For Day 27 of this series, I am going to talk about Power Management and its effect on processor performance. I have written about this subject a couple of times before, here and here. Other people, such as Paul Randal (blog|Twitter) and Brent Ozar (blog|Twitter) have written about this subject here and here. Power Management […]
Glenn Berry
Semi-random musings about SQL Server performance
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 27
Posted on: April 29, 2013 1:12 pm
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 25
Posted on: April 25, 2013 7:58 am
For Day 24 of this series, I want to talk about the recent history of Dell rack-mounted servers, to help illustrate how processor performance and server capacity has dramatically improved over the past seven years. Back in 2005-2006, you could buy a two-socket Dell PowerEdge 1850, with two hyper-threaded Intel Xeon “Irwindale” 3.2GHz processors and […]
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 1
Posted on: April 1, 2013 10:06 am
Well, I apparently have not learned my lesson yet, after I did a month long series called “A DMV a Day” back in 2010 and and then another series called A SQL Server Hardware Nugget a Day back in 2011, where I wrote a blog post every day during the month of April, since I […]
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 […]
Deciding What Processor to Choose for SQL Server 2012
Posted on: November 11, 2012 6:26 pm
If you have read my SQL Server Hardware book, watched my Understanding Server Hardware course on Pluralsight or ever heard me speak at a conference, you are probably aware of my very strong advocacy for modern, two-socket Intel-based database servers for many database server workloads. I make this argument because of the excellent single-threaded processor […]
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 […]
