HP ProLiant DL585 G5, Performance Manual

Page 1: ...ofiles 6 Test scenarios 7 Performance and scalability metrics 7 Test topology 8 Configurations 9 HP SBC server summary 10 Performance test results 11 Perfmon values 12 Canary times 13 Test analysis summary 14 Recommendations 14 Using BBWC 15 Enabling write cache 15 Summary 15 Appendix A Using Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions 16 Historical scalability limitations 16 More information 16 Ap...

Page 2: ...bility Industry leading management options Flexibility for a variety of enterprise deployments High performance per watt A 4P HP ProLiant DL585 G5 server equipped with the Quad Core AMD Opteron Processor Model 8360 SE 2 5 GHz can provide optimal support for up to the following numbers of users as described in Table 2 in a 64 bit HP Server Based Computing SBC environment Heavy Users Medium Users Li...

Page 3: ...nsiveness while maintaining data center costs Enhanced power efficiency Thanks to Enhanced AMD PowerNow technology and the introduction of AMD CoolCore technology Quad Core AMD Opteron processors are very power efficient helping to reduce power needs and cooling costs in the data center For more on power management enhancements see AMD Dual Dynamic Power Management Optimal virtualization Featuring...

Page 4: ...BC environment eliminates the kernel memory constraints that can limit server scalability in a 32 bit HP SBC environment For more information refer to Appendix A Using Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions Test methodology HP continues to upgrade existing HP ProLiant servers and introduce new servers to meet particular business needs To help customers select the appropriate server for their p...

Page 5: ...on Automation tools Robosrv exe Drives the server side of the load simulation Robocli exe Helps drive the client side of the load simulation Test tools Qidle exe Determines if any scripts have failed and require operator intervention Tbscript exe A script interpreter that helps drive the client side load simulation Help files TBScript doc Terminal Server bench scripting documentation TSScalingSetu...

Page 6: ... Users also known as Data Entry Workers input data into computer systems Activities include transcription typing order entry clerical work and manufacturing Table 3 outlines the activities performed by each user class utilizing Office 2003 products Table 3 Activities incorporated into the test scripts for each user class Activity description Heavy User Medium User Light User Access Open a database...

Page 7: ...e to establish the optimal number of users supported on an HP SBC server by definition the number of users active when processor utilization reaches 80 At this time a limited number of additional users or services can be supported however user response times may become unacceptable To validate scalability metrics obtained using Perfmon HP also runs canary scripts to characterize Heavy User respons...

Page 8: ...llustrates the HP SBC test environment Figure 2 The tested environment Note Test environments such as that shown in Figure 2 are available to customers at HP Solution Centers to help solve a wide variety of business problems 8 ...

Page 9: ...erminal Services enabled Office 2003 2P HP ProLiant DL360 G5 server with Dual Core Intel Xeon processor 3 2 GHz 2 x 2 MB L2 cache 2 GB RAM Four 72 GB 15 000 rpm SAS hard drives Integrated Smart Array P400i controller with RAID 5 NC373i Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter Exchange Server Internet Information Services Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Microsoft I...

Page 10: ...t Description Operating system OS Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition Version 5 2 3790 Service Pack 2 Build 3790 Other OS description R2 System name DL585 System model ProLiant DL585 G5 System type x64 based PC Processor AMD64 Family 16 Model 2 Stepping 3 AuthenticAMD 2512 MHz BIOS version date HP A07 3 28 2008 SMBIOS version 2 4 Windows directory C WINDOWS System directory C WIND...

Page 11: ...rize the performance and scalability of the HP ProLiant DL585 G5 server Perfmon values Shows select Perfmon counter values for the Heavy User scenario Canary times Shows Heavy User response times for a sample canary script Note As with any laboratory benchmark the performance metrics quoted in this performance brief are idealized In a production environment these metrics may be impacted by a varie...

Page 12: ...ht User profiles Figure 3 shows the test results for Heavy Users Figure 3 Processor Time values for Heavy Users showing that 288 Heavy Users were supported when processor utilization reached 80 Figure 3 shows the optimal number of Heavy Users supported by the HP ProLiant DL585 G5 server to be 288 12 ...

Page 13: ...es began to increase markedly and consistently over a baseline level indicating that user response times had become unacceptable Figure 4 Canary time values show that response times began to become unacceptable when 327 Heavy Users were active Figure 4 indicates that the HP ProLiant DL585 G5 server could support 327 Heavy Users before response times started to increase markedly validating the opti...

Page 14: ...nt impact on the response times associated with file access When the pressure on the disk I O subsystem is high one option for improving disk access times is to add RAM to lower the pressure on memory As the number of sessions increases disk activity and the pressure on the disk I O subsystem also increase If file I O activity is high the probability that requests will find the desired data in mem...

Page 15: ...bed in this report Enabling write cache While faster access times can translate directly to enhanced system performance this improvement comes with a potential penalty if a system or utility failure were to occur during cache synchronization data might be lost unless battery back up has been provided Because of the potential for data loss write cache is automatically disabled on HP SBC servers unl...

Page 16: ...ned making user response times unacceptably long and effectively limiting the ability of the server to scale up Historically HP SBC environments have been implemented using 1P or 2P servers Larger more powerful servers have typically not been deployed for two main reasons Kernel memory issues have limited the performance of more powerful servers either a disk I O bottleneck occurs or kernel memory...

Page 17: ... closing applications rather than switching between them or moving quickly between tasks can place a heavier load on the server For accurate sizing system architects should closely match their user profiles with the Heavy Medium and Light User profiles specified by HP in Table 2 If the profiles do not match more are available using the online sizer tool described below alternatively the system arc...

Page 18: ...lection screen Based on information provided by the customer the sizer can provide a quick consistent mechanism for identifying the best fit server for a particular HP SBC environment and generate a Bill of Materials BOM for that server 18 ...

Page 19: ...186 featureID 4110 Quad Core AMD Opteron processors http multicore amd com us en AMD Multi Core aspx AMD PowerNow Technology http www amd com powernow To help us improve our documents please provide feedback at www hp com solutions feedback 2008 Hewlett Packard Development Company L P The information contained herein is subject to change without notice The only warranties for HP products and servi...