C, a fan failure, and an HVAC malfunction, the Dell server experienced no component warnings or failures. In contrast, the Supermicro server experienced warnings in all three scenario types and experienced component failures in the latter two tests, rendering the system unusable. When we inspected and analyzed each system, we found that the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 server’s motherboard layout, fans, and chassis offered cooling design advantages.
For businesses aiming to meet sustainability goals by running hotter data centers, as well as those concerned with server cooling design, the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 is a strong contender to take on higher temperatures during day-to-day operations and unexpected malfunctions.
Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift: An easily deployable and powe...Principled Technologies
The 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor‑powered solution deployed in less than two hours and ran a Kubernetes container-based generative AI workload effectively
Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift: An easily deployable and powe...Principled Technologies
The 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor‑powered solution deployed in less than two hours and ran a generative AI workload effectively
Conclusion
The appeal of incorporating GenAI into your organization’s operations is likely great. Getting started with an efficient solution for your next LLM workload or application can seem daunting because of the changing hardware and software landscape, but Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors could provide the solution you need. We started with a Dell Validated Design as a reference, and then went on to modify the deployment as necessary for our Llama 2 workload. The Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift solution worked well for our LLM, and by using this deployment guide in conjunction with numerous Dell documents and some flexibility, you could be well on your way to innovating your next GenAI breakthrough.
Upgrade your cloud infrastructure with Dell PowerEdge R760 servers and VMware...Principled Technologies
Compared to a cluster of PowerEdge R750 servers running VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)
For organizations running clusters of moderately configured, older Dell PowerEdge servers with a previous version of VCF, upgrading to better-configured modern servers can provide a significant performance boost and more.
Upgrade your cloud infrastructure with Dell PowerEdge R760 servers and VMware...Principled Technologies
Compared to a cluster of PowerEdge R750 servers running VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5
If your company is struggling with underperforming infrastructure, upgrading to 16th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers running VCF 5.1 could be just what you need to handle more database throughput and reduce vSAN latencies. As an additional benefit to IT admins, we also found that the embedded VMware Aria Operation adapter provided useful infrastructure insights.
Realize 2.1X the performance with 20% less power with AMD EPYC processor-back...Principled Technologies
Three AMD EPYC processor-based two-processor solutions outshined comparable Intel Xeon Scalable processor-based solutions by handling more Redis workload transactions and requests while consuming less power
Conclusion
Performance and energy efficiency are significant factors in processor selection for servers running data-intensive workloads, such as Redis. We compared the Redis performance and energy consumption of a server cluster in three AMD EPYC two-processor configurations against that of a server cluster in two Intel Xeon Scalable two-processor configurations. In each of our three test scenarios, the server cluster backed by AMD EPYC processors outperformed the server cluster backed by Intel Xeon Scalable processors. In addition, one of the AMD EPYC processor-based clusters consumed 20 percent less power than its Intel Xeon Scalable processor-based counterpart. Combining these measurements gave us power efficiency metrics that demonstrate how valuable AMD EPYC processor-based servers could be—you could see better performance per watt with these AMD EPYC processor-based server clusters and potentially get more from your Redis or other data intensive applications and workloads while reducing data center power costs.
Improve performance and gain room to grow by easily migrating to a modern Ope...Principled Technologies
We deployed this modern environment, then migrated database VMs from legacy servers and saw performance improvements that support consolidation
Conclusion
If your organization’s transactional databases are running on gear that is several years old, you have much to gain by upgrading to modern servers with new processors and networking components and an OpenShift environment. In our testing, a modern OpenShift environment with a cluster of three Dell PowerEdge R7615 servers with 4th Generation AMD EPYC processors and high-speed 100Gb Broadcom NICs outperformed a legacy environment with MySQL VMs running on a cluster of three Dell PowerEdge R7515 servers with 3rd Generation AMD EPYC processors and 25Gb Broadcom NICs. We also easily migrated a VM from the legacy environment to the modern environment, with only a few steps required to set up and less than ten minutes of hands-on time. The performance advantage of the modern servers would allow a company to reduce the number of servers necessary to perform a given amount of database work, thus lowering operational expenditures such as power and cooling and IT staff time for maintenance. The high-speed 100Gb Broadcom NICs in this solution also give companies better network performance and networking capacity to grow as they embrace emerging technologies such as AI that put great demands on networks.
Boost PC performance: How more available memory can improve productivityPrincipled Technologies
With more memory available, system performance of three Dell devices increased, which can translate to a better user experience
Conclusion
When your system has plenty of RAM to meet your needs, you can efficiently access the applications and data you need to finish projects and to-do lists without sacrificing time and focus. Our test results show that with more memory available, three Dell PCs delivered better performance and took less time to complete the Procyon Office Productivity benchmark. These advantages translate to users being able to complete workflows more quickly and multitask more easily. Whether you need the mobility of the Latitude 5440, the creative capabilities of the Precision 3470, or the high performance of the OptiPlex Tower Plus 7010, configuring your system with more RAM can help keep processes running smoothly, enabling you to do more without compromising performance.
Deploy with confidence: VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 on next gen Dell PowerEdg...Principled Technologies
A Principled Technologies deployment guide
Conclusion
Deploying VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 on next gen Dell PowerEdge servers brings together critical virtualization capabilities and high-performing hardware infrastructure. Relying on our hands-on experience, this deployment guide offers a comprehensive roadmap that can guide your organization through the seamless integration of advanced VMware cloud solutions with the performance and reliability of Dell PowerEdge servers. In addition to the deployment efficiency, the Cloud Foundation 5.1 and PowerEdge solution delivered strong performance while running a MySQL database workload. By leveraging VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 and PowerEdge servers, you could help your organization embrace cloud computing with confidence, potentially unlocking a new level of agility, scalability, and efficiency in your data center operations.
Upgrade your cloud infrastructure with Dell PowerEdge R760 servers and VMware...Principled Technologies
Compared to a cluster of PowerEdge R750 servers running VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5
Conclusion
If your company is struggling with underperforming infrastructure, upgrading to 16th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers running VCF 5.1 could be just what you need to handle more database throughput and reduce vSAN latencies. We found that a Dell PowerEdge R760 server cluster running VCF 5.1 processed over 78 percent more TPM and 79 percent more NOPM than a Dell PowerEdge R750 server cluster running VCF 4.5. It’s also worth noting that the PowerEdge R750 cluster bottlenecked on vSAN storage, with max write latency at 8.9ms. For reference, the PowerEdge R760 cluster clocked in at 3.8ms max write latency. This higher latency is due in part to the single disk group per host on the moderately configured PowerEdge R750 cluster, while the better-configured PowerEdge R760 cluster supported four disk groups per host. As an additional benefit to IT admins, we also found that the embedded VMware Aria Operation adapter provided useful infrastructure insights.
Based on our research using publicly available materials, it appears that Dell supports nine of the ten PC security features we investigated, HP supports six of them, and Lenovo supports three features.
Increase security, sustainability, and efficiency with robust Dell server man...Principled Technologies
Compared to the Supermicro management portfolio
Conclusion
Choosing a vendor for server purchases is about more than just the hardware platform. Decision-makers must also consider more long-term concerns, including system/data security, energy efficiency, and ease of management. These concerns make the systems management tools a vendor offers as important as the hardware.
We investigated the features and capabilities of server management tools from Dell and Supermicro, comparing Dell iDRAC9 against Supermicro IPMI for embedded server management and Dell OpenManage Enterprise and CloudIQ against Supermicro Server Manager for one-to-many device and console management and monitoring. We found that the Dell management tools provided more comprehensive security, sustainability, and management/monitoring features and capabilities than Supermicro servers did. In addition, Dell tools automated more tasks to ease server management, resulting in significant time savings for administrators versus having to do the same tasks manually with Supermicro tools.
When making a server purchase, a vendor’s associated management products are critical to protect data, support a more sustainable environment, and to ease the maintenance of systems. Our tests and research showed that the Dell management portfolio for PowerEdge servers offered more features to help organizations meet these goals than the comparable Supermicro management products.
Increase security, sustainability, and efficiency with robust Dell server man...Principled Technologies
Compared to the Supermicro management portfolio
Conclusion
Choosing a vendor for server purchases is about more than just the hardware platform. Decision-makers must also consider more long-term concerns, including system/data security, energy efficiency, and ease of management. These concerns make the systems management tools a vendor offers as important as the hardware.
We investigated the features and capabilities of server management tools from Dell and Supermicro, comparing Dell iDRAC9 against Supermicro IPMI for embedded server management and Dell OpenManage Enterprise and CloudIQ against Supermicro Server Manager for one-to-many device and console management and monitoring. We found that the Dell management tools provided more comprehensive security, sustainability, and management/monitoring features and capabilities than Supermicro servers did. In addition, Dell tools automated more tasks to ease server management, resulting in significant time savings for administrators versus having to do the same tasks manually with Supermicro tools.
When making a server purchase, a vendor’s associated management products are critical to protect data, support a more sustainable environment, and to ease the maintenance of systems. Our tests and research showed that the Dell management portfolio for PowerEdge servers offered more features to help organizations meet these goals than the comparable Supermicro management products.
Scale up your storage with higher-performing Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS ...Principled Technologies
In our tests, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS outperformed similarly configured solutions from Vendor A, achieving more IOPS, better throughput, and more consistent performance on both NVMe-supported configurations and configurations backed by Elastic Block Store (EBS) alone.
Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS supports a full NVMe backed configuration, but Vendor A doesn’t—its solution uses EBS for storage capacity and NVMe as an extended read cache—which means APEX Block Storage for AWS can deliver faster storage performance.
Scale up your storage with higher-performing Dell APEX Block Storage for AWSPrincipled Technologies
Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS offered stronger and more consistent storage performance for better business agility than a Vendor A solution
Conclusion
Enterprises desiring the flexibility and convenience of the cloud for their block storage workloads can find fast-performing solutions with the enterprise storage features they’re used to in on-premises infrastructure by selecting Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS.
Our hands-on tests showed that compared to the Vendor A solution, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS offered stronger, more consistent storage performance in both NVMe-supported and EBS-backed configurations. Using NVMe-supported configurations, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS achieved 4.7x the random read IOPS and 5.1x the throughput on sequential read operations per node vs. Vendor A. In our EBS-backed comparison, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS offered 2.2x the throughput per node on sequential read operations vs. Vendor A.
Plus, the ability to scale beyond three nodes—up to 512 storage nodes with capacity of up to 8 PBs—enables Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS to help ensure performance and capacity as your team plans for the future.
Get in and stay in the productivity zone with the HP Z2 G9 Tower WorkstationPrincipled Technologies
We compared CPU performance and noise output of an HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation in High Performance Mode to Dell Precision 3660 and 5860 tower workstations in optimized performance modes
Conclusion
HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation users can change the BIOS settings to dial in the performance mode that best suits their needs: High Performance Mode, Performance Mode, or Quiet Mode. In good
news for both creative and technical professionals, we found that an Intel Core i9-13900 processor-powered HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation set to High Performance mode received higher CPU-based benchmark scores than both a similarly configured Dell Precision 3660 and a Dell Precision 5860 equipped with an Intel Xeon w5-2455x processor. Plus, the HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation was quieter while running CPU-intensive Cinebench 2024 and SPECapc for Solidworks 2022 workloads than both Dell Precision tower workstations. This means HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation users who prize performance over everything else can do so without sacrificing a quiet workspace.
Open up new possibilities with higher transactional database performance from...Principled Technologies
In our PostgreSQL tests, R7i instances boosted performance over R6i instances with previous-gen processors
If you use the open-source PostgreSQL database to run your critical business operations, you have many cloud options from which to choose. While many of these instances can do the job, some can deliver stronger performance, which can mean getting a greater return on your cloud investment.
We conducted hands-on testing with the HammerDB TPROC-C benchmark to see how the PostgreSQL performance of Amazon EC2 R7i instances, enabled by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, stacked up to that of R6i instances with previous-generation processors. We learned that small, medium-sized, and large R7i instances with the newer processors delivered better OLTP performance, with improvements as high as 13.8 percent. By choosing the R7i instances, your organization has the potential to support more users, deliver a better experience to those users, and even lower your cloud operating expenditures by requiring fewer instances to get the job done.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 3DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 3. In this session, we will cover desktop automation along with UI automation.
Topics covered:
UI automation Introduction,
UI automation Sample
Desktop automation flow
Pradeep Chinnala, Senior Consultant Automation Developer @WonderBotz and UiPath MVP
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Essentials of Automations: Optimizing FME Workflows with ParametersSafe Software
Are you looking to streamline your workflows and boost your projects’ efficiency? Do you find yourself searching for ways to add flexibility and control over your FME workflows? If so, you’re in the right place.
Join us for an insightful dive into the world of FME parameters, a critical element in optimizing workflow efficiency. This webinar marks the beginning of our three-part “Essentials of Automation” series. This first webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to utilize parameters effectively: enhancing the flexibility, maintainability, and user control of your FME projects.
Here’s what you’ll gain:
- Essentials of FME Parameters: Understand the pivotal role of parameters, including Reader/Writer, Transformer, User, and FME Flow categories. Discover how they are the key to unlocking automation and optimization within your workflows.
- Practical Applications in FME Form: Delve into key user parameter types including choice, connections, and file URLs. Allow users to control how a workflow runs, making your workflows more reusable. Learn to import values and deliver the best user experience for your workflows while enhancing accuracy.
- Optimization Strategies in FME Flow: Explore the creation and strategic deployment of parameters in FME Flow, including the use of deployment and geometry parameters, to maximize workflow efficiency.
- Pro Tips for Success: Gain insights on parameterizing connections and leveraging new features like Conditional Visibility for clarity and simplicity.
We’ll wrap up with a glimpse into future webinars, followed by a Q&A session to address your specific questions surrounding this topic.
Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your FME expertise and drive your projects to new heights of efficiency.
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
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.
Search and Society: Reimagining Information Access for Radical FuturesBhaskar Mitra
The field of Information retrieval (IR) is currently undergoing a transformative shift, at least partly due to the emerging applications of generative AI to information access. In this talk, we will deliberate on the sociotechnical implications of generative AI for information access. We will argue that there is both a critical necessity and an exciting opportunity for the IR community to re-center our research agendas on societal needs while dismantling the artificial separation between the work on fairness, accountability, transparency, and ethics in IR and the rest of IR research. Instead of adopting a reactionary strategy of trying to mitigate potential social harms from emerging technologies, the community should aim to proactively set the research agenda for the kinds of systems we should build inspired by diverse explicitly stated sociotechnical imaginaries. The sociotechnical imaginaries that underpin the design and development of information access technologies needs to be explicitly articulated, and we need to develop theories of change in context of these diverse perspectives. Our guiding future imaginaries must be informed by other academic fields, such as democratic theory and critical theory, and should be co-developed with social science scholars, legal scholars, civil rights and social justice activists, and artists, among others.
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.
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
Kubernetes & AI - Beauty and the Beast !?! @KCD Istanbul 2024Tobias Schneck
As AI technology is pushing into IT I was wondering myself, as an “infrastructure container kubernetes guy”, how get this fancy AI technology get managed from an infrastructure operational view? Is it possible to apply our lovely cloud native principals as well? What benefit’s both technologies could bring to each other?
Let me take this questions and provide you a short journey through existing deployment models and use cases for AI software. On practical examples, we discuss what cloud/on-premise strategy we may need for applying it to our own infrastructure to get it to work from an enterprise perspective. I want to give an overview about infrastructure requirements and technologies, what could be beneficial or limiting your AI use cases in an enterprise environment. An interactive Demo will give you some insides, what approaches I got already working for real.
Kubernetes & AI - Beauty and the Beast !?! @KCD Istanbul 2024
Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SSDs on the Dell PowerEdge R930
1. MARCH 2016
A PRINCIPLED TECHNOLOGIES REPORT
Commissioned by Intel Corp.
MAXIMIZING ORACLE DATABASE PERFORMANCE WITH INTEL SSD DC
SERIES P3600 NVME SSDS ON THE DELL POWEREDGE R930
f
For critical database workloads that require a high volume of transactions,
administrators must seek every advantage to yield maximum performance from each
server. Increased performance can mean using fewer servers, potentially saving in
space, hardware, and even infrastructure costs. Even workhorse servers like the Intel
Xeon processor-powered Dell PowerEdge R930 can accomplish significantly more work
when you make strategic upgrades to internal hardware, including the types of drives
you use.
In our hands-on tests, Principled Technologies found that configuring the Dell
PowerEdge R930 with Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SSDs could give Oracle®
Database 12c performance a large boost, delivering up to 2.17 times the new orders per
minute (NOPM) compared to SATA SSDs. By making the extra investment in hardware
upgrades at the time of purchase (with only an 18 percent higher purchase price),
administrators can be confident that they are using all the resources at their disposal to
optimize critical transactional database performance, potentially reducing the costs
associated with additional servers and corresponding software licenses. Better
performance from each server also helps ensure that your business runs smoothly by
allowing customers and employees to complete their requests more quickly.
2. A Principled Technologies report 2Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC
P3600 Series NVMe SSDs on the Dell PowerEdge R930
CRITICAL DATABASES DESERVE A BOOST
Every enterprise has databases that are vital to its continued operation. Some
organizations may rely on databases to serve customers in an online store, others may
have databases full of medical or school records that clients need to access. For other
organizations, internal databases are the main driver for employee tasks. No matter the
reason, your databases are the backbone of your organization, and anything you can do
to help them run better for customers and employees can improve user experience and
productivity.
Intel NVMe SSDs are designed to deliver increased IOPS and lower latency than
legacy storage standards such as SATA and SAS SSDs, which are themselves a step
forward from traditional HDDs. When used in conjunction with the Dell PowerEdge
R930, we found that Intel NVMe SSDs could improve database performance significantly
for Oracle Database for relatively low additional cost.
To test this, we used a Dell PowerEdge R930 with either eight Intel SATA SSDs or
eight Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SSDs. We configured a 300GB database on six
SSDs configured into three RAID 1 and logs on a two disk RAID 1. We ran HammerDB
benchmark against the database with no think time to simulate a peak performance
scenario. We used a database larger than the amount of system memory to ensure the
load would stay on the SSDs. We used the HammerDB NOPM output to compare the
performance between the drives. While HammerDB reports TPM and NOPM statistics,
NOPM is the preferred metric because it is a value that can be compared across
different database systems.
For more about the components we tested, including the benchmark we used,
see Appendix A. To learn more about our system configuration, see Appendix B. See
Appendix C for our test methodology.
WHAT WE FOUND
While the Dell PowerEdge R930 configuration with SATA SSDs delivered strong
database performance, the same configuration with Intel NVMe SSDs provided
significantly better performance. As Figure 1 shows, configuring the Dell PowerEdge
R930 with Intel NVMe SSDs delivered over twice the Oracle Database performance
running an online transaction processing (OLTP) database workload than the same
server with SATA SSDs. (Note: Oracle licensing agreements prohibit publishing
benchmark scores. Thus, we report only relative performance.)
3. A Principled Technologies report 3Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC
P3600 Series NVMe SSDs on the Dell PowerEdge R930
Figure 1: The Dell PowerEdge
R930 with Intel NVMe SSDs
outperformed the same server
with SATA SSDs on Oracle
Database.
For users, this can mean quicker access to database results because the server
can process more orders. When a fast database lets customers search or complete
purchases more quickly, they may be more likely to stay on your site, continue
browsing, or even return for additional purchases. Internal users, such as employees
who rely on database information when providing customer service, can get more done
when the server can handle additional requests more quickly.
For administrators, an upgrade to Intel NVMe SSDs can help them maximize the
infrastructure they have to meet performance targets that drive the organization. In
addition to saving space, administrators benefit from the potential to have less
hardware to manage and maintain by consolidating workloads onto fewer servers with
more powerful internal hardware.
For businesses, maximizing database performance within each server can mean
big savings by avoiding additional server and software license purchases and in
datacenter space. We found that the cost of purchasing a new server with Intel SSD DC
P3600 Series NVMe SSDs was approximately 18 percent higher than purchasing the
same server with a mix of hard drives and SATA SSDs (see Appendix B for
configurations). With the additional cost of the drive upgrade, only 18 percent more for
hardware, you can double the performance of your Dell PowerEdge R930. Figure 2
details the prices Dell quoted PT for both configurations, as of 5/9/16. These prices do
not include tax or shipping.
4. A Principled Technologies report 4Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC
P3600 Series NVMe SSDs on the Dell PowerEdge R930
System Price (USD)
Dell PowerEdge R930 + Intel NVMe SSDs $97,150
Dell PowerEdge R930 + SATA SSDs $82,300
Figure 2: Prices for servers with different drive types, quoted on 5/9/2016.
Ultimately, maximizing server performance can help you utilize resources most
efficiently to make sure your organization gets the most out of your datacenter.
CONCLUSION
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.
5. A Principled Technologies report 5Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC
P3600 Series NVMe SSDs on the Dell PowerEdge R930
APPENDIX A – ABOUT THE COMPONENTS
About the Dell PowerEdge R930
The Dell PowerEdge R930 is a 4U, four-socket server that features the latest from the Intel Xeon processor E7
series. It is a versatile system designed to handle demanding workloads such as large-scale virtualization and massive
databases— workloads that are becoming increasingly important for the day-to-day operations of enterprise
organizations.
Under the hood, the R930 boasts a bevy of high-class specifications that make it a powerful tool for the modern
datacenter. These specifications include:
96 DIMM slots—The ample number of slots help leverage cost with performance and capacity needs. It
accommodates a larger memory footprint which can be configured with smaller-capacity DIMMs for
potential cost-efficiency, or can support up to 6 TB for more memory- intensive use cases.
24 Drive bays, configurable with a mix of SAS/SATA HDDs and SSDs as well as optional NVMe PCIe® SSDs
for expanded storage capabilities. Two chassis configurations—one with 24 HDD/SSD drive bays, and
one with 16 HDD/SSD drive bays and 8 PCIe SSD drive bays—allow you to configure the PowerEdge R930
however your business needs.
Optional NVMe PCIe SSD drives for data that requires the fastest- available I/O throughput.
To learn more about the Dell PowerEdge R930, visit http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/poweredge-r930/pd.
About HammerDB
HammerDB is an open-source benchmark tool that tests the database performance of many leading databases,
including Oracle Database, Microsoft® SQL Server®, PostgreSQL®, MySQLTM, and more. The benchmark includes two
built-in workloads derived from industry-standard benchmarks: a transactional OLTP workload and a data warehouse
workload. For this study, we used the transactional workload. For more information about HammerDB, visit
http://hammerora.sourceforge.net
6. A Principled Technologies report 6Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC
P3600 Series NVMe SSDs on the Dell PowerEdge R930
APPENDIX B – SYSTEM CONFIGURATION INFORMATION
Figure 3 provides detailed configuration information for the test systems.
System Dell PowerEdge R930
Power supplies
Total number 4
Vendor and model number Dell 0GDPF3
Wattage of each (W) 1,100
Cooling fans
Total number 6
Vendor and model number Nidec® UltraFlo V12C12BS1M3
Dimensions (h × w) of each 5" x 5"
Volts 2.31
General
Number of processor packages 4
Number of cores per processor 18
Number of hardware threads per core 2
CPU
Vendor Intel
Name Xeon
Model number E7-8890 v3
Socket type LGA2001-1
Core frequency (GHz) 2.50
Bus frequency 9.6 GT/s
L1 cache 32 KB + 32 KB (per core)
L2 cache 256 KB (per core)
L3 cache 45 MB
Platform
Vendor and model number Dell PowerEdge R930
BIOS name and version 1.0.9
BIOS settings Default
Memory module(s)
Total RAM in system (GB) 256
Vendor and model number Samsung® M386A4G40DM0-CPB
Type PC4-2133P
Speed (MHz) 2,133
Speed running in the system (MHz) 2,133
Timing/Latency (tCL-tRCD-tRP-tRASmin) 15-15-15-33
Size (GB) 32
Number of RAM module(s) 8
Chip organization Double-sided
Rank Quad
7. A Principled Technologies report 7Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC
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System Dell PowerEdge R930
Operating system
Name Red Hat® Enterprise Linux®
Kernel 3.10.0-229.el7.x86_64
Language English
RAID controller
Vendor and model number PERC H730P
Firmware version 25.3.0.0016
Cache size (MB) 2,048
Local storage
Hard drive (for OS)
Vendor and model number Dell AL13SEB900
Number of drives 2
Size (GB) 900
RPM 10,000
Type SAS
SATA solid-state drive
Vendor and model number Intel SSDSC2BB800G6R
Number of drives 8
Size (GB) 800
RPM N/A
Type SATA SSD
NVMe PCIe solid-state drive
Vendor and model number Intel SSDPE2ME020T4D
Number of drives 8
Size (GB) 2,000
RPM N/A
Type NVMe PCIe SSD
Ethernet adapters
Vendor and model number Intel Gigabit 4P i350-t
Type Gigabit Ethernet
Figure 3: Detailed configuration information for the test server.
8. A Principled Technologies report 8Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC
P3600 Series NVMe SSDs on the Dell PowerEdge R930
APPENDIX C – HOW WE TESTED
Configuring Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Oracle Database 12c
We installed Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Dell PowerEdge R930 server and configured settings as we specify
below. Screen outputs are in grey boxes.
Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux
We installed Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the R930 server with the default settings, but created a 16GB swap file
as Oracle requires it.
Performing initial configuration tasks
Complete the following steps to provide the base functionality that Oracle Database requires. We performed all
of these tasks as root.
1. Disable SELINUX:
vi /etc/selinux/config
SELINUX=disabled
2. Disable the firewall:
systemctl disable firewalld
3. To update the operating system packages, type the following:
yum update -y
4. To install additional packages, type the following commands:
yum install -y acpid wget vim nfs-utils openssh-clients man lsscsi unzip
smartmontools numactl ipmitool OpenIPMI
5. Reboot the server.
reboot
6. Install additional packages with the following commands:
yum install -y
binutils
compat-libcap1
compat-libstdc++-33
compat-libstdc++-33.i686
gcc
gcc-c++
glibc
glibc.i686
glibc-devel
glibc-devel.i686
ksh
libgcc
10. A Principled Technologies report 10Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC
P3600 Series NVMe SSDs on the Dell PowerEdge R930
8. Apply the changes with the following command:
sysctl -p
9. Edit the security limits configuration.
vim /etc/security/limits.conf
oracle soft nofile 1024
oracle hard nofile 65536
oracle soft nproc 2047
oracle hard nproc 16384
oracle soft stack 10240
oracle hard stack 32768
oracle soft memlock 536870912
oracle hard memlock 536870912
10. Add the necessary groups and users.
groupadd -g 54321 oinstall
groupadd -g 54322 dba
groupadd -g 54323 oper
useradd -u 54321 -g oinstall -G dba,oper oracle
11. Modify the password for the Oracle user.
passwd oracle
Changing password for user oracle.
New password:
Retype new password:
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.
12. Edit the hosts file.
vim /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 R930 R930.localhost.localdomain localhost
localhost.localdomain localhost4 localhost4.localdomain4
::1 R930 R930.localhost.localdomain localhost
localhost.localdomain localhost6 localhost6.localdomain6
13. Edit the 90-nproc.conf file.
vim /etc/security/limits.d/20-nproc.conf
Modifying this line:
* soft nproc 1024
To reflect this change:
* - nproc 16384
11. A Principled Technologies report 11Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC
P3600 Series NVMe SSDs on the Dell PowerEdge R930
14. Edit the profile file to set environment variables.
vim /home/oracle/.bash_profile
# Oracle Settings
export TMP=/tmp
export TMPDIR=$TMP
export ORACLE_HOSTNAME=R930.localhost.localdomain
export ORACLE_BASE=/home/oracle/app/oracle
export GRID_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/12.1.0/grid
export DB_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1
export ORACLE_HOME=$DB_HOME
export ORACLE_SID=orcl
export ORACLE_TERM=xterm
export BASE_PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$BASE_PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:/lib:/usr/lib
export
CLASSPATH=$ORACLE_HOME/JRE:$ORACLE_HOME/jlib:$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/jlib
alias grid_env='. /home/oracle/grid_env'
alias db_env='. /home/oracle/db_env'
15. Edit the grid_env file, and adjust additional variables:
vim /home/oracle/grid_env
export ORACLE_SID=+ASM
export ORACLE_HOME=$GRID_HOME
export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$BASE_PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:/lib:/usr/lib
export CLASSPATH=$ORACLE_HOME/JRE:$ORACLE_HOME/jlib:$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/jlib
16. Edit the db_env file, and adjust additional variables:
vim /home/oracle/db_env
export ORACLE_SID=orcl
export ORACLE_HOME=$DB_HOME
export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$BASE_PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:/lib:/usr/lib
export CLASSPATH=$ORACLE_HOME/JRE:$ORACLE_HOME/jlib:$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/jlib
17. Edit the scsi_id file.
echo "options=-g" > /etc/scsi_id.config
12. A Principled Technologies report 12Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC
P3600 Series NVMe SSDs on the Dell PowerEdge R930
Setting up the SATA SSD storage
We used the following steps to configure the SSD storage prior to setting up ASM.
1. Type the following command to get the ID of each driver.
/lib/udev/scsi_id -d /dev/sdb (Replace sdb with your drive name.)
2. Edit the 99-oracle-asmdevices rules file.
vim /etc/udev/rules.d/99-oracle-asmdevices.rules
KERNEL=="sd?1",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="partition",ENV{ID_SERIAL}=="3644a8420053ac0
001df888bf1a25baf0",SYMLINK+="oracleasm/mirror01", OWNER="oracle",
GROUP="dba", MODE="0660"
KERNEL=="sd?1",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="partition",ENV{ID_SERIAL}=="3644a8420053ac0
001df888ea1cbba3c1", SYMLINK+="oracleasm/mirror02", OWNER="oracle",
GROUP="dba", MODE="0660"
KERNEL=="sd?1",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="partition",ENV{ID_SERIAL}=="3644a8420053ac0
001df889131f2b65b4", SYMLINK+="oracleasm/mirror03", OWNER="oracle",
GROUP="dba", MODE="0660"
KERNEL=="sd?1",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="partition",ENV{ID_SERIAL}=="3644a8420053ac0
001df889362143ded4", SYMLINK+="oracleasm/mirror04", OWNER="oracle",
GROUP="dba", MODE="0660"
3. Execute udevadm and start udev.
udevadm control --reload-rules
reboot
4. List the ASM devices.
ls -l /dev/oracleasm/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Feb 24 19:17 mirror01 -> ../sdb1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Feb 24 19:17 mirror02 -> ../sdc1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Feb 24 19:17 mirror03 -> ../sdd1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Feb 24 19:17 mirror04 -> ../sde1
13. A Principled Technologies report 13Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC
P3600 Series NVMe SSDs on the Dell PowerEdge R930
Setting up the NVMe PCIe SSD storage
We used the following steps to configure the PCIe SSD storage prior to setting up ASM.
1. Run the following command to create SCSI names.
for i in `seq 0 7`; do /lib/udev/scsi_id --export -d /dev/nvme${i}n1 |
grep ID_SCSI_SERIAL ; done
ID_SCSI_SERIAL= PHFT5395002D800HGN
ID_SCSI_SERIAL= PHFT5383000F800HGN
ID_SCSI_SERIAL= PHFT53830029800HGN
ID_SCSI_SERIAL= PHFT5395007E800HGN
ID_SCSI_SERIAL= PHFT53950020800HGN
ID_SCSI_SERIAL= PHFT5395002G800HGN
ID_SCSI_SERIAL= PHFT539500CX800HGN
ID_SCSI_SERIAL= PHFT53830011800HGN
2. Edit the 99-oracle-asmdevices rules file.
vim /etc/udev/rules.d/99-oracle-asmdevices.rules
KERNEL=="nvme?n?",ENV{ID_SCSI_SERIAL}!="?*",IMPORT{program}="/lib/udev/sc
si_id -- export --whitelisted -d $tempnode", ENV{ID_BUS}="scsi"
KERNEL=="nvme?n?p1",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="partition",ENV{ID_SCSI_SERIAL}=="PHFT5
395002D800HGN", SYMLINK+="oracleasm/ssd0", OWNER="oracle", GROUP="dba",
MODE="0660"
KERNEL=="nvme?n?p1",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="partition",ENV{ID_SCSI_SERIAL}=="PHFT5
383000F800HGN", SYMLINK+="oracleasm/ssd1", OWNER="oracle", GROUP="dba",
MODE="0660"
KERNEL=="nvme?n?p1",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="partition",ENV{ID_SCSI_SERIAL}=="PHFT5
3830029800HGN", SYMLINK+="oracleasm/ssd2", OWNER="oracle", GROUP="dba",
MODE="0660"
KERNEL=="nvme?n?p1",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="partition",ENV{ID_SCSI_SERIAL}=="PHFT5
395007E800HGN", SYMLINK+="oracleasm/ssd3", OWNER="oracle", GROUP="dba",
MODE="0660"
KERNEL=="nvme?n?p1",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="partition",ENV{ID_SCSI_SERIAL}=="PHFT5
3950020800HGN", SYMLINK+="oracleasm/ssd4", OWNER="oracle", GROUP="dba",
MODE="0660"
KERNEL=="nvme?n?p1",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="partition",ENV{ID_SCSI_SERIAL}=="PHFT5
395002G800HGN", SYMLINK+="oracleasm/ssd5", OWNER="oracle", GROUP="dba",
MODE="0660"
KERNEL=="nvme?n?p1",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="partition",ENV{ID_SCSI_SERIAL}=="PHFT5
39500CX800HGN", SYMLINK+="oracleasm/ssd6", OWNER="oracle", GROUP="dba",
MODE="0660"
KERNEL=="nvme?n?p1",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="partition",ENV{ID_SCSI_SERIAL}=="PHFT5
3830011800HGN", SYMLINK+="oracleasm/ssd7", OWNER="oracle", GROUP="dba",
MODE="0660"
14. A Principled Technologies report 14Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC
P3600 Series NVMe SSDs on the Dell PowerEdge R930
3. Execute udevadm and start udev.
udevadm control --reload-rules
reboot
4. List the ASM devices.
ls -l /dev/oracleasm/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Feb 19 16:46 ssd0 -> ../nvme0n1p1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Feb 19 16:46 ssd1 -> ../nvme1n1p1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Feb 19 16:46 ssd2 -> ../nvme2n1p1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Feb 19 16:46 ssd3 -> ../nvme3n1p1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Feb 19 16:46 ssd4 -> ../nvme4n1p1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Feb 19 16:46 ssd5 -> ../nvme5n1p1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Feb 19 16:46 ssd6 -> ../nvme6n1p1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Feb 19 16:46 ssd7 -> ../nvme7n1p1
Installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure for Standalone Server 12c
In all test configurations, we used Oracle’s recommended approach to managing storage, Automatic Storage
Management (ASM). On each configuration, we configured the underlying storage for redundancy, as would be required
in nearly all environments. Oracle ASM provides three redundancy levels: Normal for two-way mirroring, High for three-
way mirroring, and External, which provides no mirroring but uses redundancy via hardware RAID controllers. On the
SATA SSD configuration, which had a Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) H730P, we used RAID 1 disk groups,
presented those to Oracle ASM, and used External redundancy. On the NVMe PCIe SSD configuration, the SSD devices
used no RAID controller, so we used Oracle ASM Normal redundancy for two-way mirroring.
Prior to starting the steps below, we downloaded the Oracle 12 Grid installation and extracted it to the
/home/grid directory.
1. Run the GUI installer for Oracle Database using the following commands:
ssh –Y oracle@R930_IP_address
grid_env
cd /home/grid
./runInstaller
2. Launch the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation wizard.
3. In Software Updates, select Skip software updates, and click Next.
4. In Installation Options, select Install and Configure Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server, and click
Next.
5. In Product Languages, select English and click the right-pointing arrow between the two selection panels to add
English to the Selected languages panel. Click Next.
6. In Create ASM Disk Group, click Change Discovery Path.
7. Enter /dev/oracleasm/* for the Disk Discovery Path, and click OK. (We left the default path for SAS
configuration.)
8. Check the boxes for six drives, and Click Next. (We did not select the last two disks on configuration. We
configured the last two drives for logs.) Select Normal redundancy.
15. A Principled Technologies report 15Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC
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9. In ASM Password, select Use same passwords for these accounts. Enter and confirm the password, and click
Next.
10. In Operating System Groups, set all Groups to dba. Click Next.
11. To confirm the notifications and continue, click Yes.
12. In Installation Location, accept the default locations provided, and click Next.
13. In Create Inventory, accept the defaults, and click Next.
14. In Root Script Execution, check the box for Automatically run configuration scripts.
15. Select Use “root” user credential, and provide the root password. Click Next.
16. In Summary, review the information, and click Install.
17. To confirm using the privileged user for the installer, click Yes.
18. In Finish, click Close to exit the installer.
Configuring disks for log files
We used the following steps to configure the log volume inside ASM.
1. Start the ASM configuration assistant, type asmca.
2. On the Disk Group tab, click Create.
3. On the Create Disk Group pop-up screen, enter LOGS for the Disk Group Name.
4. Select External (None) for Redundancy.
5. Select the disk showing in Disk Path, and click Ok.
6. Click Exit to close the ASM configuration assistant.
Installing Oracle Database 12c
Before completing the following steps, we downloaded the Oracle Database 12c installation and extracted it to
the /home/database directory.
1. Run the GUI installer for Oracle Database using the following commands:
ssh –Y oracle@R930_IP_address
db_env
cd /home/database
./runInstaller
2. Launch the Oracle Database 12c Release 1 Installer.
3. In Configure Security Updates, uncheck the I wish to receive security updates via My Oracle Support checkbox.
Click Next.
4. Click Yes to confirm no email provided, and continue.
5. In Software Updates, select Skip software updates, and click Next.
6. In Installation Options, select Install database software only, and click Next.
7. In Grid Installation Options, select Single instance database installation, and click Next.
8. In Product Languages, select English and click the right-pointing arrow located between the two selection panels
to add English to the Selected languages panel. Click Next.
9. In Database Edition, select Enterprise Edition, and click Next.
10. In Installation Location, accept the default locations provided, and click Next.
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11. In Operating System Groups, accept the defaults, and click Next.
12. In Summary, review the information, and click Install to begin installation.
13. When prompted, follow the instructions to execute the scripts. Click OK when the scripts have completed.
14. In Finish, click Close to exit the installer.
15. When prompted in the GUI installer, run the root shell script to finish the Oracle Database installation.
/home/oracle/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/root.sh
Creating the Oracle Database (using DBCA)
1. Launch the Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA).
2. In Database Operations, select Create Database, and click Next.
3. In Creation Mode, select Advanced Mode, and click Next.
4. In Database Template, select the Template for General Purpose or Transaction Processing, and click Next.
5. In Database Identification, type orcl for the Global Database Name.
6. Type orcl for the SID. Click Next.
7. In Management Options, select Configure Enterprise Manager (EM) Database Express. Click Next.
8. In Database Credentials, select Use the Same Administrative Password for All Accounts.
9. Enter and confirm the administrative password, and click Next.
10. In Network Configuration, check the boxes for all listeners, and click Next.
11. In Storage Locations, select User Common Location for All Database Files. Type +DATA into the Database Files
Location field.
12. Select Specify Fast Recovery Area. Type (ORACLE_BASE)/fast_recovery_area in the Fast Recovery
Area field.
13. Set the Fast Recovery Area size to 700 GB, and click Next.
14. In Database Options, accept the defaults, and click Next.
15. In Initialization Parameters and under typical settings, set the Memory Size to 80%, and click next.
16. In Creation Options, select Create Database. Click Customize Storage Locations.
17. In the Customize Storage panel and under Redo Log Groups, select 1.
18. Set the file size to 51,200 MB. Click Apply.
19. Under Redo Log Groups, Select 2.
20. Set the file size to 51,200 MB. Click Apply.
21. Under Redo Log Groups, Select 3.
22. Set the file size to 51,200 MB. Click Apply.
23. To exit the Customize Storage panel, click Ok.
24. Click Next.
25. Review the Summary. To complete the database creation, click Finish.
26. Review the information on the screen, and click Exit.
27. To exit the DBCA, click Close.
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Configuring Oracle Tablespaces and redo log
Alter the tablespaces on both systems as shown below. Type sqlplus / as sysdba to enter SQL prompt.
ALTER DATABASE ADD LOGFILE GROUP 11 ( '/tmp/temp1.log' ) SIZE 50M;
ALTER DATABASE ADD LOGFILE GROUP 12 ( '/tmp/temp2.log' ) SIZE 50M;
ALTER SYSTEM SWITCH LOGFILE;
ALTER SYSTEM SWITCH LOGFILE;
ALTER SYSTEM CHECKPOINT;
ALTER DATABASE DROP LOGFILE GROUP 1;
ALTER DATABASE DROP LOGFILE GROUP 2;
ALTER DATABASE DROP LOGFILE GROUP 3;
ALTER SYSTEM SWITCH LOGFILE;
ALTER SYSTEM SWITCH LOGFILE;
ALTER SYSTEM CHECKPOINT;
ALTER DATABASE DROP LOGFILE GROUP 1;
ALTER DATABASE DROP LOGFILE GROUP 2;
ALTER DATABASE DROP LOGFILE GROUP 3;
-- DELETE OLD REDO LOG FILES IN ASM MANUALLY USING ASMCMD HERE --
alter system set "_disk_sector_size_override"=TRUE scope=both;
ALTER DATABASE ADD LOGFILE GROUP 1 ( '+LOGS/orcl/redo01.log' ) SIZE 50G
BLOCKSIZE 4k;
ALTER DATABASE ADD LOGFILE GROUP 2 ( '+LOGS/orcl/redo02.log' ) SIZE 50G
BLOCKSIZE 4k;
ALTER DATABASE ADD LOGFILE GROUP 3 ( '+LOGS/orcl/redo03.log' ) SIZE 50G
BLOCKSIZE 4k;
ALTER SYSTEM SWITCH LOGFILE;
ALTER SYSTEM SWITCH LOGFILE;
ALTER SYSTEM CHECKPOINT;
ALTER DATABASE DROP LOGFILE GROUP 11;
ALTER DATABASE DROP LOGFILE GROUP 12;
ALTER SYSTEM SWITCH LOGFILE;
ALTER SYSTEM SWITCH LOGFILE;
ALTER SYSTEM CHECKPOINT;
ALTER DATABASE DROP LOGFILE GROUP 11;
ALTER DATABASE DROP LOGFILE GROUP 12;
HOST rm -f /tmp/temp*.log
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CREATE BIGFILE TABLESPACE "TPCC"
DATAFILE '+DATA/orcl/tpcc.dbf' SIZE 800G AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 1G
BLOCKSIZE 8K
EXTENT MANAGEMENT LOCAL AUTOALLOCATE
SEGMENT SPACE MANAGEMENT AUTO;
CREATE BIGFILE TABLESPACE "TPCC_OL"
DATAFILE '+DATA/orcl/tpcc_ol.dbf' SIZE 400G AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 1G
BLOCKSIZE 16K
EXTENT MANAGEMENT LOCAL AUTOALLOCATE
SEGMENT SPACE MANAGEMENT AUTO;
ALTER DATABASE DATAFILE '+DATA/orcl/undotbs01.dbf' RESIZE 32760M;
Configuring the Oracle pfile
Alter the Oracle pfile as shown below. Then to make Oracle use it, enter the following, and restart oracle:
CREATE SPFILE = '+DATA/orcl/spfileorcl.ora' FROM PFILE =
'/home/oracle/app/oracle/product/12.1.0/dbhome_1/pfile.ora';
orcl.__oracle_base='/home/oracle/app/oracle'#ORACLE_BASE set from
environment
_disk_sector_size_override=TRUE
_enable_NUMA_support=TRUE
_kgl_hot_object_copies=4
_shared_io_pool_size=512m
aq_tm_processes=0
audit_file_dest='/home/oracle/app/oracle/admin/orcl/adump'
audit_trail='NONE'
compatible='12.1.0.2.0'
control_files='+DATA/orcl/control01.ctl','+DATA/orcl/control02.ctl'
db_16k_cache_size=32g
db_block_size=8192
db_cache_size=128g
db_create_file_dest='+DATA'
db_domain=''
db_name='orcl'
db_recovery_file_dest_size=700g
db_recovery_file_dest='/home/oracle/app/oracle/fast_recovery_area'
db_writer_processes=4
diagnostic_dest='/home/oracle/app/oracle'
disk_asynch_io=TRUE
dispatchers='(PROTOCOL=TCP) (SERVICE=orclXDB)'
dml_locks=500
fast_start_mttr_target=180
java_pool_size=4g
job_queue_processes=0
large_pool_size=4g
local_listener='LISTENER_ORCL'
lock_sga=TRUE
log_buffer=402653184
log_checkpoint_interval=0
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log_checkpoint_timeout=0
log_checkpoints_to_alert=TRUE
open_cursors=2000
parallel_max_servers=0
parallel_min_servers=0
pga_aggregate_target=5g
plsql_code_type='NATIVE'
plsql_optimize_level=3
processes=1000
recovery_parallelism=30
remote_login_passwordfile='EXCLUSIVE'
replication_dependency_tracking=FALSE
result_cache_max_size=0
sessions=1500
shared_pool_size=9g
statistics_level='BASIC'
timed_statistics=FALSE
trace_enabled=FALSE
transactions=2000
transactions_per_rollback_segment=1
undo_management='AUTO'
undo_retention=1
undo_tablespace='UNDOTBS1'
use_large_pages='ONLY'
Setting up the HammerDB client
We used a dual-processor server running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 for the HammerDB client. We followed the
installation steps at the beginning of this appendix to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but installed the GUI. We then
installed the HammerDB client software.
Installing HammerDB
Download and install version 2.19 on the Red Hat client. We downloaded HammerDB from the following
location: hammerora.sourceforge.net/download.html. We installed HammerDB according to the installation guide
(hammerora.sourceforge.net/hammerdb_install_guide.pdf).
Installing HammerDB Oracle libraries
Complete the following steps on both systems.
1. Launch the Oracle Client Installer.
2. In Select Installation Type, select Administrator (1.8 GB) as the installation type, and click Next.
3. In Software Updates, select Skip software updates, and click Next.
4. In Select Product Languages, select English and click the right-pointing arrow located between the two selection
panels to add English to the Selected languages panel. Click Next.
5. In Specify Installation Location, accept the default locations provided, and click Next.
6. In Create Inventory, accept the defaults, and click Next.
7. In Summary, review the information, and click Install to begin installation.
8. In Install Product, follow the instructions to execute the scripts. Click OK when the scripts have completed.
9. In Finish, click Close to exit the installer.
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Configuring the database
We used the TPC-C build schema build options for Oracle inside HammerDB to build the database. We set the
following options in the build schema.
Oracle Service Name = R930_IP_addres/orcl
System user = system
System User Password = Password1
TPC-C User = tpcc
TPC-C User Password = tpcc
TPC-C Default Tablespace = tpcc
Order Line Tablespace = tpcc_ol
TPC-C Temporary Tablespace = temp
TimesTen Database Commatible = unchecked
Partition Order Line Table = checked
Number of Warehouses = 5000
Virtual Users to Build Schema = 60
Use PL/SQL Server Side Load = unchecked
Server Side Log Directory = /tmp
Total Transactions per User = 1000000000
Running HammerDB
We ran HammerDB by filling in the appropriate information for the driver options. We tested with a 30-minute
ramp up time and 30-minute test duration. We used 101 virtual users with 0-ms user delay and repeat delay. We used
rman to back up the database and restore between runs.
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