Specifications
A Principled Technologies test report 17
The datacenter in a box performance test: Comparing Dell and HP
blade solutions
APPENDIX D SERVER CONFIGURATION FOR PERFORMANCE TESTING
For performance testing, we configured each of the three blade servers in each solution to run one of the
applications (SQL Server, Exchange Server, and SharePoint Server) with the data for each application on the respective
blade storage solution. For our benchmark test clients and domain controller, we configured virtual machines on a
separate server, ensuring that each virtual machine had ample hardware resources. We also configured the client VM
host servers with 10G network adapters to connect to the 10G switches in each solution. See Figure 1 for a detailed
diagram showing our network configurations. For each solution, we had a single domain controller VM, a DVD store
client VM, a WSSDW client VM, and ten LoadGen client VMs distributing the user workload evenly.
Installing the operating system on the application blade servers
1. Insert the installation DVD for Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Enterprise into the DVD drive.
2. At the Language Selection Screen, click Next.
1. Click Install Now.
2. Select Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise (Full Installation), and click Next.
3. Click the I accept the license terms checkbox, and click Next.
4. Click Custom.
5. Click Next.
6. At the User’s password must be changed before logging on warning screen, click OK.
7. Enter the desired password for the administrator in both fields, and click the arrow to continue.
8. At the Your password has been changed screen, click OK.
9. Connect the machine to the Internet, and install all available Windows updates. Restart as necessary.
10. Enable remote desktop access.
11. Change the hostname and reboot when prompted.
12. Set up networking:
a. Click StartControl Panel, right-click Network Connections, and choose Open.
b. Right-click the NIC assigned to the private network, and choose Properties.
c. Select TCP/IP (v4), and choose Properties.
d. Set the IP address, subnet, gateway, and DNS server for the virtual NIC, which will handle outgoing server
traffic. Click OK, and click Close.
e. Repeat steps b-d for the iSCSI NIC and apply the appropriate IP address.
13. After creating and configuring the storage volumes on the storage level and in iSCSI initiator:
a. Click the Server Manager icon in the taskbar.
b. In the left pane, expand Storage, and click Disk Management.
c. Right-click the first volume, and choose Initialize Disk.
d. In the right pane, right-click the volume and choose New Simple VoIume…
e. At the Welcome screen, click Next.
f. At the Specify Volume Size screen, leave the default selection, and click Next.
g. At the Assign Drive Letter or Path screen, choose a drive letter, and click Next.
h. At the Format Partition screen, leave the defaults and click Next.
i. At the Completing the New Simple Volume Wizard screen, click Finish.
j. Repeat steps c through i for the remaining volumes.
Configuring the first application server for SQL 2012
Installing Microsoft SQL Server 2012
1. Insert the installation DVD.