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This is essentially a copy of a post I did on the Intel Server Community page last week. Since it didn't feed the virtualization industry blog pages, I decided to re-post it here as well....
This is a big week for Intel, as they formally announce the availability of their new high performance Xeon 5500 CPU, codenamed "Nehalem". Citrix has anticipated the potential for enhanced performance when using the Intel Xeon E5500 with XenServer for some time now. We were fortunate to have received one of these gems from Intel in January to do our own comparison tests in our Bedford, MA test lab. Since we had just completed a series of performance validation tests for virtualizing SQL Server 2008 in a XenServer 5 environment (a very successful test series I might add...look for the technical WP on this shortly at: http://citrix.com/English/ps2/products/documents_onecat.asp?contentid=683148&cid=White+Papers), we decided to keep the same test environment and repeat a portion of the SQL test series comparing Xeon E5405 vs. Xeon E5570-based XenServer hosts to see what kind of performance improvement we would get.
Each of the test servers were configured with a single SQL Server 2008 VM with 4 vCPU cores and 7GB RAM. We used DBHammer for SQL to create a 10 million record database and generated transaction processing workloads to simulate an actual SQL Server 2008 client workload. Workloads were created starting with 200 clients. Each client workload test ran for 30 minute periods. Starting after the first 10 minutes of each test, we began taking measurements using Microsoft performance monitor and continued doing so for the remaining 20 minutes of the test. MEasurements of the maximum transactions per second rate were taken every fifteen seconds until the 30 minute test period had elapsed. Increments of 200 clients were added until the maximum average CPU utilization level of 90 percent was reached. At 90 percent average CPU utilization, it was determined that the system was saturated and testing was ended.
Given the difference in the clock speeds of the two systems tested, 2.0 GHz and 2.93 GHz respectively, we fully expected to see some level of improved performance, but what we saw was pretty astounding, even to us. The Xeon E5405 XenServer host topped out at 1,600 clients, generating 13,708 maximum transactions per second. The Xeon E5570 XenServer host, by comparison, was able to sustain a load of 2,400 clients, generating 20,978 maximum transactions per second. That's an improvement of 53%! .jpg)
The results are pretty clear. Not only is the new Intel Nehalem Xeon 5500 series a powerful addition to the Intel Server Solutions lineup, but it is a clear advantage to customers seeking to virtualize enterprise application platforms like SQL Server 2008 using XenServer.
Details of this comparison test will be posted in a whitepaper to: http://citrix.com/English/ps2/products/documents_onecat.asp?contentid=683148&cid=White+Papers later this week.
Comments (4)
Apr 01, 2009
Simon Bramfitt says:
Bernard Any plans to test XenApp on XenServer on Nehalem Xeon 5500? Regards S...Bernard
Any plans to test XenApp on XenServer on
NehalemXeon 5500?Regards
Simon
Apr 01, 2009
Bernard Hannon says:
Yes, we plan to soon. We have only one E5500 based server in our lab, ...Yes, we plan to soon. We have only one E5500 based server in our lab, so our testing is somewhat limited at the moment. It is a priority, though. Thanks.
Bernie
Aug 11
Anonymous says:
why compare such drastically different processors?why compare such drastically different processors?
Aug 12
Bernard Hannon says:
At the time, we only had the Xeon 5405 to compare with in our lab. We've since d...At the time, we only had the Xeon 5405 to compare with in our lab. We've since done additional testing, comparing the performance of Xeon x7350 to Xeon x5570 when virtualizing Citrix XenApp workloads. Both CPUs run at 2.93GHz, which makes for a much better comparison. The results will be published in a WP entitled "XenApp Server consolidation with XenServer on Intel Nehalem x5570 hosts" on Citrix.com:(http://citrix.com/English/ps2/products/documents_onecat.asp?contentid=683148&cid=White+Papers) later today.
Bernie
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