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 Bada$$ server!

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Lumbago
Norsk Yak Master

3271 Posts

Posted - 2011-02-11 : 03:55:47
I came across this whitepaper about performance in SQL Server 2005 (http://www9.unisys.com/eprise/main/admin/corporate/doc/02_21_08_DW_whitepaper_for_Wn_Sv_launch_final_for_web.pdf) and was quite amazed at the task manager screenshot of their test server. Have a look:



Any of you guys working with big servers? Think the biggest server I've worked with had 16GB RAM and 8 cpu cores...I feel so small-time!!

- Lumbago
My blog-> http://thefirstsql.com/2011/02/07/regular-expressions-advanced-string-matching-and-new-split-function-sql-server-2008-r2/

Transact Charlie
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

3451 Posts

Posted - 2011-02-11 : 04:23:53
looks like a NUMA box maybe? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Uniform_Memory_Access

And no -- I've never had my hands on anything like that!

Is there anything to stop someone making a VM and just lying to it that it has X proccessors and Y ram? (i.e Pretend that you are on a 64 core box when you've only got a dual core core 2 duo and pretend that you've got terrabytes of ram when you've only got 8gb?)

I'm sure I could provide a screenshot where every cpu was maxed out too if I did that. the vm probably wouldn't be doing anything!

Charlie
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The ROLLBACK TRANSACTION request has no corresponding BEGIN TRANSACTION
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Lumbago
Norsk Yak Master

3271 Posts

Posted - 2011-02-11 : 04:54:57
I don't know if you read the article but the task manager screenshot was taken during a load of 2.1 billion rows in to an SSAS cube. They managed to get throughput of roughly 1.8 mill rows per second...and the whitepaper is almost 3 years old. Pretty amazing!!

- Lumbago
My blog-> http://thefirstsql.com/2011/02/07/regular-expressions-advanced-string-matching-and-new-split-function-sql-server-2008-r2/
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Transact Charlie
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

3451 Posts

Posted - 2011-02-11 : 05:18:50
The screenshot distracted me from the actual link!

I've read the article now. Very interesting. Especially some of the throw away comments like the 13-17% performance improvements moving from a DECIMAL type to a MONEY type.


Charlie
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Lumbago
Norsk Yak Master

3271 Posts

Posted - 2011-02-11 : 06:11:56
I actually noticed that also and I don't really understand how they can get such performance improvement from that alone. The money data type takes 8 bytes while a decimal with 10-19 digit precision takes 9 bytes. Is this single byte what they refer to as "13-17% performance improvement"? 8 bytes of storage compared to 9 bytes gives 12.5% reduction...

- Lumbago
My blog-> http://thefirstsql.com/2011/02/07/regular-expressions-advanced-string-matching-and-new-split-function-sql-server-2008-r2/
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Transact Charlie
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

3451 Posts

Posted - 2011-02-11 : 06:31:05
I think the result was explained in another throw away comment:

"
• Using Money data type instead of decimal yielded a 13%
improvement
- Storing as money (a 8-byte integer with implied 4
decimal digits)
SQL Server uses the Tabular Data Stream (TDS) format
to transfer data over the wire, and it does not support
decimal or numeric. We could change the relational
database, or cast or convert during the SQL query
that SSAS sends (and create a view if that would help
manageability)"

So as money is really an integer field (just with an implicit 4 digits of precision) then maybe it doesn't need to undergo some sort of implicit cast for transfer??

I didn't really understand that bit. Will browse SQL Server Internals again tonight in the bath.

Charlie
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Lumbago
Norsk Yak Master

3271 Posts

Posted - 2011-02-11 : 06:52:14
quote:
I didn't really understand that bit. Will browse SQL Server Internals again tonight in the bath.
Oooh...there's an image I didn't need in my head right now

But you might be right about the imlicit conversion stuff. Maybe I should start using money instead of decimal. Hmm...food for thought.

- Lumbago
My blog-> http://thefirstsql.com/2011/02/07/regular-expressions-advanced-string-matching-and-new-split-function-sql-server-2008-r2/
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SwePeso
Patron Saint of Lost Yaks

30421 Posts

Posted - 2011-02-11 : 13:43:07
Glenn Berry has some similar screen shots
http://sqlserverperformance.wordpress.com/2010/01/17/intel-nehalem-ex-and-database-performance/



N 56°04'39.26"
E 12°55'05.63"
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robvolk
Most Valuable Yak

15732 Posts

Posted - 2011-02-11 : 13:52:12
I can't find the pictures right now, but Microsoft did several demos of 128 core systems. They did some with SQL Server and Analysis Services running on those machines at the last few PASS Summits in Seattle. They also demo'd a Parallel Data Warehouse system in 2 racks, each rack was about half CPU enclosures and half drive enclosures. I don't remember the exact specs but they were querying something like 200 billion rows in about 10 seconds.
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Michael Valentine Jones
Yak DBA Kernel (pronounced Colonel)

7020 Posts

Posted - 2011-02-11 : 14:43:40

UNISYS like to show off those machines just to wow people, but I have my doubts that many people are buying them.

I saw a UNISYS demo years ago whare they planned to show how fast they could load a very large Active Directory installation. They setup a 16 processor server and started the demo, and were surprised to see that it loaded at about the same speed as a 2 processor server. They hadn’t realized that because Active Directory was based on the Jet database engine that it was really single threaded and their parallel load could not use more than one CPU at a time. Oops.





CODO ERGO SUM
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SwePeso
Patron Saint of Lost Yaks

30421 Posts

Posted - 2011-02-11 : 15:25:45
128 cores
http://www.danielmoth.com/Blog/CategoryView,category,Windows.aspx



N 56°04'39.26"
E 12°55'05.63"
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Lumbago
Norsk Yak Master

3271 Posts

Posted - 2011-02-14 : 04:33:54
Just wanted to post this link from SQLCAT on the money vs decimal, very interesting reading!

-> http://sqlcat.com/technicalnotes/archive/2008/09/25/the-many-benefits-of-money-data-type.aspx

- Lumbago
My blog-> http://thefirstsql.com/2011/02/07/regular-expressions-advanced-string-matching-and-new-split-function-sql-server-2008-r2/
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jezemine
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

2886 Posts

Posted - 2011-02-14 : 10:39:43
I would LOVE to have such a server but I don't think I could justify it. Seems to me it would be difficult to keep all those threads busy crunching numbers. usually one is I/O bound so unless you have 128 disks, each one feeding a core with data as fast as possible, it's tricky.


elsasoft.org
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bgotov
Starting Member

1 Post

Posted - 2012-02-02 : 07:56:34
may will be interesting for you unspammed
"montecarlo superpi" use SQL to test CPUs and Memory performance
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X002548
Not Just a Number

15586 Posts

Posted - 2012-02-06 : 18:01:36
and they're all peaked?

Brett

8-)

Hint: Want your questions answered fast? Follow the direction in this link
http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/brettk/archive/2005/05/25/5276.aspx


Want to help yourself?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms130214.aspx

http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/brettk/

http://brettkaiser.blogspot.com/


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