Dell R810 User Manual
SERVERS: DATABASE CONSOLIDATION ON
DELL POWEREDGE R810 SERVERS
*See hardware details on Page 3.
A Principled Technologies report commissioned by Dell
Table of contents
Executive summary ........................................................ 3
New Dell technology makes major savings easy ................. 4
Features of the new Dell PowerEdge R810 ........................ 4
Features of the new Intel Xeon Processor 7500 series ........ 4
Features of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 ........................ 5
The power of consolidation ............................................. 5
Running the numbers ...................................................... 7
Under 12 month payback ............................................... 7
224 percent ROI in 3 years ............................................. 9
The Dell PowerEdge R810 performance story ..................... 9
24 databases, 4 instances, 1 server ................................. 9
We show you how: Preparing the move ........................... 14
Evaluating your databases ............................................ 14
Configuring your storage .............................................. 15
Installing SQL Server 2008 ........................................... 16
Installing the database instances .................................. 18
We show you how: Making the move .............................. 19
Upgrade Advisor makes it easy ..................................... 19
Side-by-side migration ................................................. 21
We show you how: After the move ................................. 23
Logins and dependencies.............................................. 23
Summing it all up ......................................................... 25
Appendix A. Return on investment .................................. 26
Test case ................................................................... 26
Consolidation factor ..................................................... 26
Power savings ............................................................. 27
3-year cost savings ..................................................... 27
Acquisition costs ......................................................... 30
Operating cost savings ................................................. 30
Payback period ........................................................... 31
Assumptions ............................................................... 32
Appendix B. Example database survey ............................ 34
Appendix C. Preparing the storage .................................. 36
Setting up the storage ................................................. 36
Configuring the Dell PowerEdge R810 storage ................. 36
Appendix D. Installing SQL Server 2008 .......................... 38
Appendix E. Installing Upgrade Advisor ........................... 40
Appendix F. Migrating databases .................................... 42
Appendix G. Transferring Windows logins ........................ 45
Appendix H. Transferring SQL Server logins ..................... 46
About Principled Technologies ........................................ 48
Servers: Database consolidation on Dell PowerEdge R810 servers
Executive summary
Advances in processor, server, and database technologies enable
enterprises to reduce costs by consolidating multiple older
databases onto a single newer, faster server. The new Dell
PowerEdge R810 featuring the latest Intel Xeon Processor 7500
series can let organizations realize significant consolidation
savings.
This Principled Technologies (PT) Guide is the result of performance
tests and consolidation procedures we performed. We provide
concepts and procedures that will help you successfully consolidate
your Microsoft® SQL Server® 2000 instances from multiple older
servers onto a single Windows Server® 2008 R2 system running
SQL Server 2008 R2. We compared the performance and power
consumption of both the new and old solutions, and then we
analyzed these and other factors to gauge the level of savings you
could realize.
As the results from our hands-on tests show, the Dell PowerEdge
R810 server can run as many as 24 older database workloads,
each of which will perform as well as if it were on a dedicated older
server. Such consolidation saves space, reduces system
management costs, lowers licensing costs and decreases power
consumption by over 85 percent. The result is an estimated
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Servers: Database consolidation on Dell PowerEdge R810 servers
payback period of less than 12 months and a 3-year return on
investment (ROI) of 224 percent.
New Dell technology makes major savings easy
The new Dell PowerEdge R810 features the latest Intel Xeon
Processor 7500 series. It allows organizations to consolidate
unprecedented numbers of SQL server databases on to a single
server, resulting in significant savings.
Features of the new Dell PowerEdge R810
The Dell PowerEdge R810 offers many new features for maximizing
performance on database and other applications and for minimizing
operational expenses, including the following:
Power. The Dell PowerEdge R810 includes enhancements that let
it use less energy than many older servers. When you consolidate
many legacy servers onto a single Dell PowerEdge R810, the
potential power savings are dramatic.
Processors. The Dell PowerEdge R810 uses the Intel Xeon
Processor 7500 series. These processors automatically adjust their
speed and energy usage to meet the requirements of your
applications, improving performance and saving power. Combined
with support for ever-increasing amounts of memory, this makes
the Dell PowerEdge R810 an excellent database consolidation
platform.
Management. The Dell PowerEdge R810, like all late-model Dell
servers, comes with the Dell Lifecycle Controller. This tool
simplifies management by providing a single interface for
management functions and by storing critical system information in
the system itself. There are no CDs or USB keys to keep track of
for drivers or firmware.
Features of the new Intel Xeon Processor 7500 series
The new Intel Xeon Processor 7500 series offer businesses a
number of advantages:
Larger cache. The new Intel Xeon Processor 7500 series contains
24 MB of shared L3 cache, increasing the previous-generations
processors’ cache amounts by a significant margin. More L3 cache
means faster processing, and better database performance.
Greater scaling power. The newest generation of Intel
processors brings 8 processing cores to each chip, along with
hyper-threading, totaling 16 logical processors per physical
processor. The larger number of logical processors, coupled with
the expansion from two-socket (2S) to 4S platforms, elevates the
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Servers: Database consolidation on Dell PowerEdge R810 servers
Intel Xeon Processor 7500 series to a new level of power and
scalability.
QuickPath. QuickPath Technology provides fast access to the
increased memory addressable by these processors.
Turbo Boost. Turbo Boost Technology automatically allows
processor cores to run faster than the base operating frequency if
the server is operating below power, current, and temperature
specification limits.
Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability (RAS) features.
Intel adds RAS features to the new Xeon Processor 7500 series
platform, such as Machine Check Architecture (MCA). Now the CPU
can isolate issues on the chip or in memory in real time, alert the
operating system to log the error, and avoid crashes.
Features of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
SQL Server 2008 R2 is the latest release of Microsoft’s database
management platform. As with each release, Microsoft has added
new features to expand on the capabilities of their Database
Management System (DBMS) platform. Where earlier versions of
SQL Server required database administrators to largely rely on
either in-house applications or third-party tools to monitor multiple
instances, SQL Server 2008 R2 simplifies multi-server
management. SQL Server 2008 R2 also introduces the SQL Server
Utility, offering a rapid enterprise view of the complete
environment and utilization statistics. Microsoft scales SQL Server
up with this release, as SQL Server 2008 R2 now supports up to
256 logical processors, which offers organizations extreme
flexibility when planning for new system purchases and
consolidation opportunities.
The power of consolidation
What is consolidation?
Generally speaking, consolidation is the process of combining
multiple items to make a single, more effective unit. In an IT
context, you can consolidate the following:
Physical servers. After a successful server consolidation, all
applications should run on fewer servers than before. Ideally, those
applications should run at least as well as they did previously, and
potentially better.
Storage. Depending on your setup, consolidating servers may let
you also consolidate storage by moving data from a number of
servers to a single large disk storage subsystem in a new server.
Space. As you consolidate servers, you will likely reduce the
number of racks or even the number of locations that house
servers.
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Servers: Database consolidation on Dell PowerEdge R810 servers
In this database-specific Guide, we address the consolidation of
multiple stand-alone SQL Server 2000 instances to a system
powered by the latest Intel Xeon Processor 7500 series. As we will
demonstrate, consolidating multiple instances to one physical
machine saves on space, hardware costs, licensing costs, power,
cooling, and administrative overhead.
Why consolidate?
An effective server consolidation effort has the potential to yield an
environment with more consistent management practices and
improved reliability, security, and hardware utilization—all while
maintaining the previous level of application performance.
Consolidation can also yield a variety of cost savings:
Hardware savings. Buying, powering, and supporting fewer
servers brings obvious savings. Other potential hardware cost
savings include the need for fewer racks and network switches: as
the number of servers decreases, these costs decrease as well.
Software license savings. Consolidation can save an
organization significant money in software licenses. We present a
detailed example of potential license savings in our earlier guide,
―Consolidating SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 databases to
SQL Server 2008 on Windows Server 2008 Enterprise on Dell
Servers.‖1
Maintenance and staff savings. A consolidated infrastructure
offers many opportunities for maintenance, support, and staffing
cost savings. Less hardware and associated equipment means
fewer servers that require security patches, monitoring, and other
ongoing maintenance.
Reduced support costs. The cost of a given level of support is
typically proportional to the size of the installation. By reducing the
number of servers, support costs are also likely to decrease.
Power and cooling savings. Consolidating servers saves power
and cooling by using fewer more efficient systems.
Sizing and baseline performance
One key to a successful consolidation is sizing, the process of
gathering different performance baselines so you have an
approximate set of requirements the new hardware platform must
meet. You do this by determining the performance characteristics
of existing hardware during normal business operations, and then
applying growth and scalability estimates.
1
http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/public/white_papers/Consolidating
_SQLServer_databases_onto_a_Dell_server.pdf
6
Running the numbers
Servers: Database consolidation on Dell PowerEdge R810 servers
Among the characteristics to examine on each server are the
following:
Processor utilization
Memory requirements of the operating system and
applications
Disk layout
Database size
Expected database growth
Maximum concurrent users
Types and rates of transactions against the databases
The server you select for consolidation must do more than match
the combined capacity of all the other current servers today. It also
must have enough excess capacity to still perform well at the end
of its expected life span.
The Dell PowerEdge R810 we tested for this Guide demonstrates
the concept of a high-performance server that can readily support
significant consolidation. It has four Intel Xeon processors L7555
with 8 cores and 128GB of RAM and has been optimized to reduce
both power consumption and heat dissipation. In addition, the two
Dell EqualLogic PS5000XV iSCSI SAN arrays give the server access
to multiple terabytes of enterprise storage.
Under 12 month payback
Payback period
As we discuss above, consolidating older database servers lets you
reduce energy usage, save data center space, reduce software
license costs, and lower management costs. Tests in PT labs show
that a four-socket Dell PowerEdge R810 server with the new Intel
Xeon Processor L7555, 128GB RAM, and two Dell EqualLogic
PS5000XV storage arrays (which we refer to as the Dell PowerEdge
R810 solution) could consolidate two full racks of older database
servers and storage (24 AMD Opteron 254-based HP ProLiant
DL385 servers with 4 GB of RAM— each pair of which shared one of
12 HP StorageWorks MSA30 storage enclosures [we refer to these
as the 24 HP ProLiant DL385 solutions]). Such consolidation would
deliver rapid return on investment (ROI) and a quick payback.
We used the open-source DVD Store (DS2) benchmark to provide a
workload representative of a real-world database application. With
it, we measured the database performance of an older server-andstorage solution running Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 with
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Servers: Database consolidation on Dell PowerEdge R810 servers
Payback in 11.1
months
$94,801
acquisition costs
$7,715 savings
at 1 year
$212,747
savings at 3
years
$0
$50,000
$100,000
$150,000
$200,000
$250,000
$300,000
$350,000
$400,000
13579111315171921232527293133
35
Cumulative costs
Months
Dell PowerEdge R810 solution pays back
the initial investment in under 12 months
HP ProLiant DL385 solution x 24
Dell PowerEdge R810 solution
Payback period
Acquisition costs
1st-year savings
3rd-year savings
Figure 1: The payback period and accumulated estimated costs for the 24 servers
and 12 storage arrays in the HP ProLiant DL385 solutions and the server and two
storage arrays in the Dell PowerEdge R810 solution. The Dell PowerEdge R810
solution delivers payback and savings within the first year. Lower costs and higher
savings are better.
Microsoft SQL Server 2000. We measured how many of those
workloads the new Dell PowerEdge R810 solution could host. The
new server ran Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft
SQL Server 2008 R2. We detail the test results in The Dell
PowerEdge R810 performance story section of this Guide. The Dell
PowerEdge R810 solution was able to consolidate 24 of these
workloads while still maintaining the same average orders per
minute (OPM) as the solution it replaced.
That consolidation could deliver payback in less than 12 months
and an ROI of 224 percent after 3 years.
Figure 1 graphs the payback period and the cost savings of the Dell
PowerEdge R810 solution. The line representing the Dell
PowerEdge R810 solution accumulates the initial investment cost
and the monthly costs of the solution. The initial investment cost
includes the list price of the server and the storage arrays as well
as the costs of migrating from the HP ProLiant DL385 solutions to
the newer Dell PowerEdge R810 solution. The line for the HP
ProLiant DL385 solutions shows the accumulated costs of these
solutions. The lines cross at the end of the payback period, the
point at which solution savings equal the initial investment.
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Servers: Database consolidation on Dell PowerEdge R810 servers
Savings continue after the payback period. By the end of year one,
we project savings of $7,715 with the Dell PowerEdge 810 solution.
The Dell PowerEdge R810 solution used a little less than 1/7th of
the power, 1/24th of the Microsoft Windows Server and Microsoft
Windows SQL Server licenses, under 1/10th of the data center rack
space of the 24 HP ProLiant DL385 solutions, and requires less
administrator time to manage fewer servers and storage arrays.
See Appendix A for more information on these savings and
calculations.
224 percent ROI in 3 years
We calculate the return on the investment in the Dell PowerEdge
R810 solution by dividing the savings after 3 years, $212,747, by
the acquisition costs, $94,801. ROI is 224 percent after 3 years.
The Dell PowerEdge R810 performance story
24 databases, 4 instances, 1 server
Our multiple-instance testing with DVD Store
Using our new hardware environment, which consisted of a single
Dell PowerEdge R810 and two Dell EqualLogic PS5000XV iSCSI
SAN arrays, we installed multiple instances of SQL Server 2008 R2
to simulate the benefits of consolidating multiple SQL Server 2000
workloads from the HP ProLiant DL385 solutions to the Dell
PowerEdge R810 solution. To simulate a real-world multi-instance
consolidation effort, we installed four SQL Server instances and
consolidated six of the legacy workloads per instance on the Dell
PowerEdge R810. The total number of legacy workloads we were
able to consolidate while still maintaining, on average, the same
overall throughput as before, was 24.
About DVD Store
DVD Store Version 2 is an open-source application with a back-end
database component, a front-end Web application layer, and a
driver layer that actually executes the workload. DS2 models an
online DVD store. Simulated customers log in; browse movies by
actor, title, or category; and purchase movies. The workload also
creates new customers. Browsing movies involves select
operations, some of which use full-text search and some of which
do not. The purchase, login, and new customer stored procedures
involve update and insert statements, as well as select statements.
The DS2 benchmark produces an orders per minute metric (OPM),
which we report in this Guide. For more details about the DS2 tool,
see http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/DVD+Store.
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Servers: Database consolidation on Dell PowerEdge R810 servers
Our test bed setup
On the HP ProLiant DL385 server running Windows Server 2003 R2
with SP2 and one instance of SQL Server 2000, we used 4 GB of
RAM, allocating 3 GB of RAM to user processes via the boot.ini
/3GB switch as was typical in a server of its time. We used four
internal hard drives (73GB 15,000 RPM SCSI) that we configured in
two RAID 1 volumes, installing the OS on one volume and using
the other volume for SQL Server logs. We configured the external
storage as one large RAID 5 LUN containing seven 146GB 10,000
RPM disks in an HP StorageWorks MSA30 storage enclosure.
Because our goal was to emulate a 3- to 5-year-old database
server, we chose RAID 5 for the external storage, a configuration
typical of the time.
On the Dell PowerEdge R810 server running Windows Server 2008
R2 and four instances of SQL Server 2008 R2, we used 128 GB of
RAM, allocating equal amounts of RAM to each SQL Server instance
in the properties of each instance. We used two internal hard
drives (146GB 15,000 RPM 6Gb SAS) in a RAID 1 configuration,
installing the operating system and SQL Server 2008 R2 instances
on that internal volume. We used four additional internal drives in
a RAID 10 configuration for SQL Server logs (146GB 15,000 RPM
6Gb SAS). All internal drives were attached to the PERC H700
internal 6Gb SAS storage controller. We configured a Dell
EqualLogic PS5000XV storage group having two members, each
with one storage pool assigned. In each storage pool, and hence on
each array, we created two volumes, each of which contained SQL
Server data relevant to one SQL Server instance. The Dell
EqualLogic PS5000XV storage used all 146GB 15,000 RPM SAS
disks. We assigned a minimum of 20 GB of RAM and a maximum of
30 GB of RAM to each SQL Server instance to ensure equal
balancing of memory resources among SQL Server instances.
We ran only one database workload on the single SQL Server
instance on the HP ProLiant DL385 as the system memory and disk
subsystems of the system were saturated with just one database
workload. We ran four SQL Server instances, a real-world number
for the Dell PowerEdge R810, and added database workloads
evenly across the SQL Server instances making sure the average
OPM across all 24 workloads exceeded the original OPM on the HP
ProLiant DL385.
In Figure 2, we show the consolidated SQL Server layout,
consisting of four distinct SQL Server instances, each containing six
databases. Two of the SQL Server instances’ data resided on one
Dell EqualLogic PS5000XV array, while the remaining two were on
the second Dell EqualLogic PS5000XV array.
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Servers: Database consolidation on Dell PowerEdge R810 servers
Figure 2. Consolidated SQL Server 2008 R2 instance layout
for our testing.
For client machines, we used desktop systems running Windows
Server 2003 R2 with SP2. Each of these client machines ran the
DS2 workload, which spawned 32 threads against each database
workload and ran with no think time. On the HP ProLiant DL385
server, we used one client and one SQL Server 2008 R2 instance,
containing one database. On the Dell PowerEdge R810 server, we
used four SQL Server 2008 R2 instances, each containing six
databases, for a total of 24 databases. We used 12 clients and
each targeted two databases. This simulated a heavily loaded
environment on all of our databases.
We ran the DS2 benchmark with a 10GB database. On average,
each SQL Server 2008 R2 database workload on the Dell
PowerEdge R810 solution delivered better performance than did a
single HP ProLiant DL385 solution with the same workload. We
then estimated the monthly costs for maintaining the 24 HP
ProLiant DL385 solutions and the single Dell PowerEdge R810
solution, and estimated the payback period for the investment in
the Dell PowerEdge R810 solution.
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Servers: Database consolidation on Dell PowerEdge R810 servers
0
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
7,000
8,000
1 HP ProLiant
DL385 workload
Dell PowerEdge
R810 (average of
24 workloads)
OPM
Orders per minute per workload
Figure 3. Average OPM of 24 database workloads on the Dell PowerEdge
R810 solution versus a single database workload on the HP ProLiant DL385
solution. Greater OPM is better.
Our testing results
As Figure 3 shows, we were able to run 24 SQL Server 2008 R2
database workloads (six databases on four instances), all
simultaneously achieving an average throughput greater than the
HP ProLiant DL385 solution’s orders per minute score. To be
specific, the average OPM delivered by each of the 24 workloads on
the Dell PowerEdge R810 solution was 7,523, while the average
OPM delivered by 1 workload on the HP ProLiant DL385 solution
was 6,639.
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Servers: Database consolidation on Dell PowerEdge R810 servers
0
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
HP ProLiant
DL385
solution
Dell PowerEdge
R810
solution
Orders per minute
Total orders per minute: 1 HP ProLiant DL385
solution vs. 24 workloads on 1 Dell PowerEdge R810
solution
Figure 4. Combined orders per minute of 24 database workloads on the Dell
PowerEdge R810 solution versus a single HP ProLiant DL385 solution database
workload. Greater OPM is better.
As Figure 4 shows, the combined OPM of 24 SQL Server database
workloads on the Dell PowerEdge R810 solution were over 27 times
greater than the single HP ProLiant DL385 solution database
workload.
Power savings
As Figure 5 shows, assuming we were running 24 HP Proliant
DL385 servers, each using one-half of the HP StorageWorks MSA30
external enclosure, and therefore a total of 12 enclosures, we
would significantly reduce our power consumption. Power
consumption at idle and under load both decreased by over 85
percent when switching to the Dell PowerEdge R810 solution. We
calculated this by taking the overall wattage from the HP ProLiant
DL385 solution, then multiplying the server wattage times 24 and
the storage wattage times 12. We contrast this with the total
power consumption of the Dell PowerEdge R810 solution. Lower
wattage is better.
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Servers: Database consolidation on Dell PowerEdge R810 servers
0
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
24 HP ProLiant
DL385 solutions
1 Dell PowerEdge
R810 solution
Watts
Idle power usage: 24 HP ProLiant DL385
solutions vs. 1 Dell PowerEdge R810 solution
Figure 5. Simulated idle power savings – 24 HP ProLiant DL385 solutions
versus a single Dell PowerEdge R810 solution. Lower idle power is better.
We show you how: Preparing the move
We have shown why you should consolidate your older databases
to a single Dell PowerEdge R810 with four Intel Xeon Processor
7500 series. Now we address the next question: How to accomplish
this? We discuss planning issues, setup of the Dell PowerEdge R810
with Dell EqualLogic PS5000XV storage, the actual migration using
a simple backup/restore method, and post-migration
Evaluating your databases
considerations.
As with any migration or consolidation, planning is a key element.
You must be aware of many specific details related to each physical
server you target for consolidation, including the maintenance
window in which you will migrate the server to its new
environment, the users the move will affect, and the configuration
tasks necessary to assimilate the databases into your consolidated
environment. A more comprehensive example survey appears in
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Servers: Database consolidation on Dell PowerEdge R810 servers
Appendix B. Information to gather before consolidation includes the
following:
Server OS version and patch level
SQL Server version and patch level
Number of logins on this SQL Server instance, and what
type of logins these are (Windows or SQL)
Current backup strategy and schedule for the databases on
this server
Replication details for this SQL instance, if any
Detailed information regarding permissions and roles
SQL Agent jobs on this SQL Server
After moving your databases to their new SQL Server instance, you
must make sure that any system or application using the database
has updated connection information. This includes logins,
permissions, applications, SQL Agent jobs, third-party backup
products, and so on.
Configuring your storage
Gathering baseline performance data
During your research phase, you should use Performance Monitor,
SQL Server Profiler, and other tools to gather data on the typical
query load and performance statistics on the databases you are
considering moving to the new environment. This effort serves two
purposes. First, it provides a prime opportunity to identify potential
problems before you move to a consolidated solution. Second, you
can use the information you gather to map out your resource
allocation needs, which you can then use to configure your new
instances, either by using memory allocations, CPU affinity, or
Resource Governor settings.
In our test bed, we used two Dell EqualLogic PS5000XV iSCSI SAN
arrays. This section provides an overview of the Dell EqualLogic
PS5000XV configuration process when used in conjunction with the
Dell PowerEdge R810. Appendix C provides complete, detailed
installation instructions.
Power on the Dell EqualLogic PS5000XV array, and
log in via the serial console. Proceed through the
initialization wizard steps, assigning a group
name and member name, and configuring the IP
address for the first NIC, eth0. If this array has
been previously used, you can reset the array to
factory defaults by issuing the ―reset‖ command.
Connect the Dell EqualLogic PS5000XV array and
Dell PowerEdge R810 to the gigabit switch that
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