HARDWARE UPGRADES TO IMPROVE DATABASE, SHAREPOINT, EXCHANGE, AND FILE SERVER PERFORMANCE WITH THE INTEL PROCESSOR-POWERED DELL POWEREDGE T630 Having server hardware that is up-to-date, robust, and reliable for growing workloads is important when planning small- or medium-business (SMB) IT strategy. New tower servers can offer necessary resources out-of-box, but the ability to apply hardware upgrades that increase workload performance and capacity can help your business as demands grow.
BETTER PERFORMANCE WITH THE DELL POWEREDGE T630 Businesses running tower servers purchased four or more years ago must work with aging hardware that can limit resources and constrict user growth. New servers, such as the Dell PowerEdge T630 tower server, powered by Intel Xeon E5-2660 v3 processors, offer robust hardware to help avoid application performance deterioration and have designs that promote component upgrades. We tested the PowerEdge T630 several ways.
WHAT WE FOUND Mixed workload performance vs. a legacy server When we ran our mixed workload on the legacy server solution simulating 200 Exchange, SharePoint, and file server users and a heavy database workload, the server had considerably higher latencies in Exchange and SharePoint, and lower IOPS and orders per minute (OPM) for the file server and database workloads.
Increasing memory First, we upgraded the RAM in the Dell PowerEdge T630. This can benefit a mixed workload environment by allowing a greater amount of data from each VM to reside in memory cache, especially online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads. The baseline configuration of the PowerEdge T630 we tested included 128 GB of RAM.
CONCLUSION Legacy tower servers that cannot meet workload demands can restrict business growth. By upgrading to the Dell PowerEdge T630, powered by Intel Xeon E5-2660 v3 processors, you can obtain immediate benefits for current IT performance needs and implement upgrades that will expand server capabilities to help meet future demands. We found that replacing a legacy server with the new Dell PowerEdge T630 tower server offered up to 97.9 percent lower workload latency, 131.9 percent more IOPS, and 421.
APPENDIX A – ABOUT THE COMPONENTS About the Dell PowerEdge T630 The Dell PowerEdge T630 is a two-socket tower server, a member of the thirteenth generation of PowerEdge servers, and designed to accelerate demanding workloads. According to Dell, the PowerEdge T630 can provide benefits in the following ways: Performance: The latest Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family powers the PowerEdge T630. In addition, the PowerEdge T630 has DDR4 memory and seven I/O slots.
Mailbox Profile: 250MB mailboxes Action Profile: Very heavy Client Type: Outlook_500 For more details about LoadGen, see www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DDEC1642-F6E34D66-A82F-8D3062C6FA98&displaylang=en. Collaboration testing To simulate the traffic of SharePoint Server 2010 users, we used the WSSDW 1.0.0.0 Beta test. This test creates sample data, populates the server with it, and simulates SharePoint Server users completing everyday tasks.
APPENDIX B – SYSTEM CONFIGURATION INFORMATION Figure 6 provides detailed configuration information for the test systems. We used the Dell PowerEdge R910 to host our client machines.
System Speed running in the system (MHz) Size (GB) Number of RAM module(s) Rank Disks First hard drive Vendor and model number Number of disks in system Size (GB) Type Firmware Second hard drive Vendor and model number Number of disks in system Size (GB) Type Firmware Disk controller Vendor and model Controller cache (MB) Controller driver Controller firmware Operating system Name Build number File system Language Ethernet Vendor and model number Type Driver Optical drive(s) Vendor and model number Type De
System Dell PowerEdge R910 Dell PowerEdge T630 HP ProLiant ML350 G6 USB ports Number Type 4 2.0 8 2.0 4 2.0 Figure 6: Detailed information on our test systems.
APPENDIX C – HOW WE TESTED Configuring the Active Directory infrastructure server Installing Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter Edition 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Insert the installation media into the CD/DVD drive, and restart the server. When the option appears, press F11 to enter the Boot Manager. Select SATA Optical Drive, and press Enter. Press any key when prompted to boot from DVD. When the installation screen appears, click My language is English.
3. Uncheck Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication (recommended), and click OK. Disabling IE Enhanced Security Configuration 1. In the Local Server tab of the Server Manager window, next to IE Enhanced Security Configuration, click On. 2. In the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration window, select the Off radio buttons for both Administrators and Users, and click OK.
. Enable remote desktop access. 14. Change the hostname and reboot when prompted. Building the virtual machines 1. Use Server Manager to add the Hyper-V role to the host. 2. Use Hyper-V Manager to create the appropriate number of virtual machines. We assigned 2 vCPUs and 8 GB of memory to the SharePoint and file server VMs, and 4 vCPUs and 16GB of memory to the Exchange and SQL Server VMs. Give the OS VHD 40 GB, and place it on the OS HDDs. 3.
2. Use Hyper-V Manager to create the appropriate number of virtual machines. We assigned 2 vCPUs and 16 GB of memory to the SharePoint and file server VMs, and 4 vCPUs and 24GB of memory to the Exchange and SQL Server VMs. Give the OS VHD 40 GB, and place it on the OS HDDs. 3.
b. Right-click the NIC assigned to the private network, and choose Properties. c. Select TCP/IP (v4), and choose Properties. d. Set the IP address, subnet, gateway, and DNS server for the virtual NIC, which will handle outgoing server traffic. Click OK, and click Close. 15. After creating and configuring the storage volumes on the storage level and in iSCSI initiator: a. Click the Server Manager icon in the taskbar. b. In the left pane, expand Storage, and click Disk Management. c.
. Assuming no failures are displayed, click Next. 17. At the Database Engine Configuration screen, select Mixed Mode. 18. Enter and confirm a password for the system administrator account. 19. Click Add Current user. This may take several seconds. 20. Click Next. 21. At the Error and usage reporting screen, click Next. 22. At the Installation Configuration Rules screen, check that there are no failures or relevant warnings, and click Next. 23. At the Ready to Install screen, click Install. 24.
6. Insert the installation DVD and click Setup.EXE when prompted. 7. The installer should consider steps 1 and 2 complete, and gray them out. 8. Click the link for Step 3: Choose Exchange Language Option. 9. Click Install only languages from the DVD. 10. Click the link for Step 4: Install Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP1. 11. Click Next to go past the introduction screen. 12. Accept the license agreement, and click Next. 13. Select No for error reporting, and click Next. 14.
7. In the SMTP Address Space screen, type * as the address, ensure that the installer has checked Include all subdomains, and click OK. 8. Click Next. 9. Accept defaults for the next two pages by clicking Next. 10. At the New Connector page, click New to create the connector. 11. Click Finish to close the New SMTP Send Connector wizard.
Configuring the third application VM for SharePoint Server 2010 We installed a separate instance of SQL Server 2012 for our SharePoint databases. This prevented creating an unnecessary bottleneck by having WSSDW and DVD Store running against the same instance of SQL on the same application server. Installing Microsoft SQL Server 2012 1. Insert the installation DVD. 2. Click Run SETUP.EXE. If Autoplay does not begin the installation, navigate to the SQL Server 2012 DVD, and double-click. 3.
Installing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 1. Insert the installation DVD. 2. Launch setup.exe, and click Install software prerequisites. 3. Review the list of software, and click Next. 4. Accept the EULA, and click Next. 5. When the prerequisites finish installing, click Finish. 6. On the main SharePoint installation menu, click Install SharePoint Server. 7. Enter your product license key, and click Continue. 8. Accept the EULA, and click Continue. 9. Choose the Complete server type, and click Install.
test. Besides this file size modification, the database schema was created and loaded according to the DVD Store documentation. Specifically, we followed the steps below: 1. We generated the data and created the database and file structure using database creation scripts in the DS2 download. We made size modifications specific to our 40GB database and the appropriate changes to drive letters. a. We transferred the files from our Linux data generation system to a Windows system running SQL Server. b.
2. Drop all databases from the test servers. 3. Restore all databases on all test servers. 4. Reboot the server and all client systems. 5. Let the test server idle until the power utilization settled. 6. Start the DVD Store driver on all respective clients. We used the following DVD Store parameters for testing the servers in this study: ds2sqlserverdriver.exe --target= --ramp_rate=10 – warmup_time=15 --run_time=45 --n_threads=32 --db_size=40GB -think_time=0.
6. Under the Computer Name tab, click Change. 7. In the Computer Name Changes screen, under the Member of section, select the Domain radial box, and type test.local 8. Select OK to start joining the domain. 9. When the screen appears asking for a person qualified on the domain, type Tester as the username and Password1 as the password. 10. At the Welcome pop-up window and the window warning that you must reset the computer for the changes to take effect, click OK. 11.
5. Select Create a new test configuration, and click Continue. 6. Change the total length of simulation to 1 hour and 15 minutes. 7. In the Specify test settings screen, type Password1 as the Directory Access Password and Mailbox Account Master Password, and click Continue with recipient management. 8. Make the appropriate number of users in the Mailbox Database, and click Continue. 9. To accept defaults for Advanced recipient settings, click Continue. 10.
10. In the Exchange Management Console, right-click each of the four Mailbox Databases, and select Mount Database from the menu. 11. Right-click the Public Folder Database, and select Mount Database from the menu. 12. Close the Exchange Management Console. Preparing the SharePoint test client Install Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with current updates. Installing Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Edition 1. Download vs_ultimateweb.exe . 2. Double-click vs_ultimateweb.exe to run the installer. 3.
b. Copy the contents of both extracted .zip folders (WSS Data Population Tool Run Time and WSS Data Population Tool Sample) into the root of C: 4. Download SharePtServerDeployment.doc from www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=10009 and place it into the C:\wssdw folder. a. Rename WSS Data Population Sample File.xml to WSS_Data_Population_Sample_File.xml so that there are no spaces in the name. This allows the script to execute from the command prompt. b.
users.csv Under username,password enter test.local\administrator,Password1 and remove the remaining entries. serverUrl.csv Under serverUrl replace http://server with http://sharepoint to match the server name of the SharePoint 2010 VM. HierarchyManagerUsers.csv Under username,password replace domain\username,password with test.local\administrator,Password1 c. Open the WssTestProject.sln file in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. d. When prompted, click Next. e. Click Finish. f.
v. At the Review and edit run settings for load test screen, enter 15 minutes for the Warm-up duration, enter 30 minutes for Run duration, 15 minutes for the Cool down duration, and click Finish. 6. To ensure that the WSSDW workload evenly selects different SharePoint sites at random, create .csv lists of a number of categories within each test and add the following parameters to each: WSSD WSSDispForm: Site name, list name, and list IDs.
2. Create the appropriate access specifications. For each access specification: a. Create the access specification to match the configuration in Figure 5. b. Under Topology, select the computer name, and click the Start a New Disk Worker on Selected Manager button until you have one worker assigned to the target volume. c. Under Disk Targets, set the # of Outstanding I/Os to the appropriate number. d. Set the Maximum disk size to 100GB, using sectors as the unit of measurement.
APPENDIX D – TEST RESULTS Figure 7 shows the median run test results of our 200-user workload comparing the Dell PowerEdge T630 with the legacy server. HP ProLiant ML350 G6 Exchange Server / LoadGen latency (ms) – 200 users SharePoint Server / WSSDW latency (sec) – 200 users File server / Iometer (IOPS) – 200 users SQL Server database / DVD Store (OPM) Dell PowerEdge T630 Percentage win 81.04 1.67 97.94 0.22 0.16 27.27 53.29 123.60 131.94 3,068 16,014 421.
Base configuration: 128GB memory, 18 × 1TB SAS/SATA HDDs Memory upgrade configuration: 384GB memory, 18 × 1TB SAS/SATA HDDs SQL Server database / DVD Store (OPM) – Instance 5 SQL Server database / DVD Store (OPM) – Instance 6 SQL Server database / DVD Store (OPM) – Instance 7 SQL Server database / DVD Store (OPM) – Instance 8 SQL Server database / DVD Store (OPM) – Instance 9 SQL Server database / DVD Store (OPM) – Instance 10 SQL Server database / DVD Store (OPM) – Instance 11 SQL Server database / DVD S
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