Optimize Both Cost and Performance When Modernizing Your Servers
Mon, 24 Apr 2023 16:25:19 -0000
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Standalone Dell PowerEdge 750 servers with NVMe RAID deliver a significant performance edge for reliable, available database workloads over traditional vSAN clusters.
When it comes to modernizing your servers, there are two crucial factors to consider: cost and performance. Using standalone servers with reliable, available databases has traditionally been a cost-efficient strategy used by organizations like yours to modernize server hardware without breaking the bank. VMware vSAN has long been the go-to platform for many businesses to group together performant local storage, but it is a strategy that might not produce all the performance that the most demanding workloads can require. Among other concerns, the hypervisor and management software layers add latency to the overall platform, creating performance gaps that are difficult to overcome by upgrading servers, memory, or other hardware components.
Another strategy to improve performance that organizations have pursued is moving to a standalone server with availability provided by RAID. But traditionally, RAID arrays have used SAS-based drives and controllers that nullify any performance gains achieved by removing the vSAN overhead. However, newer NVMe RAID controllers now make it possible to use a bare-metal server while capturing all of the benefits of both NVMe and RAID. This solution eliminates hypervisor latency introduced by vSAN and overcomes the latency gaps caused by the slower SAS protocol while still providing reliability and availability.
Testing bears this out. Dell PowerEdge R750 servers built with newer Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller 11 (PERC 11) NVMe RAID controllers significantly boosted performance for critical workloads while still ensuring the high levels of reliability that businesses like yours require. As Figure 1 illustrates, results showed significant performance gains across all tested scenarios with the HammerDB TPROC-C database benchmark running on the bare-metal PowerEdge R750 server with an NVMe RAID array. The NVMe RAID server demonstrated transactional performance gains ranging from 6.7x more new orders per minute (NOPM) at 32 virtual users up to 12.8x more transactions with 128 virtual users and up to 13.9x more NOPM at 192 virtual users. Overall, this represents an increase of up to 93 percent for the bare-metal configuration.
Figure 1. Database performance comparing a bare-metal Dell PowerEdge R750 server with RAID to four PowerEdge R750 servers in a VMware vSAN cluster
Bare-metal servers with NVMe RAID controllers can significantly boost performance for your critical workloads while still ensuring the high levels of reliability that your business requires. And the Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 server is an ideal solution for your data center modernization that can help your organization achieve its IT and digital modernization goals.
For detailed testing methodology and configurations used in this study, see “Behind the Report: For Peak Performance, Bare Metal Wins.”
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On the record for Sapphire: World Record SAP HANA Performance with Dell PowerEdge R760 Servers
Wed, 17 May 2023 15:19:25 -0000
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SAP HANA is an in-memory database platform used to manage large amounts of data in real time for purposes such as point-of-sale data, real-time analytics for inventory management, supply-chain optimization, and customer behavior analysis. As the amount of data that must be processed grows, servers can be challenged to deliver information and analysis quickly enough to meet the increasingly demanding business requirements for fast data access. That is why SAP HANA users are always on the lookout for better-performing servers.
SAP publishes the results of standardized benchmark tests to assist customers in comparing the performance of different servers when running SAP HANA. Performance results for the Dell PowerEdge R760 server were recently published, and we are excited to share some highlights about how well this server stacks up against other servers.
Fifteen different data points are available for comparing the PowerEdge R760 server to other servers. The standard benchmarks measure three key performance data points for each of the five different database sizes on which the PowerEdge R760 server was tested.
The following table shows the rank of the PowerEdge R760 server for each of the 15 points of comparison among all the different servers tested using SAP’s benchmark version 3. The source of the data is the publicly available SAP Standard Application Benchmarks directory, accessed on 04-19-2023.
The PowerEdge R760 server outperformed all the other servers in 13 of the 15 benchmark points of comparison, and it ranked second in the remaining two.
The PowerEdge R760 server is a two-socket server built with the latest 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors. It outperforms all other servers in SAP HANA benchmarking—even 4 and 8-socket servers—in every database size of up to 6.5 billion initial records. It provides the performance and versatility to address your most demanding applications, including SAP HANA, with massive databases and mission-critical requirements for real-time performance.
Look for an in-depth study from Prowess: Remarkable SAP Benchmark Performance Results for Dell PowerEdge R760 Servers (delltechnologies.com) about how the PowerEdge R760 server performed against top competitors on the SAP Standard Application Benchmarks.
Learn more about PowerEdge servers and Dell Technologies solutions for SAP.
About the Author:
Seamus Jones
Director, Server Technical Marketing
Seamus serves Dell as Director of Server Technical Marketing, seasoned with over 20 years of real-world experience in both North America and EMEA. His unique perspective comes from experience consulting customers on data center initiatives and server virtualization strategies.
PowerEdge MX7000 100 GbE Networking
Tue, 09 May 2023 14:01:03 -0000
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100 Gigabit Ethernet networking has arrived on the Dell PowerEdge Platform! The Dell Networking MX8116n Fabric Expander Module is now available to deploy with the PowerSwitch Z9432F-ON as a Fabric Switching Engine.
The MX8116n FEM can be installed in fabric A and B. Each 400GbE port connects to the Z9432F-ON FSE, supporting a single 100GbE connection for four compute sleds.
The MX Scalable Fabric Architecture allows the Z9432F-ON FSE to support up to a maximum of 14 MX7000 chassis and 112 MX compute sleds in a single fabric deployment. The Z9432F-ON FSE operates on Dell Networking SmartFabric OS10 in Full Switch mode only.
Here are some common deployment options for the 100GbE solution.
Figure 1. 100GbE single fabric deployment
Figure 2. 100GbE dual fabric deployment
Figure 3. Combination MX8116n/Z9432F-ON and MX9116n/MX7116n deployment
For additional deployment options and detailed technical documentation on the new 100GbE networking solution see the updated Dell Technologies PowerEdge MX Networking Deployment Guide.
Another great source for hardware specifications, deployment diagrams, and cables/optics is the PowerEdge MX I/O Guide.