This month the SQLskills team is presenting a series of blog posts aimed at helping Accidental DBAs ‘keep the SQL Server lights on’. It’s a little taster to let you know what we’ll be covering in our brand new Immersion Event for The Accidental DBA, which we’ll be presenting for the first time in September [...]
Glenn Berry
Semi-random musings about SQL Server performance
The Accidental DBA (Day 1 of 30): Hardware Selection: CPU and Memory Considerations
Posted on: June 1, 2013 1:00 pm
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 30
Posted on: May 1, 2013 11:40 am
For the final post in this series, I want to list a few resources that you can use to help stay current with what is happening in the world of server hardware and storage. I really think that a database professional has a professional responsibility to know the details of their database server hardware and [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 29
Posted on: April 30, 2013 9:48 am
For Day 29 of the series, I will talk about AMD Turbo CORE technology. AMD Turbo CORE is a technology that was first introduced in the AMD Phenom II X4 desktop processor, but the way AMD implemented it in the Bulldozer family and Piledriver family of processors is greatly enhanced. AMD Turbo CORE is similar [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 24
Posted on: April 23, 2013 8:48 am
For Day 24 of this series, I want to talk a little about some things to consider as you make the decision whether to purchase a two-socket database server or a four- socket database server. Traditionally, it was very common to use a four-socket machine for most database server scenarios, while two-socket servers were most [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 22
Posted on: April 22, 2013 3:21 pm
I have written previously about Building a Workstation for SQL Server 2012 Development and Testing and Building a Larger Capacity SQL Server 2012 Workstation. In those posts, I talked about the fact that it becomes increasingly expensive to build a system from parts as you move beyond mainstream desktop systems based on an Intel Core [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 20
Posted on: April 20, 2013 7:16 am
For Day 20 of this series, I want to talk about the new processor numbering system for Xeon processors that Intel introduced on April 5, 2011. This new system will be used for the Xeon E3, E5 and E7 family processors. The model numbers for older Xeon processors were unchanged when this new numbering system [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 14
Posted on: April 14, 2013 3:18 pm
For Day 14 of this series, I want to give my current recommended Intel Xeon server processors for different sizes of database servers and different workload types. My basic premise is that for a database server running SQL Server 2008 R2 or earlier, you want the very best processor available for each physical socket in [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 13
Posted on: April 14, 2013 12:47 pm
For Day 13 of this series, I want to talk some more about the Intel Tick-Tock Development model and why it is important for the database professional. For the last seven to eight years, Intel has implemented a pretty consistent and predictable processor development and release cycle. A Tock release is a completely new microarchitecture [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 12
Posted on: April 12, 2013 1:17 pm
For Day 12 of this series, I want to go through a common hardware upgrade scenario that I have been seeing quite a bit lately. Many people still have relatively ancient database servers (such as a Dell PowerEdge 1950 or 2950, or HP DL380 Gen 5) that are running either 65nm Conroe-based or 45nm Penryn-based [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 9
Posted on: April 9, 2013 6:52 am
For Day 9 of this series, I want to talk about processor cache size and its relationship to SQL Server 2012 performance. Cache Size and the Importance of the L2 and L3 Caches All Intel-compatible CPUs have multiple levels of cache. The Level 1 (L1) cache has the lowest latency (i.e. the shortest delays associated [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 8
Posted on: April 8, 2013 2:25 pm
For Day 8 of this series, I want to talk a little bit about the various hardware license limits that are present in SQL Server 2012. These limits vary based on what edition of SQL Server 2012 you will be using, and what operating system you will be using. You need to keep these limits [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 7
Posted on: April 8, 2013 12:49 pm
For Day 7, I want to talk about one specific Intel processor series that I highly recommend that you do not use for SQL Server 2012 workloads. This processor is the 45nm Intel Xeon 7400 Series, which was released in Q3 of 2008. There were seven specific models in this series, based on the Penryn [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 6
Posted on: April 7, 2013 5:11 pm
For Day 6 of this series, I am going to talk about Geekbench. Geekbench is a cross-platform, synthetic benchmark tool from Primate Labs. It provides a comprehensive set of benchmarks designed to quickly and accurately measure processor and memory performance. There are 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Geekbench, but in tryout mode you can only [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 5
Posted on: April 7, 2013 4:25 pm
For Day 5 of this series, I will talk about the incredibly useful CPU-Z utility, which is available for free from cpuid.com. The latest release of the tool is version 1.63, which came out on February 8, 2013. I always download and use the 64-bit, English, no install zip version of the tool. The release [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 4
Posted on: April 4, 2013 12:04 pm
Since 2006, Intel has adopted what they call a Tick-Tock strategy for developing and releasing new processor models. Every two years, they introduce a new processor family, incorporating a new microarchitecture; this is the Tock release. One year after the Tock release, they introduce a new processor family that uses the same microarchitecture as the [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 3
Posted on: April 3, 2013 1:40 pm
Today, I am going to talk about the existing Intel Westmere-EX processor family. Instead of this processor series being called the Intel Xeon 7600 series (as was originally expected by some), it is called the Intel Xeon E7 series, with separate model numbers for two socket, four socket and eight socket servers. This includes the [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 2
Posted on: April 2, 2013 11:10 am
For Day 2 of this blog series, I am going to talk about some of the upcoming Intel Xeon processors that we can look forward to seeing over the next six to twelve months. The two-socket Intel Xeon E5-2600 v2 family (Ivy Bridge-EP) is due to be released in Q3 of 2013. They will have [...]
What is the Difference Between Physical Sockets, Physical Cores, and Logical Cores?
Posted on: March 25, 2013 3:32 pm
I witnessed an interesting conversation on Twitter today where someone was talking about how he uses the terms sockets and cores interchangeably, since everyone else does, or words to that effect. This made me think that there may still be some confusion about how these terms are used and what they mean in relation to [...]
CPUID PerfMonitor 2 Utility
Posted on: March 24, 2013 3:08 pm
CPUID has released a new processor performance and monitoring tool called PerfMonitor 2, which allows you to track four processor-related counters chosen from a processor-specific list. It lets you see things like overall CPU temperature, package and core temperatures, package power usage, L2 and L3 cache hit ratios to name just a few of the [...]
Building a Larger Capacity SQL Server 2012 Workstation
Posted on: February 6, 2013 7:57 pm
I have received quite a bit of positive feedback about my recent post, Building a Workstation for SQL Server 2012 Development and Testing, so I thought I would write a similar post that goes into some detail about how to select components to build a larger capacity workstation or test server. This is only needed [...]
Building a Workstation for SQL Server 2012 Development and Testing
Posted on: January 20, 2013 4:28 pm
With the current crop of high-performance and very affordable desktop computer components, it is not very difficult to assemble an extremely high performance workstation for SQL Server 2012 development and testing at a very reasonable cost. Depending on how much of a purist you are and what your available budget is, you can take several [...]
Two New TPC-E Submissions for SQL Server 2012
Posted on: November 29, 2012 11:47 am
Just when I was not looking, two new official TPC-E results have been posted in the last week. IBM has a 3218.46 TPC-E score for an IBM System x3850 X5 that has four Intel Xeon E7-4870 processors, while HP has an 1881.76 TPC-E score for an HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 system with two Intel Xeon [...]
Two Database Server Models Compared
Posted on: October 24, 2012 2:49 pm
If you have read my SQL Server Hardware book, or ever heard me do one of my hardware presentations, you have probably heard my exhortations to “Never let anyone talk you into reusing old hardware for a new version of SQL Server”. This is especially true with SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition and its core-based [...]
Dell 12th Generation Rack Mounted Server Comparison
Posted on: September 27, 2012 10:05 pm
I think it is useful to examine the various 12th generation, rack-mounted server models available from Dell, comparing them from a SQL Server perspective. There are currently seven models in this line, ranging from an entry-level, single-socket server to a four-socket server. All of these servers use the Intel Xeon E5 processor (Sandy Bridge), but [...]
Save Money on SQL Server 2012 Licensing Costs
Posted on: September 12, 2012 3:53 pm
I recently had a chance to record a 33 minute podcast interview on RunAs Radio #281 with Richard Campbell, where I talked about the licensing changes in SQL Server 2012 and how to select your new hardware to minimize your SQL Server 2012 licensing costs. I also talked about Intel versus AMD processors, and talked [...]
Memory Error Recovery in SQL Server 2012
Posted on: August 21, 2012 1:46 pm
One under publicized new feature in SQL Server 2012 is called Memory Error Recovery. This feature allows SQL Server 2012 to repair clean pages in the buffer pool by reading the pages again from disk. These “soft” errors are caused by electrical or magnetic interference inside a server that cause single bits inside of DRAM [...]
Hardware 101 Presentation in Bellevue, WA – August 14, 2012
Posted on: August 15, 2012 2:10 am
I recently had the opportunity to give a one hour presentation called Hardware 101: An Introduction to Database Hardware during the evening, after a full day of SQLskills Immersion Event 2 (IE2) training. Even though it was an evening event, after almost 10 hours of intense training that day, nearly all of the students stayed [...]
Recommended Intel Processors For SQL Server 2012 OLTP Workloads
Posted on: May 24, 2012 5:45 pm
If you are in the process of evaluating and selecting the components for a new database server to run an OLTP workload on SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition, you have several initial choices that you have to make as a part of the decision process. First you have to decide whether you want to go [...]
