Installation guide

3
Introduction
The recommended configurations are based on an online transaction processing (OLTP) workload.
The set of transactions used in the workload is representative of a web-based application.
These transactions allow users to check product availability, place an order for products, pay for their
order, view the status of their order, and schedule delivery of their order. The most common
transactions are placing and paying for an order; these two transactions occur with similar frequency
and occur approximately ten times as frequently as other transactions. Checking for product
availability and the status of an order are simple, read-only transactions. Placing an order for
products, paying for an order, and scheduling delivery of an order include read and write (Insert,
Select, and Update) operations. Placing an order is the most complex transaction, involving multiple
tables. The recommendations provided are most accurate for applications with transactions similar to
those described above. Also these solutions will perform very well for packaged solutions such as
Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and SAP. We strongly recommend that you work with
your local HP Reseller or HP Sales Representative to determine the best solution for you.
The objective of the proposed configurations is to:
1. Provide best-in-class performance – You can experience a dramatic increase in performance,
efficiency and reliability with HP servers powered by the massively scalable and highly reliable
Intel® Xeon® processor E7 family. Built to handle demanding applications, the Intel Xeon
processor E7 family delivers a quantum leap in enterprise computing performance and delivers
performance scalability that takes server consolidation to the next level. You’ll also get the
reliability that you need to run your applications with complete confidence, while maintaining data
integrity and minimizing downtime.
2. Reduce the risk to implement database solutions – These recommended configurations provide a
balance of CPU, memory and I/O capacity specifically optimized for database workloads. As a
result, the likelihood of functional or performance problems in your database deployments is
drastically reduced.
3. Reduce the time to implement database solutions on HP servers – By using the configuration details
described in this document the time to deploy the database and its application can be reduced.
4. Simplify the purchasing process for well-defined HP server configurations – The recommended
configurations may be implemented as is or used as a starting point for a semi-custom
configuration. In either case, the expectation is that IT can make quicker and more informed
decisions to purchase the optimal configuration for the application.
Solution criteria
Table 1 below shows details of the three workloads in terms of the maximum user count, database
size, business transactions/hour, and storage type. These values are the estimated maximum values
for the recommended configurations listed in this document. The maximum values are not listed for all
possible server configurations. A business transaction has to do with a business function, for example,
check status of an order or view an invoice. It is not possible to make a direct comparison between a
sustained business transaction volume and transactions per minute (TPM). Business transactions are
made up of several individual SQL transactions required to satisfy the business request rather than a
total of the individual SQL transactions. Some batch and reporting requirements are essential elements
of most OLTP environments. If your environment has extensive batch processing and/or reporting
requirements, then HP recommends starting with a proof of concept to test your specific workload
before the final configuration is defined. Many other configurations can be created that use
additional hardware and support a greater number of transactions.