The TPC-E benchmark is an OLTP, database-centric workload that is meant to reduce the cost and complexity of running the benchmark compared to the older TPC-C benchmark. Unlike TPC-C, the storage media for TPC-E must be fault tolerant (which means no RAID 0 arrays). Overall, the TPC-E benchmark is designed to have reduced I/O requirements compared to the old TPC-C benchmark, which makes it both less expensive and more realistic since the sponsoring hardware vendors will not feel as much pressure to equip their test systems with disproportionately large, expensive disk subsystems in order to get the best test results. The TPC-E benchmark is also more CPU intensive than the old TPC-C benchmark, which means that the results tend to correlate pretty well to CPU performance, as long as the I/O subsystem can drive the workload effectively. My assumption here is that any hardware vendor that takes the time and expense required to submit a TPC-E Benchmark result is going to make sure they have enough I/O capacity to properly drive the workload for the benchmark.

When I am assessing the relative OLTP performance of different processors, I like to take the raw TPC-E tpsE score for a system using that particular processor and divide it by the number of physical cores in the system to get an idea of the relative “per physical core performance”.  When you do this, you should also be aware of how many physical sockets are in the system, since you will not see 1:1 scaling as you add additional sockets, even with NUMA (which is a huge improvement over the old SMP architecture). This means that a four socket system would not have double the performance of a two socket system that was using the exact same processors and components. This is further complicated by the fact that Intel has a different release cycle for their processors that are primarily intended for two socket systems, where newer models become available in the two socket space about 12-18 months before the roughly equivalent four socket processor. I say roughly equivalent, since the two socket models usually have higher base and turbo clock speeds than the four socket models from the same processor generation. A good example is the two socket Intel Xeon X5690 (Westmere-EP) compared to the four socket Intel Xeon E7-4870 (Westmere-EX).  The Intel Xeon X5690 has a significantly higher base clock speed (3.46GHz vs. 2.4GHz) and a higher turbo clock speed (3.73GHz vs. 2.8GHz) compared to the Intel Xeon E7-4870. There are more than clock speed differences to consider here, since the X5690 only has six physical cores, and a 12MB L3 cache, while the E7-4870 has ten physical cores and a 30MB L3 cache.

Keeping all of this in mind, I found some recent TPC-E results for several of the latest processors from both AMD and Intel, and divided the actual raw score by the number of physical cores in the system. I decided to divide by physical cores, since SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition is licensed by physical processor core instead of the old familiar per socket licensing that was used in previous versions of SQL Server. This means that people should be focused on getting the most performance and scalability possible from each physical processor core from a hardware selection and licensing perspective. As you can see by looking at the Score/Core column of Table 1, the new Intel Xeon E5-2690 (Sandy Bridge-EP) is the current champion, followed pretty closely by the Intel Xeon X5690 (Westmere-EP). We see a pretty big drop going to the Intel Xeon E7 processors, in a four and eight socket configuration. Finally, the latest AMD processors are bringing up the rear, with quite a gap between them and the Intel offerings. This does not look very good if you are thinking about using AMD processors for an OLTP workload, especially since you will have to pay for more physical cores (up to 16) in an Opteron 6200 series processor.  One factor that helps mitigate these scores and license costs somewhat for AMD is the new SQL Server 2012 Core Factor Table that Microsoft released on April 1, 2012. This table reduces the licensing cost for most new AMD processors that have six or more cores by allowing you to multiply the actual physical core count by a factor of 0.75 for licensing purposes.

Table 1: TPC-E Performance by Physical Core

In order for you to install SQL Server 2008 SP2 Cumulative Update 10, you must have SQL Server 2008 SP2 installed first.  In order for you to install SQL Server 2008 SP3 Cumulative Update 5, you must have SQL Server 2008 SP3 installed first.  When you download a SQL Server Service Pack, you must get the appropriate version of the Service Pack to match what is installed on the machine you want to upgrade. This could be the x86, x64, or ia64 version. If you don’t know what version of SQL Server is running, you can run SELECT @@VERSION; to find out.

As the name implies, a Cumulative Update is actually cumulative, which means that it includes all of the fixes for all of the previous Cumulative Updates for the version and Service Pack of SQL Server.

Several of these new server models were just announced this week, and are not yet available for sale, while several others have been available for a couple of months now. The new models include three entry level servers (R320, R420, and R520) that use the new 32nm Intel Xeon E5-2400 series processor, and the new quad-socket PowerEdge R820 that uses the new 32nm Intel Xeon E5-4600 series processor. In case you are not fluent in how to decode Dell server model numbers, the R means rack-mounted, the first numerical digit is an indication of where the model fits in the overall lineup (with entry level models having lower numbers), the second numerical digit is the generation ( 1 means 11th Gen, 2 means 12th Gen), and the final numerical digit tells you whether it is an Intel based model or an AMD based model (0 means Intel, 5 means AMD).

So, if you are not a complete hardware geek like me, here is a handy little cheat sheet that lays out the major differences between these seven models. For memory capacity, I am assuming the use of 16GB DIMMs, since 32GB DIMMs are still extremely expensive, and frankly don’t make economic sense. From a processor choice perspective, each of these model servers are available with Sandy Bridge-EP processors that have either 4, 6, or 8 physical cores. In some cases (E5-2600 and E5-4600 series), you can choose a processor model that has fewer physical cores, but a higher base clock speed. This could make sense if you had an OLTP workload and are worried about the core-based licensing in SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition.

Personally, I really like the R720xd model, with up to (26) 2.5” internal drive bays. I suspect that a very high percentage of SQL Server workloads would run extremely well on one of those. If twenty-six internal drives did not give you enough I/O performance and disk space, you could always add some Fusion-io cards and/or use some external DAS enclosures or a SAN. If you can partition your workload across multiple servers, two R720xd servers would be much better than one R820 server, since you would have faster, less expensive processors, over three times as many internal drive bays, and nearly twice as many PCI-E expansion slots for things like RAID controllers or HBAs.

As a DBA, I would be actively lobbying against using the R420 or R520 models, since they use the lower-end E5-2400 series processors, which have lower clock speeds and less memory bandwidth compared to the E5-2600 series used in the R620, R720, and R720xd. They also have have half the memory capacity and fewer PCI-E slots. They are less expensive, but the hardware cost delta is pretty small compared to the SQL Server license costs, especially for SQL Server 2012. Remember, you are paying based on physical core counts, so you want to get the best package you can as far as the rest of the server goes. I can see where the R320 could be a good choice for a smaller workload, where you can still get 96GB of RAM in a one socket server. Don’t forget that SQL Server 2008 R2 and 2012 Standard Edition are limited to using 64GB of RAM.

Dell PowerEdge R320

1U form factor, one CPU socket, uses Intel Xeon E5-2400 series, 6 memory slots (96GB RAM),  (8) 2.5” drive bays, (1) x8 and (1) x16 PCI-E 3.0 expansion slots

Total of 4, 6, or 8 physical cores for SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition licensing purposes.  Total of 8, 12, or 16 logical cores with HT enabled.

Dell PowerEdge R420

1U form factor, two CPU sockets, uses Intel Xeon E5-2400 series, 12 memory slots (192GB RAM), (8) 2.5” drive bays,  (2) x16 PCI-E 3.0 expansion slots

Total of 8, 12, or 16 physical cores for SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition licensing purposes. Total of 16, 24, or 32 logical cores with HT enabled.

Dell PowerEdge R520

2U form factor, two CPU sockets, uses Intel Xeon E5-2400 series, 12 memory slots (192GB RAM), (8) 3.5” drive bays, (3) x8 and (1) x16 PCI-E 3.0 expansion slots

Total of 8, 12, or 16 physical cores for SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition licensing purposes. Total of 16, 24, or 32 logical cores with HT enabled.

Dell PowerEdge R620

1U form factor, two CPU sockets, uses Intel Xeon E5-2600 series, 24 memory slots (384GB RAM), (10) 2.5” drive bays, (1) x8 and (2) x16 PCI-E 3.0 expansion slots

Total of 8, 12, or 16 physical cores for SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition licensing purposes. Total of 16, 24, or 32 logical cores with HT enabled

Dell PowerEdge R720

2U form factor, two CPU sockets, uses Intel Xeon E5-2600 series, 24 memory slots (384GB RAM), (16) 2.5” drive bays, (6) x8 and (1) x16 PCI-E 3.0 expansion slots

Total of 8, 12, or 16 physical cores for SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition licensing purposes. Total of 16, 24, or 32 logical cores with HT enabled

Dell PowerEdge R720xd

2U form factor, two CPU sockets, uses Intel Xeon E5-2600 series, 24 memory slots (384GB RAM), (26) 2.5” drive bays, (4) x8 and (2) x16 PCI-E 3.0 expansion slots

Total of 8, 12, or 16 physical cores for SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition licensing purposes. Total of 16, 24, or 32 logical cores with HT enabled

Dell PowerEdge R820

2U form factor, four CPU sockets, uses Intel Xeon E5-4600 series, 48 memory slots (768GB RAM), (16) 2.5” drive bays, (5) x8 and (2) x16 PCI-E 3.0 expansion slots

Total of 16, 24, or 32 physical cores for SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition licensing purposes. Total of 32, 48, or 64 logical cores with HT enabled

DMV Emergency Room!

If you have ever been responsible for a mission critical database, you have probably been faced with a high stress, emergency situation where a database issue is causing unacceptable application performance, resulting in angry users and hovering managers and executives. If this hasn’t happened to you yet, thank your lucky stars, but start getting prepared for your time in the hot seat. This session will show you how to use DMV queries to quickly detect and diagnose the problem, starting at the server and instance level, and then progressing down to the database and object level. Based on the initial assessment of the problem, different types of DMV queries will help you narrow down and identify the problem. This session will show you how to assemble and use an emergency DMV toolkit that you can use to save the day the next time a sick database shows up on your watch in the Database ER!

Hardware 301: Diving Deeper into Database Hardware

Making the right hardware selection decisions is extremely important for database scalability. Having properly sized and configured hardware can both increase application performance and reduce capital expenses dramatically. Unfortunately, there are so many different choices and options available when it comes to selecting hardware and storage subsystems, it is very easy to make bad choices based on outmoded conventional wisdom. This session will give you a framework for how to pick the right hardware and storage subsystem for your workload type. You will learn how to evaluate and compare key hardware components, such as processors, chipsets, and memory. You will also learn how to evaluate and compare different types of storage subsystems for different database workload types. This session will give you the knowledge you need to make sure you get the best performance and scalability possible from your hardware budget!

I have spoken at the Tech Trifecta several times in the past, and it has always been a good time!

The Fantastic 12 of 2012: Behind the Scenes Look into Required 9s and Data Protection

The Fantastic 12 of 2012: A Behind the Scenes View of Blazing Fast Performance

Fantastic 12 of 2012: Behind the Scenes of Organizational Security and Compliance

The Fantastic 12 of 2012: Behind the Scenes – Ensuring Peace of Mind

The Fantastic 12 of 2012: Behind the Scenes of Managed Self-Service BI

The Fantastic 12 of 2012: Behind the Scenes of Credible, Consistent Data

You can also enter their Twitter contest, for a chance to win a SQL Server 2012 T-Shirt.

Especially if you are new to the SQL Server Community, Tom’s Blogger Rankings list is a good place to find quality blogs to subscribe to and read, and SQL Server people to follow on Twitter. There is a very active and vibrant online community of people in the SQL Server world, that are a very valuable resource if you are working with SQL Server. You are not alone in your cubicle, with only Bing and Google to help you!

I also wanted to thank everyone on Twitter who beta tested these scripts for me. Any remaining issues are totally my responsibility!  Please tell me what you think of this version.

At this point, I was a little annoyed. It was not clear whether I had a bad CPU, and bad motherboard, or simply a loose connection somewhere. I was busy with other things the rest of the day, but I was able to start troubleshooting the problem late last night. I had another system with a Core i7-2600K processor in an ASUS P8Z68-V PRO motherboard available, so I decided to do some component swapping to figure out what the problem might be. First, I decided to take the Ivy Bridge processor and put it in the ASUS P8Z68-V PRO motherboard. This worked, which proved that the new processor was fine. Next, I decided to put the older Core i7-2600K processor in the new ASUS Sabertooth Z77 motherboard. This did not work, which put suspicion on the new motherboard. Next, I decided to yank that motherboard out of the case to possibly return it to Micro Center. As I was removing the case fan for the Corsair H80 water cooler for the CPU, I noticed that one of the connectors from the power supply to the motherboard was loose, which was the real source of the problem (it was covered up by the fan and radiator for the CPU cooler). At this point, I decided to keep on removing the new motherboard, since I wanted to use the older ASUS P8Z68-V PRO motherboard in the new Antec 302 case to see how that would work out.

After this thrashing around, I put together all of the parts in the Antec 302 case, and everything worked as expected when I hit the power button. I got Windows 7 installed and patched, and then ran a few quick benchmarks last night. This little system is extremely fast, even using the Intel HD4000 integrated graphics. It only uses 51 watts at idle, while it has 32GB of RAM and a GeekBench score of 13167.  You can take a look at the various screenshots shown below for some more details.

ZDNet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has a blog post entitled Build your own “Ivy Bridge” desktop PC for another perspective on building a more modest system.

Figure 1: Intel Core i7 3770K processor under load

Figure 2: Intel Core i7 3770K processor at idle

Figure 3: Windows Experience Index Scores for Ivy Bridge desktop system

Figure 4: Mainboard tab from CPU-Z

Figure 5: Memory tab from CPU-Z

Figure 6: SPD tab from CPU-Z

Figure 7: Geekbench 2.3.1 Score for Core i7-3770K System

Figure 8: CrystalDiskMark scores for 180GB Intel 520 SSD

Figure 9: CrystalDiskMark scores for 1.5TB WD Black drive

Well, here is the relationship (at least in my mind). It comes from attention to detail, which is a very important characteristic for a good DBA. One thing that the Marines liked to do periodically was have a formal personnel inspection of a everyone in a small unit, such as a Rifle platoon. Depending on who the inspecting officer was, this might cause anywhere from hours to weeks of preparation by the members of the unit, doing things like thoroughly cleaning your weapon, cleaning and properly marking all of the items of your uniform and web gear, clipping off loose threads on your uniform (known as “Irish pennants” or “Russian ropes”), and all manner of other little things to get completely “squared away” in the Marine Corps vernacular.  After all of this extensive preparation, the formal inspection would finally occur, often taking several hours for a platoon of 42 people.

Everyone in the platoon would be standing at attention in formation, and the inspecting officer would go one by one, down the ranks of the formation doing his formal inspection. He would turn to face you, and you would have to do an Inspection Arms movement with your rifle for him. After you were done, he would slap the weapon out of your hands, and start looking at it in excruciating detail, while asking you questions like “What is the maximum effective range of this weapon?”, or “Who is your regimental commander?”. Woe to the Marine who did not know the answer to these questions! One thing that I saw a number of times during these types of inspections was when the inspecting officer found some obvious problem with the Marine that he was inspecting, something that was literally in plain view, but had been missed by everyone during all of the preparations and pre-inspections. For example, maybe one of the buttons on a pocket flap of your utilities was not buttoned, or maybe there was a long, loose thread on  a seam of one of your chest pockets. If the inspecting officer found something obvious like this, they would sometimes literally start undressing the Marine, looking for other violations that were sure to be found under the surface!  The inspecting officer’s zeal and attention to detail was always rewarded in a case like this, since if something so obvious was missed, there would be many other things that were wrong, hidden under the surface…

This is where I get back to SQL Server and the importance of doing the obvious things like checking the main BIOS version on your database servers. As I discussed recently, it is pretty easy and pretty important to periodically check the version of your main system BIOS for a machine, using tools like msinfo32.exe, CPU-Z, or management tools like Dell Open Systems Management Administrator (OMSA).  The large system vendors like Dell, HP, IBM, etc. will release new versions of the main system BIOS to fix problems that are discovered with that model server.  As a DBA, I think it is very important to keep tabs on this, even if someone else (such as a systems administrator) is actually responsible for maintaining your database servers. One reason is that if you ever have a hardware problem and you call your system vendor for support, they are going to want you to run a utility that will check the versions of your main system BIOS, any other firmware, and your hardware driver versions. If any of these are out of date, they will want you to update them. If there was a hardware problem that caused an outage, the fact that the hardware had old versions of the main BIOS or other firmware will also tend to focus some blame on whoever was supposed to maintain that hardware.

The other reason why this is important is that it shows that someone in your organization (hopefully you) is paying attention to the obvious details. Almost invariably, when I have looked at someone’s system after they have asked me for help, and I find that they are running a main system BIOS that is multiple versions out of date, that means that I will find numerous other problems with their system and database configuration. It is really a pretty reliable predictor of trouble! 

There are several reasons why people don’t maintain their database hardware properly. First, they may not know any better, since they may not know that you actually have to maintain this type of thing. Second, they may be afraid of breaking something. What happens if you update your system BIOS, and then the server refuses to POST or boot afterwards? Third, they may just be lazy. After all the server seems to be running fine, why should I stick my neck out and have to flash the BIOS at 11PM on Friday night? Fourth, they may not have a good, tested HA solution in place for that database server, so doing something like flashing the BIOS will cause a relatively long outage because of a reboot. Perhaps they are unsure whether their applications will continue to work after failing over their database(s) to a mirror instance.

I would argue that a good DBA will find a way around all of these objections and fears, and put a regular maintenance program into place for your database servers. This forces you to think about your HA solution and to actually test it on a fairly regular basis. If you have an HA technology in place, such as failover clustering, database mirroring, or SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn, you can do rolling upgrades to minimize your downtime during maintenance. With some testing and planning, you can combine BIOS updates, firmware updates, Windows Updates, and SQL Server Updates all in one maintenance window with minimal downtime. Planning this effort and then actually doing it on a regular basis, forces you and your organization to exercise your HA solution while you keep your systems up to date (which I think will reduce the number of problems you run in to in the future).  This is far better than just avoiding the whole issue, and leaving your database servers running the original versions of everything on a permanent basis. Don’t be afraid!

Many of these queries are DMV queries that require VIEW SERVER STATE permission. Make sure to read the instructions before you run each query. You really should run these queries one at a time, and take a few moments to look at each set of results, rather than running them in a single batch. Much of the value of these diagnostic queries is in the result interpretation comments after each query.

I have fixed a few minor issues with this version, and added several new queries. Please let me know what you think!