Home > Workload Solutions > SQL Server > Best Practices > Intel-Based SQL Server Best Practices on Dell PowerEdge R740 and PowerMax 2000 > Introduction to Best Practices for SQL Server > Physical Architecture
The architecture was designed to broadly represent the infrastructure customers use for their SQL Server databases. Dell EMC PowerEdge R740 servers were used for the compute layer. Each PowerEdge R740 was configured the same way to ensure consistency. Two Intel Xeon Gold 6254 processors with 18 physical cores each for a total of 36 cores were used. The default server configuration enables logical processors thus, at the hypervisor layer, 72 cores were available. The following table shows the detailed configuration:
Table 2: Configuration details
Processors |
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Memory |
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Network adapters |
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HBA |
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Storage controller and hard drives |
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To learn more about the server, go to the PowerEdge R740 webpage and download the specification sheet.
We used Dell EMC Connectrix switches to connect the servers to the PowerMax storage array. The Connectrix DS-6620B is designed to support medium to large-sized database deployments. The Connectrix configuration used in our tests included 24 active 32 GB ports to optimize the connection to the PowerMax storage.
A PowerMax 2000 storage array validated the best practices. The PowerMax 2000 offers enterprise-rich data services like snapshots, replication, and many other features in a small footprint. The PowerMax configuration used to validate the best practices included 34 flash drives, each 4 TB in size. Additionally, the PowerMax had 18 NVMe drives, each 1.5 TB in size. Full details of the PowerMax 2000 configuration are described in the following table:
Table 3: PowerMax 2000 configuration
Processors |
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Bricks |
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Cache size |
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Drives |
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Total usable capacity |
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Front-end I/O modules |
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Many production database systems use dedicated infrastructure. In validating the SQL Server best practices, all the Dell Technologies infrastructure was reserved for the database. No parallel workloads were running and competing for CPU, network, and storage resources. Validating best practices in a dedicated environment helped to eliminate extraneous variables that might negatively impact test results. We understand that many of today’s environments have been consolidated and challenges can arise in tuning one database system on shared infrastructure.
The implementation of best practices might improve performance in consolidated systems, but the positive gains may not be as significant due to the shared resources. Using these best practices can assist with resolving some challenges by integrating Day 1, highly recommended configuration as part of provisioning an SQL Server database. As the database ecosystem is transformed by using best practices, the overall system performance may rise, and consolidated systems might perform more efficiently. Best practices offer the enterprise the ability to deploy a database with the optimal design and ecosystems with the capability to drive improved efficiencies.