INTEL® XEON® PROCESSOR-BASED SERVERS AND VMWARE® VSPHERE
5.0:ONE SERVER, 12 BUSINESS-CRITICAL DATABASE APPLICATIONS
JULY 2011
A PRINCIPLED TECHNOLOGIES TEST REPORT
Commissioned by Intel Corp.
If your organization runs business-critical database applications on expensiveUNIX RISC systems, you may have felt stuck. Even as the percentage of enterpriseworkloads running on virtualized servers has exploded, you have faced a keyquestion: Could industry-standard Intel® architecture-based servers deliver the
This study proves that the answer is yes.On a single four-socket server with the newest Intel® Xeon® processor E7-4870and VMware® vSphere
5.0, we ran 12 database applications simultaneously,each with an 80GB database and in its own virtual machine. All delivered strongand consistent performance
and the server had plenty of capacity for futuregrowth.
A Principled Technologies test report
2
Intel® Xeon® processor-based servers and VMware® vSphere
5.0:One server, 12 business-critical database applications
VIRTUALIZATION ROBUST ENOUGH TO SCALE WITH YOURAPPLICATIONS
The argument for migrating from a UNIX/RISC platform to industry-standard Intel-architecture servers running virtual machines (VMs) isstraightforward enough: Reduce your capital and operational expenses while
W A
enterprise would opt out of lowering hardware, power consumption, andmaintenance costs? Possibly yours, if your databases are business critical.Studies abound quantifying
UNIXRI“C
-to-Intel migrations make possible and the associated cost savings. However,
hoping to achieve
reliably running multiple large database applications, each
VM VM “
full advantage of the Intel Xeon processor E7-
making such a proposition possible.To learn just how well the Intel/VMware solution supports multiple
B F TPC
-H-like workload against12 virtual machines using 80GB databases. By fully utilizing the Intel Xeonprocessor E7-4870-
supported 12 80GB databases. It did so without overcommitting resources,allowing all VMs to run in parallel with solid performance.Our research suggests that a large UNIX/RISC-based, business-criticaldatabase application that was handling peaks of approximately 10,000 queriesper hour was delivering good performance. For instance, in a concurrency andworkload management study by the WinterCorp consulting group, researchersstate that Nationwide Financial Services completes around 2,500 queries perhour, with a maximum of 10,000 queries per hour, using a TwinFin
datawarehouse appliance from Netezza®, an IBM® Company.
1
In our testing, each of the database applications in the 12 VMs far exceeded that many queries perhour, so each could replace an existing server running such a business-criticaldatabase application.These results show how your enterprise can maintain or even improveupon the performance of the UNIX/RISC platform while cutting your costsconsiderably.
1
Harnessing the power of theIntel® Xeon® processor E7family
VMware vSphere 5.0 makes useof the power of the Intel®Xeon® processor E7 family.Among its notable features arethe following:
Full support for RAS featuresfor reliability, availability, andserviceability, includingMachine Check Architecturerecovery (MCA-r)
Intel® Trusted ExecutionTechnology (Intel® TXT)
Support for up to 2TB of system memory
Full utilization of the 10-core,20-thread processor, allowing80 threads per four-socketserver
A Principled Technologies test report
3
Intel® Xeon® processor-based servers and VMware® vSphere
5.0:One server, 12 business-critical database applications
HOW MANY 80GB DATABASE APPS CAN THIS PLATFORM HANDLE WITHEASE?
We used Quest Software® Benchmark Factory® as our test engine, using itscustom load scenario feature to create a TPC-H-like business-intelligence
W B F
widely known Transaction Processing Performance Council [TPC] benchmarks,the results are not directly comparable. In addition, benchmark results ondifferent database sizes are not comparable.
W B F
workload because it focuses on decision support systems, which run complexqueries, examine large data volumes, and provide answers to importantbusiness questions. The Intel Xeon processor E7-4870-based server withVMware vSphere 5.0 ran 12 virtual machines each with updated operatingsystems and database software as well as an 80GB Benchmark Factory-createddatabase. We conducted three test runs and report the median run.As Figure 1 shows, the 12 VMs achieved comparable Benchmark FactoryTPC-H scores. All 12
VM B F TPC
-H-like workloadconcurrently and completed their tasks in about the same time. Given that thescores are all over 10,000 queries per hour, each VM should be able to replacean existing business intelligence database server. The Intel Xeon processor E7-4870-based server was near 80 percent processor utilization for all three runs.
VMBenchmark FactoryQphH scoreRun time(seconds)
VM 1
14,947 638
VM 2
14,408 687
VM 3
14,382 675
VM 4
14,356 671
VM 5
11,926 721
VM 6
14,195 683
VM 7
14,699 622
VM 8
14,723 637
VM 9
14,131 675
VM 10
14,642 652
VM 11
14,381 666
VM 12
13,349 680
Total/Average
170,139 667
Figure 1. The processing power and other capabilities of the Intel® Xeon®processor E7-4870-based server allowed all 12 VMs to run with consistentperformance.
We provide server configuration information in Appendix A,our detailed
test results in Appendix B,and our detailed test methodology in Appendix C.
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Intel + VMware Delivered 12 Virtualized Business-Critical Database Applications
If your organization runs business-critical database applications on expensive UNIX RISC systems, you may have felt stuck. Even as the percentage of enterprise workloads running on virtualized servers has exploded, you have faced a key question:…
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