Tune the disk storage:
The TPC-E benchmark rules require disk storage redundancy. You can use RAID 1+0 if you have enough storage capacity. If you do not have enough capacity, you can use RAID 5 .
If you use rotational disks, configure logical drives so that all spindles are used for database disks, if possible. Additional spindles improve overall disk subsystem performance.
The TPC-E workload consists of two disk I/O workloads: random reads/writes in a 9:1 ratio on database tables, and sequential writes on the log. You can improve performance with proper write caching on the log disk only in the case of battery backed up disk configurations that are able to avoid data loss in case of power failure:
Enable 100% write caching for the log disk.
TPC-E Database Size and Layout
Tune the database size and layout:
The TPC-E database consists of several file groups, and it can vary between different benchmark kits. Size is measured in number of customers, and for the database to be auditable, the ratio of database size (customers) to throughput (tpsE) should be approximately 500.
You can perform more fine tuning on the database layout :
Database tables that have higher access frequency should be placed on the outer edge of the disk if rotational disks are used.
The default TPC-E kit can be changed, and new file groups can be created. That way, file groups can consist of higher frequency access table(s) and they can be placed on the outer edge of the disk for better performance.
Tune the client systems:
Configure client systems the same way that the SUT is configured. See “Server Under Test (SUT) Tunings” earlier in this guide.
In addition to tuning the client systems, you should monitor client performance and eliminate any bottlenecks. Follow these client performance guidelines:
CPU utilization on clients should not be higher than 80%, to accommodate activity bursts.
If any of the processors has high CPU utilization, consider using CPU affinity for benchmark processes to even out CPU utilization. If CPU utilization is still high, consider upgrading clients to the latest processors, or add more clients.
Verify that time is synchronized between the master client and the SUT.
Monitoring and Data Collection
The following list of performance counters is considered a base set of counters when you monitor the resource usage of the database server for the TPC-E workload. Log the performance counters to a local, raw (blg) performance counter log. It is less expensive to collect all instances (‘*’ wide character) and then extract particular instances while post-processing by using Relog.exe or Perfmon:
\IPv4\*
\Memory\*
\Network Interface(*)\*
\PhysicalDisk(*)\*
\Processor Information(*)\*
\Synchronization(*)\*
\System\*
\TCPv4\*
Note: If applicable, add the \IPv6\* and \TCPv6\* objects. To monitor overall performance, you can use the performance counter chart displayed in Figure 9 and the throughput chart displayed in Figure 10 to visualize run characteristics. The first part of the run in Figure 9 represents the warm-up stage where I/O consists of mostly reads. As the run progresses, the lazy writer starts flushing caches to the disks and as write I/O increases, read I/O decreases. The beginning of steady state for the run is when the read I/O and write I/O curves seem to be parallel to each other.
Figure 9: TPC-E Perfmon Counters Chart
Figure 10. TPC-E Throughput Chart
You can use other tools such as Xperf to perform additional analysis.
Resources Web Sites
Windows Server 2008 R2
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/R2.aspx
Windows Server 2008
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/
Windows Server Performance Team Blog
http://blogs.technet.com/winserverperformance/
Windows Server Catalog
http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/
SAP Global Benchmark: Sales and Distribution (SD)
http://www.sap.com/solutions/benchmark/sd.epx
Windows Sysinternals
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx
Transaction Processing Performance Council
http://www.tpc.org/
IxChariot
http://www.ixiacom.com/support/ixchariot/
Power Policy Configuration and Deployment in Windows
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pnppwr/powermgmt/PMpolicy_Windows.mspx
Using PowerCfg to Evaluate System Energy Efficiency
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pnppwr/powermgmt/PowerCfg.mspx
Interrupt-Affinity Policy Tool
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/IntPolicy.mspx
Networking Subsystem
Scalable Networking: Eliminating the Receive Processing Bottleneck—Introducing RSS
http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/D/6/5D6EAF2B-7DDF-476B-93DC-7CF0072878E6/NDIS_RSS.doc
Windows Filtering Platform
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/network/WFP.mspx
Networking Deployment Guide: Deploying High-Speed Networking Features
http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/E/D/8EDE21BC-0E3B-4E14-AAEA-9E2B03917A09/HSN_Deployment_Guide.doc
Storage Subsystem
Disk Subsystem Performance Analysis for Windows
(Parts of this document are out of date, but many of the general observations and guidelines are still accurate.)
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/subsys_perf.mspx
Web Servers
10 Tips for Writing High-Performance Web Applications
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=98290
File Servers
Performance Tuning Guidelines for Microsoft Services for Network File System
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb463205.aspx
[MS-FSSO]: File Access Services System Overview
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee392367(v=PROT.10).aspx
How to disable the TCP autotuning diagnostic tool
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967475
Active Directory Servers
Active Directory Performance for 64-bit Versions of Windows Server 2003
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=52e7c3bd-570a-475c-96e0-316dc821e3e7
How to configure Active Directory diagnostic event logging in Windows Server 2003 and in Windows 2000 Server
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314980
Remote Desktop Session Host Capacity Planning
RD Session Host Capacity Planning in Windows Server 2008 R2
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=ca837962-4128-4680-b1c0-ad0985939063
RD Virtualization Host Capacity Planning in Windows Server 2008 R2
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=bd24503e-b8b7-4b5b-9a86-af03ac5332c8
Virtualization Servers
NUMA Node Balancing
http://blogs.technet.com/b/winserverperformance/archive/2009/12/10/numa-node-balancing.aspx
Hyper-V WMI Provider
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc136992(VS.85).aspx
Hyper-V WMI Classes
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc136986(VS.85).aspx
Requirements and Limits for Virtual Machines and Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee405267(WS.10).aspx
Network Workload
Ttcp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ttcp
How to Use NTttcp to Test Network Performance
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/network/TCP_tool.mspx
Sales and Distribution Two-Tier Workload and TPC-E Workload
Setting Server Configuration Options
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=98291
How to: Configure SQL Server to Use Soft-NUMA
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=98292
How to: Map TCP/IP Ports to NUMA Nodes
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=98293
ALTER SERVER CONFIGURATION SET PROCESS AFFINITY (Transact-SQL) (How to Set Process Affinity using DDL)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee210585.aspx
SAP with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2005:
Best Practices for High Availability, Maximum Performance, and Scalability
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/sqlserver?rid=/library/uuid/4ab89e84-0d01-0010-cda2-82ddc3548c65
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