The document describes testing of two Dell PowerEdge servers' ability to support graphics-accelerated virtual desktops. A Dell PowerEdge R740xd server with 3 NVIDIA Tesla GPUs supported 96 virtual desktops, 50% more than a Dell PowerEdge R730 server with 2 GPUs which supported 64 desktops. Both servers maintained below 80% CPU utilization. The R740xd's ability to support more desktops in the same rack space allows more efficient use of datacenter resources.
Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SS...Principled Technologies
If your organization runs critical, high-demand databases in environments such as Oracle Database, strong performance is not an option: it’s a must-have. Additionally, getting that necessary strong performance out of a single server can be essential for running a space and cost-efficient datacenter. In the Principled Technologies labs, we found that the Dell PowerEdge R930 offered strong performance for such transactional databases when configured with SATA SSDs. When we upgraded the servers to Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SSDs, performance doubled, increasing by 2.17 times, or 117 percent. If your datacenter needs a new powerhouse server, purchasing your Dell PowerEdge R930 with Intel NVMe SSDs for a cost increase of only 18 percent can double the performance you get from each server. This increases what your infrastructure can do within the same amount of space and lets you ultimately save money that would otherwise be spent purchasing additional servers and software.
VDI performance comparison: Dell PowerEdge FX2 and FC430 servers with VMware ...Principled Technologies
Replacing your legacy VDI servers with a new Intel Xeon processor E5-2670 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a great boon for your enterprise.
In the Principled Technologies (PT) labs, this space-efficient, affordable solution outperformed a five-year-old legacy server and traditional SAN by offering twice as many VDI users. Additionally, it achieved greater performance while using 91 percent less space and at a cost of only $167.89 per user in hardware costs.
By supporting more users, saving space, and its affordability, an upgrade to the Intel-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a wise move when replacing your aging, older infrastructure.
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.
Elevate your e-commerce business by upgrading to the Dell EMC PowerEdge R740x...Principled Technologies
Upgrading from legacy Dell PowerEdge R720 servers with a SAN storage array to a VMware vSAN cluster of Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers with 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors provided a dramatic performance boost. The new cluster handled 11.4 times as many orders per minute as the legacy environment and 1.3 times as many orders per minute as a previous generation solution with 1st Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors. The document recommends upgrading hardware to improve efficiency, support new technologies, and help businesses grow by handling more customers.
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.
Update your private cloud with 14th generation Dell EMC PowerEdge FC640 serve...Principled Technologies
The document discusses testing of Dell EMC PowerEdge FC640 servers running Apache Cassandra databases for private clouds. It finds that a solution using the 14th generation Dell EMC PowerEdge FC640 servers handled over 4.7 times the workload of a previous generation solution using Dell PowerEdge R710 servers, while using half the rack space. This allows supporting more user requests while potentially saving on datacenter expansion costs.
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.
Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SS...Principled Technologies
If your organization runs critical, high-demand databases in environments such as Oracle Database, strong performance is not an option: it’s a must-have. Additionally, getting that necessary strong performance out of a single server can be essential for running a space and cost-efficient datacenter. In the Principled Technologies labs, we found that the Dell PowerEdge R930 offered strong performance for such transactional databases when configured with SATA SSDs. When we upgraded the servers to Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SSDs, performance doubled, increasing by 2.17 times, or 117 percent. If your datacenter needs a new powerhouse server, purchasing your Dell PowerEdge R930 with Intel NVMe SSDs for a cost increase of only 18 percent can double the performance you get from each server. This increases what your infrastructure can do within the same amount of space and lets you ultimately save money that would otherwise be spent purchasing additional servers and software.
VDI performance comparison: Dell PowerEdge FX2 and FC430 servers with VMware ...Principled Technologies
Replacing your legacy VDI servers with a new Intel Xeon processor E5-2670 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a great boon for your enterprise.
In the Principled Technologies (PT) labs, this space-efficient, affordable solution outperformed a five-year-old legacy server and traditional SAN by offering twice as many VDI users. Additionally, it achieved greater performance while using 91 percent less space and at a cost of only $167.89 per user in hardware costs.
By supporting more users, saving space, and its affordability, an upgrade to the Intel-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a wise move when replacing your aging, older infrastructure.
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.
Elevate your e-commerce business by upgrading to the Dell EMC PowerEdge R740x...Principled Technologies
Upgrading from legacy Dell PowerEdge R720 servers with a SAN storage array to a VMware vSAN cluster of Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers with 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors provided a dramatic performance boost. The new cluster handled 11.4 times as many orders per minute as the legacy environment and 1.3 times as many orders per minute as a previous generation solution with 1st Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors. The document recommends upgrading hardware to improve efficiency, support new technologies, and help businesses grow by handling more customers.
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.
Update your private cloud with 14th generation Dell EMC PowerEdge FC640 serve...Principled Technologies
The document discusses testing of Dell EMC PowerEdge FC640 servers running Apache Cassandra databases for private clouds. It finds that a solution using the 14th generation Dell EMC PowerEdge FC640 servers handled over 4.7 times the workload of a previous generation solution using Dell PowerEdge R710 servers, while using half the rack space. This allows supporting more user requests while potentially saving on datacenter expansion costs.
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.
Dell PowerEdge R920 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Migration and Benefits GuidePrincipled Technologies
The latest Dell PowerEdge R920 server is designed to provide highly scalable performance for large enterprises, with greater memory capacity, improved and expanded attached storage options, and processor architectures designed for high availability. Microsoft SQL Server 2014 is the perfect companion software to take advantage of the Dell PowerEdge R920’s impressive specifications. Upgrading has never looked more attractive, and with hardware/software upgrades must come data migration.
Migrating legacy database applications to the latest database technologies on newer Dell server platforms is a common task for businesses upgrading their hardware/software stack. As this guide shows, the process is straightforward and the cost benefits can be enormous. We calculated the savings attainable from multiple consolidation ratios, as well as how long it would take to pay off the replacement server. We found that a consolidation ratio of 13 to 1 could yield $531,725 in software savings, many times the cost of the replacement hardware itself. So not only will the business benefit from the massively-scalable current-generation Dell server technology paired with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 running SQL Server 2014, but you can save money in the process.
Prepare images for machine learning faster with servers powered by AMD EPYC 7...Principled Technologies
A server cluster with 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors achieved higher throughput and took less time to prepare images for classification than a server cluster with 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Platinum 8380 processors
Consolidate and upgrade: Dell PowerEdge VRTX and Microsoft SQL Server 2014Principled Technologies
Your growing business shouldn’t run on aging hardware and software until it fails. Adding memory and upgrading processors will not provide the same benefits to your infrastructure as a consolidation and upgrade can. Upgrading and consolidating your IT infrastructure to the Dell PowerEdge VRTX running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014 can improve performance while adding features such as high availability.
Based on our findings, a single Dell PowerEdge VRTX can replace four four-year-old dual-socket servers with VMs running heavy SQL database workloads. We found that consolidating four older servers onto a Dell PowerEdge VRTX and upgrading to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save up to $16,390 over three years, compared to keeping the four-year-old dual-socket servers and upgrading existing storage infrastructure. If your business runs older versions of Microsoft SQL Server on end-of-life dual-socket servers, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save your company these costs while delivering better performance than the aging hardware and software.
Minimizing licensing costs for enterprise applications is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down. When your applications use per-core licensing, choosing higher-performance servers with fewer cores dramatically reduces your software-related spending. The Dell PowerEdge M820 blade solution with Compellent storage could deliver up to $96,236 in savings as compared to a single HP ProLiant BL680c G7 solution, and if consolidating multiple workloads, could deliver even more savings in licensing costs when running Microsoft SQL Server in a virtualized scenario – all while maintaining or exceeding previous performance levels.
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.
VMmark virtualization performance of Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SANPrincipled Technologies
The storage you use for your virtualization solution can be a significant factor in its performance and effectiveness. Two Dell PowerEdge R720 servers, paired with Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN, ran 10 VMmark tiles for a total of 80 running VMs and achieved a score of 12.05@10 tiles, making it the top score running VMware ESXi 5.5 of the 32-core server configurations. For enterprises that need excellent virtualization performance, this makes Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN a wise investment.
Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with one Dell PowerEdge M...Principled Technologies
Keeping a legacy disparate hardware solution composed of nine older servers instead of choosing the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3 family may cost more than one would expect. We found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with an Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server could do the work of nine legacy servers running email, database, and file/print server workloads. The VRTX ran all nine workloads in VMs, achieving a slight performance boost on the database and file/print workloads while using much less datacenter space and reducing power consumption by 38.4 percent.
The VRTX achieved these savings using 88.6 percent less rack-equivalent space than the legacy disparate hardware solution and with one-third as many cables, to reduce complexity and reduce the burden of space in small offices.
Despite a larger initial investment, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with an Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server could actually lower the total cost of ownership over five years by as much as 48.5 percent, delivering a solid return on investment in less than two years.
As our test results show, investing in the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 v3 family could provide a compact solution to optimize application performance and reduce complexity at a lower lifetime cost than a legacy solution composed of nine older servers.
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.
The Dell PowerEdge R920 could replace nine older Oracle database servers and provide nine times the performance while reducing power consumption by 64% and lowering software licensing costs by 17%. Testing showed the R920 running Oracle Database 12c with pluggable databases provided significant savings over three years in power, cooling, and licensing costs compared to running the databases on nine older servers.
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.
Power efficiency and cost: AMD Opteron 6300 series processor-based Dell Power...Principled Technologies
With advances in processing power, it’s now possible to upgrade your older 4U, four-socket servers to newer and more powerful 2U, four-socket servers and achieve powerful performance. Additionally, the servers you select should provide the high performance levels you expect while simultaneously providing great purchase cost value and maximizing performance per watt, in an effort to keep your data center costs low.
In our tests, we found that the AMD Opteron processor Model 6380-powered Dell PowerEdge R815 provided similar performance to its competitor, the HP ProLiant DL560 Gen8, while providing benefits in the realms of power-efficiency and value. The Dell PowerEdge R815 delivered a 47.4 percent lower per-VM cost than the HP ProLiant DL560 Gen8, while delivering 15.8 percent more OPM per watt than the HP server did.
Due to these possible savings with the Dell solution, we found that the AMD Opteron processor Model 6380-powered Dell PowerEdge R815 could deliver up to an 28.8 percent lower three-year TCO than the HP ProLiant DL560 Gen8.
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.
Setting up a failover cluster on the Dell PowerEdge VRTX is a straightforward process. In very little time, you can deploy Dell PowerEdge VRTX with up to four M-series servers, switches, and storage in a redundant configuration using Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. By setting up a failover cluster on your compact Dell PowerEdge VRTX, you can maximize server uptime to keep your business moving.
Consolidate and upgrade to save up to $172K: Dell PowerEdge R620 and Microso...Principled Technologies
Your growing business needs upgraded infrastructure to keep up with increased users and demand on your hardware. Adding memory and upgrading processors does not provide the same benefits to your infrastructure as a consolidation and upgrade can. Upgrading and consolidating your IT infrastructure to the Dell PowerEdge R620 running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014 can improve performance while saving money and rack space.
Based on our findings, a single Dell PowerEdge R620 can replace four four-year-old dual-socket servers with VMs running heavy SQL Server database workloads. We found that consolidating four older servers onto a Dell PowerEdge R620 and upgrading to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save up to $172,573 over three years, compared to keeping the four-year-old dual-socket servers. The Dell PowerEdge R620 can also consolidate 8U worth of legacy servers into 1U of space. If your business runs older versions of Microsoft SQL Server on end-of-life dual-socket servers, the Dell PowerEdge R620 with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save your company these costs while delivering better performance than the aging hardware and software.
Upgrading to Windows Server 2019 on Dell EMC PowerEdge servers: A simple proc...Principled Technologies
Using Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers with Intel Xeon Scalable processors, we upgraded from Windows Server 2016 and saw data compression ratios of up to 9.8:1 thanks to new Storage Spaces Direct features
Resource balancing comparison: VMware vSphere 6 vs. Red Hat Enterprise Virtua...Principled Technologies
Having ample resources to handle user requests is a necessity of modern virtualization solutions. Allocating and distributing those resources evenly, however, is imperative to the success of your business’s virtualized environment. In our tests, after powering on the other two servers in our three-node cluster and adding resource management features, VMware vSphere 6 improved performance by 183 percent over its baseline configuration of one active server and no resource management features. RHEV 3.5, in contrast, delivered only a 79 percent increase over its baseline. As you design your business’s infrastructure and applications, improvements such as those offered by VMware vSphere 6 DRS and Storage DRS can play a critical role by offering your users better application experiences. Optimized and modern resource management provided by VMware DRS can also help to lower your IT purchase and maintenance costs by reducing the number of servers necessary to run your applications.
Managing clients with Dell Client Integration Pack 3.0 and Microsoft System C...Principled Technologies
Client management is an important part of any enterprise. Employees have workstations in their offices or notebooks that travel with them around the globe, and efficient updates and remote management capabilities keep an organization’s IT assets ordered and secure. Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 can provide a robust, efficient, management system for your IT infrastructure. Selecting clients that not only operate within your IT framework, but that have built-in software to integrate with it seamlessly to make client management tasks even easier is an intelligent strategy for your IT department.
In our tests, we found that Dell client management tools (Dell Client Integration Pack, Dell Client Configuration Toolkit, and Dell OpenManage Client Instrumentation) integrated in a typical SCCM 2012 environment reduced the steps it took to complete client management tasks by as much as 77 percent, and included a number of features that weren’t available with clients from HP and Lenovo.
Ensure greater uptime and boost VMware vSAN cluster performance with the Del...Principled Technologies
The Dell EMC PowerEdge MX with VMware vSAN Ready Nodes delivered a 55.9% faster response time than a Cisco UCS solution and a 41.3% faster response time than an HPE Synergy solution
Business-critical applications on VMware vSphere 6, VMware Virtual SAN, and V...Principled Technologies
The document summarizes performance testing of VMware vSphere 6, VMware Virtual SAN, and VMware NSX running business-critical applications. In single-site testing, the solution delivered over 189,000 IOPS and 5ms average read latency under heavy workload. In two-site testing, it live migrated all VMs between sites in under 9 minutes with no downtime or performance degradation for applications. The software-defined datacenter solution provided reliable performance and business continuity for critical workloads.
DellEMC PowerEdge R740xd Rack Server - Sinteza CoSintezaCo
The document compares the performance of Dell PowerEdge R740xd servers with Intel Xeon Scalable processors using VMware vSAN storage against Dell PowerEdge R720 servers using traditional HDD storage. Testing showed the R740xd cluster processed database transactions 8 times faster, supported 12 times the input/output operations, and had 98% lower storage latency. This superior performance from the newer hardware could help businesses better support customer needs.
Dell PowerEdge R920 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Migration and Benefits GuidePrincipled Technologies
The latest Dell PowerEdge R920 server is designed to provide highly scalable performance for large enterprises, with greater memory capacity, improved and expanded attached storage options, and processor architectures designed for high availability. Microsoft SQL Server 2014 is the perfect companion software to take advantage of the Dell PowerEdge R920’s impressive specifications. Upgrading has never looked more attractive, and with hardware/software upgrades must come data migration.
Migrating legacy database applications to the latest database technologies on newer Dell server platforms is a common task for businesses upgrading their hardware/software stack. As this guide shows, the process is straightforward and the cost benefits can be enormous. We calculated the savings attainable from multiple consolidation ratios, as well as how long it would take to pay off the replacement server. We found that a consolidation ratio of 13 to 1 could yield $531,725 in software savings, many times the cost of the replacement hardware itself. So not only will the business benefit from the massively-scalable current-generation Dell server technology paired with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 running SQL Server 2014, but you can save money in the process.
Prepare images for machine learning faster with servers powered by AMD EPYC 7...Principled Technologies
A server cluster with 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors achieved higher throughput and took less time to prepare images for classification than a server cluster with 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Platinum 8380 processors
Consolidate and upgrade: Dell PowerEdge VRTX and Microsoft SQL Server 2014Principled Technologies
Your growing business shouldn’t run on aging hardware and software until it fails. Adding memory and upgrading processors will not provide the same benefits to your infrastructure as a consolidation and upgrade can. Upgrading and consolidating your IT infrastructure to the Dell PowerEdge VRTX running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014 can improve performance while adding features such as high availability.
Based on our findings, a single Dell PowerEdge VRTX can replace four four-year-old dual-socket servers with VMs running heavy SQL database workloads. We found that consolidating four older servers onto a Dell PowerEdge VRTX and upgrading to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save up to $16,390 over three years, compared to keeping the four-year-old dual-socket servers and upgrading existing storage infrastructure. If your business runs older versions of Microsoft SQL Server on end-of-life dual-socket servers, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save your company these costs while delivering better performance than the aging hardware and software.
Minimizing licensing costs for enterprise applications is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down. When your applications use per-core licensing, choosing higher-performance servers with fewer cores dramatically reduces your software-related spending. The Dell PowerEdge M820 blade solution with Compellent storage could deliver up to $96,236 in savings as compared to a single HP ProLiant BL680c G7 solution, and if consolidating multiple workloads, could deliver even more savings in licensing costs when running Microsoft SQL Server in a virtualized scenario – all while maintaining or exceeding previous performance levels.
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.
VMmark virtualization performance of Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SANPrincipled Technologies
The storage you use for your virtualization solution can be a significant factor in its performance and effectiveness. Two Dell PowerEdge R720 servers, paired with Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN, ran 10 VMmark tiles for a total of 80 running VMs and achieved a score of 12.05@10 tiles, making it the top score running VMware ESXi 5.5 of the 32-core server configurations. For enterprises that need excellent virtualization performance, this makes Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN a wise investment.
Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with one Dell PowerEdge M...Principled Technologies
Keeping a legacy disparate hardware solution composed of nine older servers instead of choosing the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3 family may cost more than one would expect. We found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with an Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server could do the work of nine legacy servers running email, database, and file/print server workloads. The VRTX ran all nine workloads in VMs, achieving a slight performance boost on the database and file/print workloads while using much less datacenter space and reducing power consumption by 38.4 percent.
The VRTX achieved these savings using 88.6 percent less rack-equivalent space than the legacy disparate hardware solution and with one-third as many cables, to reduce complexity and reduce the burden of space in small offices.
Despite a larger initial investment, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with an Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server could actually lower the total cost of ownership over five years by as much as 48.5 percent, delivering a solid return on investment in less than two years.
As our test results show, investing in the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 v3 family could provide a compact solution to optimize application performance and reduce complexity at a lower lifetime cost than a legacy solution composed of nine older servers.
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.
The Dell PowerEdge R920 could replace nine older Oracle database servers and provide nine times the performance while reducing power consumption by 64% and lowering software licensing costs by 17%. Testing showed the R920 running Oracle Database 12c with pluggable databases provided significant savings over three years in power, cooling, and licensing costs compared to running the databases on nine older servers.
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.
Power efficiency and cost: AMD Opteron 6300 series processor-based Dell Power...Principled Technologies
With advances in processing power, it’s now possible to upgrade your older 4U, four-socket servers to newer and more powerful 2U, four-socket servers and achieve powerful performance. Additionally, the servers you select should provide the high performance levels you expect while simultaneously providing great purchase cost value and maximizing performance per watt, in an effort to keep your data center costs low.
In our tests, we found that the AMD Opteron processor Model 6380-powered Dell PowerEdge R815 provided similar performance to its competitor, the HP ProLiant DL560 Gen8, while providing benefits in the realms of power-efficiency and value. The Dell PowerEdge R815 delivered a 47.4 percent lower per-VM cost than the HP ProLiant DL560 Gen8, while delivering 15.8 percent more OPM per watt than the HP server did.
Due to these possible savings with the Dell solution, we found that the AMD Opteron processor Model 6380-powered Dell PowerEdge R815 could deliver up to an 28.8 percent lower three-year TCO than the HP ProLiant DL560 Gen8.
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.
Setting up a failover cluster on the Dell PowerEdge VRTX is a straightforward process. In very little time, you can deploy Dell PowerEdge VRTX with up to four M-series servers, switches, and storage in a redundant configuration using Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. By setting up a failover cluster on your compact Dell PowerEdge VRTX, you can maximize server uptime to keep your business moving.
Consolidate and upgrade to save up to $172K: Dell PowerEdge R620 and Microso...Principled Technologies
Your growing business needs upgraded infrastructure to keep up with increased users and demand on your hardware. Adding memory and upgrading processors does not provide the same benefits to your infrastructure as a consolidation and upgrade can. Upgrading and consolidating your IT infrastructure to the Dell PowerEdge R620 running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014 can improve performance while saving money and rack space.
Based on our findings, a single Dell PowerEdge R620 can replace four four-year-old dual-socket servers with VMs running heavy SQL Server database workloads. We found that consolidating four older servers onto a Dell PowerEdge R620 and upgrading to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save up to $172,573 over three years, compared to keeping the four-year-old dual-socket servers. The Dell PowerEdge R620 can also consolidate 8U worth of legacy servers into 1U of space. If your business runs older versions of Microsoft SQL Server on end-of-life dual-socket servers, the Dell PowerEdge R620 with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save your company these costs while delivering better performance than the aging hardware and software.
Upgrading to Windows Server 2019 on Dell EMC PowerEdge servers: A simple proc...Principled Technologies
Using Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers with Intel Xeon Scalable processors, we upgraded from Windows Server 2016 and saw data compression ratios of up to 9.8:1 thanks to new Storage Spaces Direct features
Resource balancing comparison: VMware vSphere 6 vs. Red Hat Enterprise Virtua...Principled Technologies
Having ample resources to handle user requests is a necessity of modern virtualization solutions. Allocating and distributing those resources evenly, however, is imperative to the success of your business’s virtualized environment. In our tests, after powering on the other two servers in our three-node cluster and adding resource management features, VMware vSphere 6 improved performance by 183 percent over its baseline configuration of one active server and no resource management features. RHEV 3.5, in contrast, delivered only a 79 percent increase over its baseline. As you design your business’s infrastructure and applications, improvements such as those offered by VMware vSphere 6 DRS and Storage DRS can play a critical role by offering your users better application experiences. Optimized and modern resource management provided by VMware DRS can also help to lower your IT purchase and maintenance costs by reducing the number of servers necessary to run your applications.
Managing clients with Dell Client Integration Pack 3.0 and Microsoft System C...Principled Technologies
Client management is an important part of any enterprise. Employees have workstations in their offices or notebooks that travel with them around the globe, and efficient updates and remote management capabilities keep an organization’s IT assets ordered and secure. Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 can provide a robust, efficient, management system for your IT infrastructure. Selecting clients that not only operate within your IT framework, but that have built-in software to integrate with it seamlessly to make client management tasks even easier is an intelligent strategy for your IT department.
In our tests, we found that Dell client management tools (Dell Client Integration Pack, Dell Client Configuration Toolkit, and Dell OpenManage Client Instrumentation) integrated in a typical SCCM 2012 environment reduced the steps it took to complete client management tasks by as much as 77 percent, and included a number of features that weren’t available with clients from HP and Lenovo.
Ensure greater uptime and boost VMware vSAN cluster performance with the Del...Principled Technologies
The Dell EMC PowerEdge MX with VMware vSAN Ready Nodes delivered a 55.9% faster response time than a Cisco UCS solution and a 41.3% faster response time than an HPE Synergy solution
Business-critical applications on VMware vSphere 6, VMware Virtual SAN, and V...Principled Technologies
The document summarizes performance testing of VMware vSphere 6, VMware Virtual SAN, and VMware NSX running business-critical applications. In single-site testing, the solution delivered over 189,000 IOPS and 5ms average read latency under heavy workload. In two-site testing, it live migrated all VMs between sites in under 9 minutes with no downtime or performance degradation for applications. The software-defined datacenter solution provided reliable performance and business continuity for critical workloads.
DellEMC PowerEdge R740xd Rack Server - Sinteza CoSintezaCo
The document compares the performance of Dell PowerEdge R740xd servers with Intel Xeon Scalable processors using VMware vSAN storage against Dell PowerEdge R720 servers using traditional HDD storage. Testing showed the R740xd cluster processed database transactions 8 times faster, supported 12 times the input/output operations, and had 98% lower storage latency. This superior performance from the newer hardware could help businesses better support customer needs.
Dell PowerEdge R660xs: Maximize VDI density while delivering a strong user ex...Principled Technologies
Choosing the right VDI solution can empower your employees to be more productive with a responsive desktop experience and set your company up for growth. In our Login Enterprise benchmark tests, a Dell PowerEdge R660xs powered by 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors supported 290 VDI sessions while consuming an average of only 2.46 watts per VDI session and maintaining acceptable virtual desktop response times. Maximizing virtual desktop density, as this Dell PowerEdge R660xs configuration did, opens the door to other benefits, including server rack consolidation and simplified power and cooling needs.
Upgrade to Dell EMC PowerEdge R940 servers with VMware vSphere 7.0 and gain g...Principled Technologies
The document summarizes a study that tested online transactional processing (OLTP) performance on two server solutions: a Dell EMC PowerEdge R940 server with VMware vSphere 7.0, and a previous-generation Dell EMC PowerEdge R930 server with vSphere 6.7. The study found that the R940 solution processed over 30% more operations per minute than the R930 solution. Upgrading to the R940 platform provides benefits like more processor cores, memory, and PCIe capacity. VMware vSphere 7.0 features like vLCM could help scale Dell EMC environments, and integrating with OpenManage for vCenter allows faster updating, upgrading, and compatibility checking.
Support more customers and gain business insights faster - Infographic Principled Technologies
Our testing found that using new Dell EMC™ servers, Toshiba Memory SSDs,and Microsoft® software in both Windows® and Linux® environments can yield big performance gains versus legacy hardware and software
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.
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.
Upgrade to Dell EMC PowerEdge R6515 servers and gain better OLTP and VDI perf...Principled Technologies
Additionally, PowerEdge R6515 servers with 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors could lower licensing costs and also empower your business to explore Kubernetes with VMware Tanzu
Database performance: Dell PowerEdge R730xd vs. Lenovo ThinkServer RD650Principled Technologies
The document compares the database performance of the Dell PowerEdge R730xd server to the Lenovo ThinkServer RD650 server. It finds that the Dell PowerEdge R730xd delivered 27.9% more orders per minute for a Microsoft SQL Server 2014 database application than the Lenovo server. It also had lower application response times, up to 24.6% better, and lower disk response times, up to 93.1% better. The Dell server was able to process more orders per minute with faster response times for end users due to its current-generation hardware, increased solid-state drives, and storage capacity three times that of the Lenovo server.
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
Get improved performance and new features from Dell EMC PowerEdge servers wit...Principled Technologies
We put 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processor-powered Dell EMC PowerEdge servers to the test with a variety of workloads to see the benefits and features your organization could expect from this latest offering
Get stronger SQL Server performance for less with Dell EMC PowerEdge R6515 cl...Principled Technologies
When it comes to hardware, getting greater performance often requires spending more. In our virtualized SQL Server 2019 testing of two current-generation servers in Hyper-V clusters, however, the less expensive option delivered stronger performance on our OLTP workload.
Component upgrades from Intel and Dell can increase VM density and boost perf...Principled Technologies
The document summarizes an experiment conducted by Principled Technologies that tested the performance improvements from upgrading server components. They found that upgrading from a Dell PowerEdge R720 to a Dell PowerEdge R730 server, along with upgrading the processor, operating system, storage drives and network cards, increased the number of supported VMs by 67% and database performance by 60%. Upgrading all components maximized performance benefits.
22by7 and DellEMC Tech Day July 20 2017 - Power EdgeSashikris
The document discusses Dell EMC's PowerEdge server solutions for modern data centers. It introduces the PowerEdge R940, R740-R740xd, R640, C6420, and M640-FC640 servers and highlights their key features. These include expanded processing, memory, storage and I/O capacity, intelligent automation capabilities, integrated security features, and workload optimization options. The servers are presented as providing adaptable, scalable and protected infrastructure for traditional and emerging workloads in the modern data center.
The new Dell PowerEdge R720 comes with more than just the power to handle your heavy mixed workloads – it offers many storage solutions to deliver the level of performance you need. In our tests, we found that that a configuration of all HDDs could support a total of 1,164 users accessing database, mail, and collaboration applications. The Dell PowerEdge R720 solution with CacheCade enabled increased the supported number of users to 2,929, an increase of 151.6 percent. Finally, the Hybrid solution increased the number of users to 7,574, or an increase of 550.7 percent over the HDD solution, providing you with numerous options and scalability to get the performance you need.
Combine containerization and GPU acceleration on VMware: Dell PowerEdge R750 ...Principled Technologies
Our results running a vGPU-accelerated deep learning image-classification workload in this environment
We ran a deep learning image-classification workload on a Dell PowerEdge R750 server with an NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPU that was in a VMware vSphere with Tanzu Kubernetes container environment along with two other servers. Using GPU virtualization to allow 10 containers to share the single GPU, our test solution achieved a maximum of 29,896 samples per second. With a single container using all of the GPU resources and a larger batch size, the solution achieved a maximum of 34,352 samples per second. These results show that the PowerEdge R750 with an NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPU in a VMware Kubernetes environment with GPU virtualization can support flexibly apportioning GPU compute capability across multiple machine learning workloads in Kubernetes clusters.
Upgrading key components in servers can significantly improve performance and capacity. The report tested upgrading components in Dell PowerEdge servers. It found that upgrading to newer Dell PowerEdge R720 servers with Intel Xeon and SSD components, Windows Server 2012, and 10GbE networking supported 4.5 times as many VMs as the older Dell PowerEdge R710 servers. Each individual component upgrade, such as the processor, storage, or network card, increased performance. But upgrading all components together maximized the number of supported VMs, database transactions, and email users.
Dell PowerEdge R720 rack server solutions for virtual desktop infrastructures Principled Technologies
Getting more value out of your servers is a smart way to reduce datacenter and VDI costs. In our tests, the Dell PowerEdge R720 server not only cost up to 5.4 percent less per user than the HP server, it also consumed 3.8 percent less power per virtual desktop user than the HP server when running workloads. When extrapolated over an entire rack of servers and with datacenters full of these racks, the potential savings both in hardware costs and in power costs could be dramatic.
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.
Similar to Support more workers using graphics-accelerated VDI desktops (20)
Help skilled workers succeed with Dell Latitude 7030 and 7230 Rugged Extreme ...Principled Technologies
Instead of equipping consumer-grade tablets with rugged cases
Conclusion
In our hands-on testing, the Dell Latitude 7030 and 7230 Rugged Extreme Tablets showed that they are better equipped to help skilled workers than consumer-grade Apple iPad Pro and Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 tablets in multiple ways. They provide more built-in capabilities and features than the consumer-grade tablets we tested. And, while they were more expensive than the rugged-case fortified consumer-grade options we tested, their rugged claims were more than skin deep.
In our performance and durability tests, the Dell Latitude 7030 and 7230 Rugged Extreme Tablets performed better in demanding manufacturing, logistics, and field service environments than consumer-grade tablets with rugged cases. Both Rugged Extreme Tablets, with their greater thermal range, suffered less performance degradation in extreme temperatures, never failed and were merely scuffed after 26 hard drops, survived a 10 minute drenching with no ill effects, and were easier to view in direct sunlight than Apple iPad Pro and Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 tablets.
Bring ideas to life with the HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation - InfographicPrincipled Technologies
We compared CPU performance and noise output of an HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation in High Performance Mode to a similarly configured Dell Precision 3660 Tower Workstation in its out-of-box performance mode
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.
Your One-Stop Shop for Python Success: Top 10 US Python Development Providersakankshawande
Simplify your search for a reliable Python development partner! This list presents the top 10 trusted US providers offering comprehensive Python development services, ensuring your project's success from conception to completion.
Full-RAG: A modern architecture for hyper-personalizationZilliz
Mike Del Balso, CEO & Co-Founder at Tecton, presents "Full RAG," a novel approach to AI recommendation systems, aiming to push beyond the limitations of traditional models through a deep integration of contextual insights and real-time data, leveraging the Retrieval-Augmented Generation architecture. This talk will outline Full RAG's potential to significantly enhance personalization, address engineering challenges such as data management and model training, and introduce data enrichment with reranking as a key solution. Attendees will gain crucial insights into the importance of hyperpersonalization in AI, the capabilities of Full RAG for advanced personalization, and strategies for managing complex data integrations for deploying cutting-edge AI solutions.
AI-Powered Food Delivery Transforming App Development in Saudi Arabia.pdfTechgropse Pvt.Ltd.
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Support more workers using graphics-accelerated VDI desktops
1. Support more workers using graphics-accelerated VDI desktops October 2017
Support more workers using graphics-accelerated
VDI desktops
A new 14th generation Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd server equipped
with NVIDIA Tesla M10 GPUs and powered by Intel Xeon Scalable
processors delivered high-density graphics acceleration in a virtual
enterprise environment
As more users move to modern, graphics-intensive Microsoft®
Windows®
10 environments,
companies using a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) need increasingly robust server resources
to support them. Your company should strive to get the most from each server and maximize
datacenter space while providing an excellent end-user experience.
One way to accomplish this is with NVIDIA®
Tesla®
M10 graphics processing units (GPUs),
which augment the processors in a server to improve the performance of graphics-accelerated
workloads. While each Tesla M10 GPU is capable of supporting up 64 users, NVIDIA recommends
a maximum of 32 VDI users per GPU for an optimal Windows 10 experience.1
In a simulated VDI environment at Principled Technologies, we tested a new Intel®
Xeon®
Scalable processor-powered 14th generation Dell EMC™
PowerEdge™
R740xd server, which
supports three Tesla GPUs, and a 13th generation Dell EMC PowerEdge R730 server, which
supports only two Tesla GPUs. The newer server supported 96 graphics-accelerated desktops
and the older one supported 64 graphics-accelerated desktops. Depending on the current and
future needs of your company, both Dell EMC PowerEdge servers are excellent options for
supporting office workers in a VDI environment using Microsoft Office 2016, media-rich browsers,
and other graphics-intensive apps.
Dell EMC
PowerEdge R740xd
supported
50% more
desktop users*
*than a previous-generation server
A Principled Technologies report: Hands-on testing. Real-world results.
2. Support more workers using graphics-accelerated VDI desktops October 2017 | 2
GPUs: No longer limited to graphics-
intensive fields
For years, those who perform tasks such as computer-aided
design and video editing have required extremely powerful
computers to support the heavy graphics requirements of
the applications they use. Other professionals, who rely
primarily on office productivity applications to do their jobs,
have had lower computational demands, which has made
them good candidates for a virtual desktop infrastructure.
Productivity software is changing, though. As a 2016 Forbes article notes, “Use of graphics acceleration is
expanding to improve the experience of office productivity applications like Outlook®
, Office 2016, web
browsers, Adobe®
Photoshop®
, and the Windows 10 operating system. And by some estimates, more than
half of enterprise users access at least one graphics accelerated application.”2
To improve server performance and perform the heavy-duty graphics and visual processing work modern
applications require, the Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd, powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors, uses
NVIDIA Tesla M10 GPU accelerators. For servers using these high-performing components, proper cooling is
essential to achieve optimal thermal control inside a server. The Dell PowerEdge R740xd employs PowerEdge
Multi-Vector Cooling (see box below) to optimize cooling and support high performance. This unique feature
allows the Dell PowerEdge R740xd to host up to three Tesla GPUs in a dense system configuration while
maintaining optimal cooling and airflow throughout the server chassis.
Tesla M10 GPU accelerator
Dell EMC PowerEdge Multi-Vector Cooling
To tackle the cooling needs that higher-performance
components and denser configurations bring, Dell EMC
PowerEdge Engineering has developed an approach that
includes the following:
• Highly reliable, customized fans and custom heatsinks
• Advanced thermal design to increase airflow throughout
the chassis
• Sensors that measure temperature and redirect
airflow accordingly
• User customization options in the integrated Dell Remote
Access Controller (iDRAC) web interface
Learn more at http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/
extras/m/white_papers/20444244/
3. Support more workers using graphics-accelerated VDI desktops October 2017 | 3
Support more workers to optimize
datacenter space
Datacenter space is precious, and every additional VDI
session your company can support within a given amount
of rack space helps the company save in multiple ways.
To learn about the VDI capabilities of the new 14th
generation Dell EMC solution, we executed the Login
VSI Knowledge Worker workload against the Dell EMC
PowerEdge R740xd server running VMware ESXi 6.5 with
three NVIDIA GPUs and then ran the same workload
on a 13th generation Dell EMC PowerEdge R730, also
running VMware ESXi™
6.5, equipped with its maximum
of two NVIDIA GPUs.
We found that the Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd server
handled 50 percent more Knowledge Worker VDI
sessions than the R730 server did—96 sessions versus
64 sessions. Both servers maintained CPU utilization
levels below 80 percent during testing. For detailed
information from testing, see Appendix C.
96 desktops
with the Dell EMC
PowerEdge R740xd
Support up to
Validate the performance of virtual
environments with Login VSI
The Login VSI test tool creates a virtual workload that simulates real-
world usage of a system. Login VSI offers multiple types of workloads
that assess server performance and end-user experience. We chose
the Knowledge Worker workload, which executes tasks in the following
Microsoftapps: Outlook, Internet Explorer®
, Word, PowerPoint®
, and
Excel®
. The workload also includes tasks in Adobe Reader, the Login VSI
photo viewer, and Doro PDF viewer. For more information, see https://
www.loginvsi.com/blog/login-vsi/665-simulating-vdi-users-introduction-
to-login-vsiworkloads.
4. Support more workers using graphics-accelerated VDI desktops October 2017 | 4
True scalability
In theory, having two or three times as much of a given computing resource should translate to being able to
perform two or three times as much work. In practice, a variety of factors can create bottlenecks that impede this
true scalability. Our testing showed that the R740xd with three GPUs could easily handle these real-world factors
with ease.
To demonstrate the increased VDI capabilities of the Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd with NVIDIA GPUs, we ran
our Login VSI Knowledge Worker workload not only on a fully populated server with three GPUs, but also on
servers with one and two GPUs. As the illustration below shows, with a single NVIDIA GPU, the server supported
32 desktop users. The user count doubled to 64 when we doubled the GPU count, and tripled to 96 users when
we tripled the GPU count. This kind of linear scalability can be very valuable to companies because it allows
them to precisely predict the computing resources a predetermined number of users will require.
1 “The Right vGPU Profile for Windows 10,” accessed October 3, 2017 https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/11/29/vg-
pu-profile-for-windows-10/
2 “NVIDIA’s New Tesla M10 Could Drive Enterprise VDI Reassessment” by Patrick Moorhead, accessed September 1, 2017,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2016/05/18/nvidias-new-tesla-m10-could-drive-enterprise-vdi-reassess-
ment/#1342699e5941
Conclusion
Effectively delivering computing resources for office workers via VDI requires powerful servers. The new 14th
generation Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd server with three NVIDIA Tesla M10 GPUs and powered by Intel Xeon
Scalable processors supported 1.5 times as many VDI sessions as the previous-generation PowerEdge R730
server with two Tesla GPUs did. What’s more, it achieved this increase without using any additional rack space. If
your organization is using a VDI solution or considering implementing one, the Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd can
allow you to support more workers in 2U than the older-generation option.
Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd
2 Tesla M10 GPU cards 3 Tesla M10 GPU cards
32 desktop
users
Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd
1 Tesla M10 GPU card
64 desktop
users
96 desktop
users
5. Support more workers using graphics-accelerated VDI desktops October 2017 | 5
On July 17, 2017, we finalized the hardware and software configurations we tested. Updates for current and
recently released hardware and software appear often, so unavoidably these configurations may not represent
the latest versions available when this report appears. We concluded hands-on testing on August 11, 2017.
Appendix A: System configuration information
Server configuration information Dell PowerEdge R740xd Dell PowerEdge R730
BIOS name and version Dell EMC 1.0.7 Dell EMC 2.4.3
Operating system name and version/build number VMware ESXi 6.5.0 5969303 VMware ESXi 6.5.0 5969303
Date of last OS updates/patches applied 8/17/17 8/17/17
Power management policy Performance Performance
Processor
Number of processors 2 2
Vendor and model Intel Xeon Gold 6152 Intel Xeon processor E5-2690 v4
Core count (per processor) 22 14
Core frequency (GHz) 2.1 2.6
Memory module(s)
Total memory in system (GB) 384 256
Number of memory modules 24 8
Vendor and model Hynix HMA82GR7AFR8N-VK Samsung M393A4K40BB1-CRC0Q
Size (GB) 16 32
Type PC-19200 Dual Rank PC-19200 Dual Rank
Speed (MHz) 2,666 2,400
Local storage
Number of drives 6 6
Drive vendor and model Dell P/N 0XCRDV (PX05SRB384Y) Dell P/N 0XCRDV (PX05SRB384Y)
Drive size (TB) 3.84 3.84
Drive information (speed, interface, type) 12Gbps SAS SSD 12Gbps SAS SSD
Network adapter
Vendor and model Intel 10G 2P X520 Adapter Intel 10G 2P X520 Adapter
Number and type of ports 2 x 10GbE 2 x 10GbE
Driver version 17.5.10 17.5.10
6. Support more workers using graphics-accelerated VDI desktops October 2017 | 6
Server configuration information Dell PowerEdge R740xd Dell PowerEdge R730
Cooling fans
Vendor and model Nidec®
UltraFlo 4VXP3-X30 Minebea®
06038DA-12S-EWH
Number of cooling fans 6 6
Power supplies
Vendor and model Dell D1600E-S0 Dell L1100E-S1
Number of power supplies 2 2
Wattage of each (W) 1,600 1,100
7. Support more workers using graphics-accelerated VDI desktops October 2017 | 7
Appendix B: How we tested
The table below details our physical server configuration. We installed VMware ESXi 6.5 onto one Dell EMC PowerEdge R720 server to act as
an infrastructure server that hosted the following:
• one Windows Server®
2012 R2 VM configured to be an Active Directory®
domain controller with DNS, DHCP, and NTP roles
• one VMware Horizon®
7 Composer server VM
• one VMware Horizon 7 Connection server VM
• one VMware vCenter®
server appliance
• one SQL Server®
2014 VM
• one Login VSI management VM
• 10 Windows 7 (x64) Enterprise launcher VMs
We then installed ESXi 6.5 on one Dell EMC PowerEdge R730 equipped with 256 GB of server RAM to be able to host 64 virtual desktops
and on one R740xd server equipped with 384 GB of server RAM to be able to host 96 virtual desktops. We also installed two NVIDIA Tesla
M10 GPUs cards on the R730 server and three NVIDIA Tesla M10 GPUs cards on the R740xd server, and deployed VMware Horizon desktop
pools with Windows 10 (x64) Enterprise linked clones onto both servers. We assigned two vCPUs, one virtual adapter. and 3 GB of fully
reserved guest memory to each linked clone VM. The servers in the testbed used SSD-based local storage to host all VMs. See Appendix C
for performance information.
We cabled together two Dell EMC Networking S4048-ON switches connecting two of the 40GbE ports on each switch to create a redundant
network configuration, and created management and VM private traffic VLANs across 10GbE ports on both switches. The infrastructure
server and both servers under test used two bonded 10GbE connections for networking.
Server name Role
Infrastructure Infrastructure server and Login VSI server
Dell EMC R730 desktop host Server under test and desktop host
Dell EMC R740xd desktop host Server under test and desktop host
10 GbE
40 GbE
Infrastructure/Login VSI server
Dell EMC PowerEdge R730
Dell EMC Networking S4048-ON
Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd
Dell EMC Networking S4048-ON
8. Support more workers using graphics-accelerated VDI desktops October 2017 | 8
Server details
VM configuration details
VM name Quantity OS vCPUs
Memory
(GB)
Server host Role(s)
DC1 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 2 8 Infrastructure
Microsoft Active Directory server,
DNS, DHCP
SQL 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 4 16 Infrastructure
SQL database server for vCenter and
Horizon Composer
vCenter 1
VMware vCenter Server
Virtual Appliance
24 48 Infrastructure vCenter appliance
Composer 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 4 16 Infrastructure VMware Horizon Composer server
Connection 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 4 16 Infrastructure VMware Horizon Connection server
CIFS 1 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 4 16 Infrastructure
Login VSI management console and
log server
Launcher 10 Windows 7 Enterprise (x64) 1 12 Launchers Login VSI launchers
DELL_VDT 200 Windows 10 Enterprise (x64) 2 3 Dell_vDT VMware Horizon virtual desktops
Installing ESXi 6.5 on systems under test and infrastructure server
1. Insert the VMware vSphere®
installation media, power on the server, and boot from the DVD drive.
2. Select the standard vSphere installer, and allow the files to copy into memory.
3. At the welcome screen, press F11.
4. At the keyboard language selection screen, press Enter.
5. Enter a password twice for the root user, and press Enter.
6. Choose to install to the local SD card.
7. Allow the installer to finish installing vSphere, and reboot the server.
Installing the NVIDIA VMware Host Driver on systems under test
1. Access the hosts via ESXi Shell or SSH to install the vGPU Manager VIB.
2. Place the host in maintenance mode.
3. Use the following command to install the vGPU Manager package:
esxcli software vib install -v directory/NVIDIA-vGPUVMware_ESXi_6.5_Host_Driver_367.106-
1OEM.650.0.0.4598673.vib
4. Upon installation completion, reboot the ESXi host, and remove it from maintenance mode.
Creating a master Windows 2012 R2 VM
1. Via the VMware web client, connect to the infrastructure server.
2. Under Basic Tasks in the VMware vSphere client, select Create a new virtual machine.
3. Choose Custom, and click Next.
4. Assign a name to the VM, and click Next.
5. Select infrastructure as the host, and click Next.
6. Select the appropriate storage, and click Next.
7. Choose Virtual Machine Version 11, and click Next.
8. Choose Windows, choose Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit), and click Next.
9. For CPUs, select one virtual processor socket and two cores per virtual socket, and click Next.
10. Choose 4 GB RAM, and click Next.
9. Support more workers using graphics-accelerated VDI desktops October 2017 | 9
11. Click 1 for the number of NICs, select VMXNET3, connect to the PRIV-NET network, and click Next.
12. Leave the default virtual storage controller, and click Next.
13. Choose to create a new virtual disk, and click Next.
14. Make the OS virtual disk size 100 GB, choose thin-provisioned lazy zeroed, specify external storage, and click Next.
15. Keep the default virtual device node (0:0), and click Next.
16. Click Finish.
17. Right-click the VM, and choose Edit Settings.
18. Click the Resources tab, and click Memory.
19. Select Reserve all guest memory, and click OK.
20. Connect the VM virtual CD-ROM to the Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 installation disk.
21. Start the VM.
Installing the Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system on the VM
1. Open VM console.
2. Leave the language, time/currency format, and input method as default, and click Next.
3. Click Install Now.
4. Choose Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter Edition (Server with a GUI), and click Next.
5. Accept the license terms, and click Next.
6. Click Custom: Install Windows only (advanced).
7. Select Drive 0 Unallocated Space, and click Next, at which point Windows begins automatically and restarts automatically
after completing.
8. Enter the administrator password twice, and click OK.
9. Install VMware Tools. For more information, see kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_
US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=340.
10. Reboot the server.
11. Connect the machine to the Internet, and install all available Windows updates. Restart as necessary.
12. Enable remote desktop access.
13. Set up networking for the data network:
a. Click StartControl Panel, right-click Network Connections, and choose Open.
b. Right-click the VM traffic NIC, and choose Properties.
c. Uncheck TCP/IP (v6).
d. Select TCP/IP (v4), and choose Properties.
e. Set the IP address, subnet, gateway, and DNS server.
14. Power off the VM.
15. Right-click the launcher VM, and select TemplateConvert to Template.
Installing Microsoft Active Directory and DNS services on DC1 in infrastructure server
Deploy a Windows Server 2012 R2 VM from template named DC1, and log in as administrator.
1. Launch Server Manager.
2. Click ManageAdd Roles and Features.
3. At the Before you begin screen, click Next.
4. At the Select installation type screen, leave Role-based or feature-based installation selected, and click Next.
5. At the Server Selection Screen, select the server from the pool, and click Next.
6. At the Select Server Roles screen, select Active Directory Domain Services. Click Add Features when prompted, and click Next.
7. At the Select Features screen, click Next.
8. At the Active Directory Domain Services screen, click Next.
9. At the Confirm installation selections screen, check Restart the destination server automatically if required, and click Install.
Configuring Active Directory and DNS services on DC1
After the installation completes, a screen should pop up with configuration options. If not, click the Tasks flag in the upper-right section of
Server Manager.
1. Click Promote this server to a Domain Controller.
2. At the Deployment Configuration screen, select Add a new forest. In the Root domain name field, type test.local, and click Next.
10. Support more workers using graphics-accelerated VDI desktops October 2017 | 10
3. At the Domain Controller Options screen, leave the default values, and enter a password twice.
4. Click Next four times to accept default settings for DNS, NetBIOS, and directory paths.
5. At the Review Options screen, click Next.
6. At the Prerequisites Check dialog, allow the check to complete. If there are no relevant errors, check Restart the destination server
automatically if required, and click Install.
7. When the server restarts, log on using testAdministrator and the specified password.
Configuring the Windows time service on DC1
To ensure reliable time, we pointed our Active Directory server to a physical NTP server.
1. Open a command prompt.
2. Type the following:
W32tm /config /syncfromflags:manual /manualpeerlist:”<ip address of a NTP server>”
W32tm /config /reliable:yes
W32tm /config /update
W32tm /resync
Net stop w32time
Net start w32time
Setting up DHCP services on DC1
1. Open Server Manager.
2. Select Manage, and click Add Roles and Features.
3. Click Next twice.
4. Select DHCP Server, and click Next.
5. At the Introduction to DHCP Server screen, click Next.
6. At the Specify IPv4 DNS Settings screen, type test.local for the parent domain.
7. Enter the preferred DNS server IPv4 address, and click Next.
8. At the Specify IPv4 WINS Server Settings screen, select WINS is not required for applications on the network, and click Next.
9. At the Add or Edit DHCP Scopes screen, click Add.
10. At the Add Scope screen, enter the Name DHCP Scope name.
11. In the next box, set the following values, and click OK.
• Start IP address = 172.16.10.1
• End IP address = 172.16.100.254
• Subnet mask = 255.255.0.0
12. Check the Activate This Scope box.
13. At the Add or Edit DHCP Scopes screen, click Next.
14. Select Enable DHCP v6 Stateless Mode, and click Next.
15. Leave the default IPv6 DNS Settings, and click Next.
16. At the Authorize DHCP server dialog box, select Use current credentials.
17. At the Confirm Installation Selections screen, click Next. If the installation is set up correctly, a screen displays that the DHCP server
install succeeded.
18. Click Close.
Installing SQL Server 2014 on SQL01 in infrastructure server
1. Deploy a Windows Server 2012 R2 VM named SQL01, and log in as administrator.
2. Prior to installing SQL Server, add the .NET Framework 3.5 feature to the server.
3. Mount the installation DVD for SQL Server 2014.
4. Click Run SETUP.EXE. If Autoplay does not begin the installation, navigate to the SQL Server 2014 DVD, and double-click it.
5. In the left pane, click Installation.
6. Click New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation.
7. Select Enter the product key, and enter the product key. Click Next.
8. Click to accept the license terms, and click Next.
9. Click Use Microsoft Update to check for updates, and click Next.
10. Click Install to install the setup support files.
11. If there are no failures, click Next.
12. At the Setup Role screen, choose SQL Server Feature Installation, and click Next.
11. Support more workers using graphics-accelerated VDI desktops October 2017 | 11
13. At the Feature Selection screen, select Database Engine Services, Full-Text and Semantic Extractions for Search, Client Tools
Connectivity, Client Tools Backwards Compatibility, Management Tools – Basic, and Management Tools – Complete. Click Next.
14. At the Installation Rules screen, after the check completes, click Next.
15. At the Instance configuration screen, leave the default selection of default instance, and click Next.
16. At the Server Configuration screen, choose NT ServiceSQLSERVERAGENT for SQL Server Agent, and choose NT Service
MSSQLSERVER for SQL Server Database Engine. Change the Startup Type to Automatic. Click Next.
17. At the Database Engine Configuration screen, select the authentication method you prefer. For our testing purposes, we selected
Mixed Mode.
18. Enter a password for the system administrator account, and confirm it.
19. Click Add Current user. This may take several seconds.
20. Click the Data Directories tab to relocate the system, user, and temp db files.
21. Change the location of the root directory to the D: volume.
22. Click Next.
23. At the Error and usage reporting screen, click Next.
24. At the Installation Configuration Rules screen, check that there are no failures or relevant warnings, and click Next.
25. At the Ready to Install screen, click Install.
26. After installation completes, click Close.
27. Close the installation window.
28. Open SQL Server 2014 Configuration Manager, and expand Protocols for MSSQLSERVER.
29. Right-click Named Pipes, and choose Enabled.
30. Click OK, and restart the SQL service.
Setting up databases for VMware vCenter and VMware View®
Composer™
in infrastructure server
1. Log onto SQL01 as TESTadministrator.
2. From the server desktop, open SQL Server Configuration Manager.
3. Click SQL Server Network ConfigurationProtocols for MSSQLSERVER.
4. Right-click TCP/IP, and select Enabled.
5. Click SQL Services, right-click SQL Server Browser, and select Properties.
6. In the SQL Server Browser Properties, select the Services tab, change the Start mode to Automatic, and click OK. Repeat this step for
the SQL Server Agent service.
7. Start the SQL Server browser service and then start the SQL Server Agent service.
8. From the SQL Server desktop, open SQL Server Management Studio.
9. Click Connect.
10. Select the Databases folder, right-click, and select New Database.
11. Type vCenter for the name of the new database.
12. Select the Databases folder, right-click, and select New Database.
13. Type composer for the name of the new database.
14. Click Options, change the recovery model from full to simple, and click OK.
Installing VMware vCenter 6.5 in infrastructure server
1. Mount the image, navigate to the vcsa folder, and launch VMware-ClientIntegrationPlugin-x.x.x.exe.
2. In the wizard that appears, click Next.
3. Accept the terms of the license agreement, and click Next.
4. Leave the default installation directory, and click Next.
5. Click Install.
6. Click Finish.
7. In the mounted image’s top directory, open vcsa-setup.html.
8. When prompted, click Allow.
9. Click Install.
10. Accept the terms of the license agreement, and click Next.
11. Enter the FQDN or IP address of the host onto which the vCenter Server Appliance will be deployed.
12. Provide a username and password for the system in question, and click Next.
13. To accept the certificate of the host you chose to connect to, click Yes.
14. Select the appropriate datacenter, and click Next.
15. Select the appropriate resource, and click Next.
16. Provide a name and password for the VM, and click Next.
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17. Select Install vCenter Server with an Embedded Platform Services Controller, and click Next.
18. Select Create a new SSO domain.
19. Provide a password, and confirm it.
20. Provide an SSO Domain name and SSO Site name, and click Next.
21. Set an appropriate Appliance Size, and click Next.
22. Select an appropriate datastore, and click Next.
23. Select Use an embedded database (PostgreSQL), and click Next.
24. At the Network Settings page, configure the network settings as appropriate for your environment, and click Next.
25. Review your settings, and click Finish.
26. When installation completes, click Close.
27. Log into vCenter VM as TESTadministrator.
28. From the VMware vCenter 6.5 install media, click Autorun.
29. To start the install wizard, click Run.
30. Select vCenter Server for Windows, and click Install.
31. At the Install wizard welcome screen, click Next.
32. Accept the End User License Agreement, and click Next.
33. Select embedded deployment and the deployment type, and click Next.
34. Verify the system name, and click Next.
35. Enter and confirm the password you wish to use with the Administrator account for vCenter Single Sign On, and click Next.
36. Select Use Windows Local System Account and the service account, and click Next.
37. Select Use an external database, and enter database credentials. Click Next.
38. At the Configure Ports screen, click Next.
39. Accept the default installation path, and click Next.
40. Click Install.
41. Using the vSphere web client, log into the vCenter server as DOMAINadministrator.
42. Right-click the root of vCenter, and click New Data center.
43. Name the new datacenter as datacenter.
44. Add the servers under test and infrastructure servers to the datacenter.
Setting up a database and ODBC DSN for VMware Horizon Composer
1. Deploy a Windows Server 2012 R2 VM named Composer.
2. Log onto the composer VM as TESTadministrator.
3. From the desktop of the Composer server, select Start, Run, and type odbcad32.exe. Press Enter.
4. Click the system DSN tab.
5. Click Add.
6. Click SQL Server Native Client 10.0, and click Finish.
7. In the Create a New Data Source to SQL Server text box, type the connection name composer.
8. For Server, select SQL, and click Next.
9. Change authentication to With SQL Server authentication using a login ID and password entered by the user, type sa as the Login ID,
use the password you defined in SQL Server setup for the SA account, and click Next.
10. Select Change the default database to…, choose Composer from the pull-down menu, and click Next.
11. Click Finish.
12. Click Test Data Source.
13. To create the Composer ODBC connection, click OK.
Setting up VMware Horizon Composer 7 in infrastructure server
1. Open the View 7 media folder, and run the file named VMware-viewcomposer-7.2.x.exe.
2. At the Welcome screen and the Patents screen, click Next.
3. Accept the VMware end user license agreement, and click Next.
4. Leave the Destination folder as default, and click Next.
5. In the Database information box, type composer as the source name and sa as the user name. Enter the password, and click
Next. Leave the default SOAP port, and click Next.
6. Click Install, and click Finish. Restart the server.
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Installing VMware Horizon Connection Server 7
1. Log into the server named Connection1.
2. Browse to VMware Horizon installation media, and click VMware-viewconnectionserver-x86_64-7.2.x.exe.
3. Click Run.
4. At the Welcome screen, click Next.
5. Agree to the End User License Agreement, and click Next. Keep the default installation directory, and click Next.
6. Select View Standard Server, and click Next.
7. At the Data Recovery screen, enter a backup password, and click Next.
8. Allow View Server to configure the Windows firewall automatically, and click Next.
9. Authorize the local administrator to administer View, and click Next.
10. Choose whether to participate in the customer experience improvement program, and click Next.
11. Complete the installation wizard to finish installing View Connection Server.
12. Click Finish.
13. Reboot server.
Configuring the VMware Horizon Connection Server
1. Open a Web browser to <horizon connection1 FQDN>/admin.
2. Log in as administrator.
3. Under Licensing, click Edit License.
4. Enter a valid license serial number, and click OK.
5. Open View ConfigurationServers.
6. In the vCenter Servers tab, click Add.
7. Enter vCenter server credentials, and edit the following settings:
• Max concurrent vCenter provisioning operations: 20
• Max concurrent power operations: 50
• Max concurrent View Composer maintenance operations: 20
• Max concurrent View Composer provisioning operations: 20
• Max concurrent Instant Clone Engine provisioning operations: 20
8. Click Next.
9. At the View Composer screen, select View Composer co-installed with vCenter Server, and click Next.
10. At the View Composer domains screen, click Add.
11. Enter full domain name and user credentials.
12. Do not use Reclaim VM disk space or Enable View Storage Accelerator.
13. At the ready to complete screen, click Finish.
Setting up a Windows 10 Enterprise (x64) ESXi base image VM in server under test
1. Log into the vCenter via the VMware Web client.
2. Click the Virtual Machines tab.
3. Right-click, and choose New Virtual Machine.
4. Select Create a new virtual machine.
5. Choose Custom, and click Next.
6. Assign the name View-gold, and click Next.
7. Select any host in the vDT cluster, and click Next.
8. Select the appropriate storage.
9. Choose Virtual Machine Version 11, and click Next.
10. Choose Windows, choose Microsoft Windows 10 (64-bit), and click Next.
11. For CPUs, select One virtual processor socket and two cores per virtual socket, and click Next.
12. Choose 3 GB RAM, and click Next.
13. Click 1 for the number of NICs, select VMXNET 3, and click Next.
14. Leave the default virtual storage controller, and click Next.
15. Choose to create a new virtual disk, and click Next.
16. Make the OS virtual disk size 32 GB, choose Thin Provision, specify the OS datastore on the local storage, and click Next.
17. Keep the default virtual device node (0:0), and click Next.
18. Click Finish.
19. Click the Resources tab, click Memory, and check the Reserve all guest memory box.
20. Click the Hardware tab, CD/DVD Drive, and Connect the VM virtual CD-ROM to the Microsoft Windows 10 x64 installation disk.
21. Click OK.
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Installing Windows 10 Enterprise (x64) on the ESXi base image VM
1. When the installation prompts you, press any key to begin setup.
2. Enter your language preferences, and click Next.
3. Click Install.
4. Accept the license terms, and click Next.
5. Select Custom, and select the drive that will contain the OS.
6. Click Install.
7. Type user for the username, and click Next.
8. Enter no password, and click Next.
9. At the system protection screen, select Use recommended settings, and click Next.
10. Enter your time zone, and click Next.
11. Select the Work Network setting, and click Next.
12. Install VMware Tools, and select Complete Installation. For more information, see kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.
do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=340.
13. Reboot.
14. Connect the machine to the Internet, and install all available Windows updates. Restart as necessary.
15. Join the domain, and restart the VM.
16. Install Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016.
Installing the VMware Horizon agent
1. Browse to the VMware Horizon View 7 media, and run the VMware-viewagent file.
2. Click Run.
3. At the Welcome screen, click Next.
4. Accept the VMware end user license agreement, and click Next.
5. Select defaults, and click Next.
6. Click Install.
Configuring Regedit for QuickPrep
1. Click StartRun, and type regedit.
2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesvmware-viewcomposer-ga.
3. Right-click Skip License Activation, and click Modify.
4. Change the value from 0 to 1.
5. Shut down the machine, and take a snapshot of the final disk image.
Optimizing the Windows 10 master image
1. From VMware, download the Windows optimization tool.
2. Extract the zip file, and run VMwareOSOptimizationTool_b1xxx.exe.
3. Click Template, and select Windows 10 (Horizon Air Hybrid).
4. Click Analyze.
5. Select All Suggestions, and click Optimize.
6. When settings have been applied, shut down the VM.
Adding the NVIDIA vGPU to Windows 10 master image
1. Right-click the base image Windows 10 VM, and select Edit Settings.
2. From the New Device drop-down menu at the bottom of the windows, select PCI Shared Device.
3. Click Add.
4. Select NVIDIA GRID vGPU.
5. Select the grid_m10_1b GPU Profile.
6. Click OK.
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Installing the NVIDIA driver on Windows 10 master image
1. Power on the base image VM.
2. Browse to the NVIDIA installation media folder, and run 370.12_grid_win19_server2016_64bit_international.exe.
3. Choose the default extraction path, and click OK.
4. To accept the NVIDIA software license agreement, click Agree and Continue.
5. Select Express installation, and click Next.
6. Upon installation completion, select Restart Now.
7. Confirm that drive installation was successful, and shut down the VM.
8. Right-click the base image Windows 10 VM, and click SnapshotsTake Snapshot.
9. Enter a name for the new snapshot, and click OK.
Deploying virtual desktops using VMware Horizon
1. Open the View Administrator.
2. Log in as administrator.
3. Under Catalog, click Desktop Pools, and click Add.
4. Select Automatic Pool, and click Next.
5. Select Dedicated and Enable automatic assignement, and click Next.
6. Select View Composer linked clones, and click Next.
7. For the pool ID, type pool and display name, and click Next.
8. Under Remote Display Protocol, change the Default Display Protocol to PCoIP.
9. Under 3D Renderer, choose NVIDIA GRID VGPU, and click Next.
10. Under Naming Pattern, enter an appropriate name pattern for the pool.
11. Under Pool Sizing, enter the appropriate number of desktops and the number of spare (power on) desktops.
12. Select Provision all desktops up-front, and click Next.
13. Under View Composer Disks, select the defaults, and click Next.
14. Under Storage Optimization, select Do not use VMware Virtual SAN.
15. Under vCenter Settings, select the following depending on where you are deploying VMs:
• Parent VM
• Snapshot
• VM folder location
• Host or cluster
• Resource pool
• Data stores
16. Under Guest customization, select the following:
• Domain: test.local
• AD container: OU=Computers,OU=LoginVSI
17. Select Use Quick Prep, and click Next.
18. Click Finish.
19. After the wizard finishes, select Entitle users.
20. Select the LoginVSI group, and click OK.
Installing the Login VSI 4 benchmark
Setting up a VM to host the Login VSI share CIFS1 in infrastructure server
1. Deploy a Windows Server 2012 R2 VM named CIFS1, and log in as administrator.
Installing the Login VSI benchmark on VSI_shares
For Login VSI to work correctly, you must create a CIFS share(s), an Active Directory OU, and Active Directory users. For more information on
Login VSI, see https://www.loginvsi.com/documentation. We created one dedicated Windows file share for VSI management (VSI1).
1. Create a folder named D:share.
2. Right-click the D:share folder, and click Properties.
3. Click the Sharing tab, and click Share.
4. Add everyone, system, and administrators to the Read/Write group, and click Share.
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5. Unpack the Login VSI install media.
6. Open Datacenter setupsetup.exe.
7. At the welcome screen, click Next.
8. Select the share named vsishareshare, and click Next.
9. To start the Management Console when the setup is complete, check the Start Login VSI Management Console box, and click Finish.
10. At the management console, enter the path to your Login VSI license file, and click Save.
Configuring Login VSI: AD setup
1. On CIFS, open the VSI management console, and click “1. AD setup.”
2. Type the following:
Base OU: DC=domain,DC=local
Username: LoginVSI
Password1: *********
Domain: (auto detect checked)
Number of users: 200
Formatting length: 4
Launcher user: Launcher-v4
Launcher password: **********
3. Click Save to .ps1.
4. Copy the VSIADSetup.ps1 file to DC1c$.
5. Log into DC1, and execute the VSIADSetup.ps1 in Windows PowerShell™
.
Setting up the Login VSI share and Active Directory users
1. Log into the CIFS server.
2. From the Login VSI media, run the Login VSI AD Setup.
3. Keep the default settings, and click Start.
Creating Windows 7 Enterprise x64 image VSI launchers in the infrastructure server
Using the vSphere client, we created a Windows 7 Enterprise x64 VM with two vCPUs and 12 GB of memory.
Installing VMware Horizon Client on the launcher
1. Accept the VMware license terms.
2. Select default options.
3. Accept or change the destination folder.
4. Click Install.
Converting the launcher VM to a template
1. Right-click the launcher VM, and select TemplateConvert to Template.
Deploying the launchers VM from the launcher template
1. In vSphere Client, browse to HomeVMs and Templates.
2. To deploy a VM from the template, right-click the launcher template.
3. Type launcher_1 as the new VM name, and click Next.
4. Click Datacenter, and click Next.
5. Click the launcher server, and click Next.
6. Select the appropriate storage, and click Next.
7. Select Customization using existing customization specifications, select the appropriate file, and click Next.
8. To deploy the new VM, click Finish.
9. Repeat steps 1 through 8, or use PowerCLI to deploy more launchers.
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Configuring VSI launchers for testing
After you have configured all 10 launchers and they are idle, use the Login VSI Management Console to add and enable the launchers to
host a predetermined number of VDI sessions.
1. Log onto VSI_Share as DOMAINadministrator.
2. Open the Login VSI management console.
3. Click 2. Add Launchers.
4. At the Add launchers wizard, click Next.
5. Click batch entry, and type the following:
Name=launcher
Start number=1
Increment=1
Count=10
Maximum capacity=30
Formatting length=3
6. Click Next.
7. Click Finish.
Running the Login VSI benchmark
Before we ran our test, we ran a “profile create” job in Login VSI to fully initialize each user’s profile. Next, we used 10 launchers to run a
Knowledge Worker workload for 60 minutes. For more information on how to run a Login VSI test, see https://www.loginvsi.com/products/
login-vsi.
Collecting server performance and GPU data
We used ESXTOP to collect ESXi server performance data at 5-second intervals using the following command:
esxtop –b –d 5 –n 10000 > /temp/esxtoplog.csv
We also used the NVIDIA System Management Interface (nvidia-smi) utility to collect GPU performance data during testing using the
followig command:
nvidia-smi –q –d UTILIZATION –l –f /temp/gpulog.csv
We analyzed all the collected data and created performance charts to assess server and GPU resources performance. See Appendix C
for details.
About our test tool, Login VSI 4.1
Login Virtual Session Indexer (Login VSI) is a tool that helps assess the virtual desktop performance, capacity, and scalability of a server.
The simulated desktop workload we tested is a scripted 48-minute loop that simulates a Login VSI user logging into a virtual desktop and
performs office worker activities. After the loop finishes, it restarts automatically. Within each loop, Login VSI measures the response times
of 10 specific desktop operations, five of which are more important. These measurements happen 16 times at regular intervals within each
loop. The benchmark uses the response times of the five more important operations to determine VSImax, the point where VDI end-user
experience starts to degrade due to high virtual desktop application response time.
Login VSI 4.1 reports the following metrics:
• Minimum Response: The minimum application response time
• Average Response: The average application response time
• Maximum Response: The maximum application response time
• VSI Baseline: Average application response time of the first 15 sessions
• VSI Index Average: Average response time dropping the highest and lowest 2 percent
For more information about Login VSI 4.1, see www.loginvsi.com/product-overview.
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Appendix C: Performance results
We analyzed data captured from Login VSI analyzer, ESXTOP, and NVIDIA-SMI to generate multiple performance graphs. Due to the nature
of VDI testing, the storage subsystem and network resources were not heavily utilized, but we analyzed them to ensure that neither storage
latency nor network bottlenecks affected our results. We determined that during our tests, both servers under test showed no indication of
hardware bottlenecks.
Results for the Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd
VSI Index Average
The VSI Index Average indicates that under the current server configuration, the Dell EMC R740xd server was capable of supporting 96 VDI
users with excellent application response time. The test did not reach the VSI threshold, the point that triggers VSImax to indicate end-user
experience degradation.
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Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd memory utilization
We configured the Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd with 384 GB of RAM to support 96 users with 3 GB of fully reserved memory each. Total
consumed memory at peak ,including hypervisor overhead, was 335 GB or 87.2 percent of total available memory.
Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd Login VSI Knowledge Worker – 96 sessions
Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd CPU utilization for 96 VDI users peaked at 80 percent, indicating there were no CPU bottlenecks
during testing.
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NVIDIA Tesla M10 GPU memory utilization for three GPUs (four GPUs per board)
The NVIDIA GPU memory utilization indicates that during testing of all 96 VDI users, the GPUs had the capacity to handle more intense
graphics workloads.
NVIDIA Tesla M10 GPU utilization for three GPUs (four GPUs per board)
The NVIDIA GPU utilization indicates that during testing of all 96 VDI users, the GPUs had the capacity to handle more intense
graphics workloads.
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Results for the Dell EMC PowerEdge R730
VSI Index Average
The VSI Index Average indicates that under the current server configuration, the Dell EMC PowerEdge R730 server was capable of
supporting 64 VDI users with excellent application response time.
Dell EMC PowerEdge R730 Login VSI Knowledge Worker – 64 sessions
The Dell EMC PowerEdge R730 CPU utilization for 64 VDI users peaked at 47 percent, indicating there were no CPU bottlenecks
during testing.
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Dell EMC PowerEdge R730 memory utilization
We configured the Dell EMC PowerEdge R730 with 256 GB of RAM to support 64 users with 3 GB of fully reserved memory each. Total
consumed memory at peak, including hypervisor overhead, was 205 GB or 80 percent of total available memory.
NVIDIA Tesla M10 GPU utilization for two GPUs (four GPUs per board)
The NVIDIA GPU utilization indicates that during testing of all 64 VDI users, the GPUs had the capacity to handle more intense
graphics workloads.
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All other product names are the trademarks of their respective owners.
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES; LIMITATION OF LIABILITY:
Principled Technologies, Inc. has made reasonable efforts to ensure the accuracy and validity of its testing, however, Principled Technologies, Inc. specifically disclaims
any warranty, expressed or implied, relating to the test results and analysis, their accuracy, completeness or quality, including any implied warranty of fitness for any
particular purpose. All persons or entities relying on the results of any testing do so at their own risk, and agree that Principled Technologies, Inc., its employees and its
subcontractors shall have no liability whatsoever from any claim of loss or damage on account of any alleged error or defect in any testing procedure or result.
In no event shall Principled Technologies, Inc. be liable for indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages in connection with its testing, even if advised of the
possibility of such damages. In no event shall Principled Technologies, Inc.’s liability, including for direct damages, exceed the amounts paid in connection with Principled
Technologies, Inc.’s testing. Customer’s sole and exclusive remedies are as set forth herein.
This project was commissioned by Dell Technologies.
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NVIDIA Tesla M10 GPU memory utilization for two GPUs (four GPUs per board)
The NVIDIA GPU memory utilization indicates that during testing of all 64 VDI users, the GPUs had the capacity to handle more intense
graphics workloads.