Specifications

A Principled Technologies test report 23

The datacenter in a box performance test: Comparing Dell and HP

blade solutions

CREATE LOGIN [ds2user] WITH PASSWORD=N’’,

DEFAULT_DATABASE=[master],

DEFAULT_LANGUAGE=[us_english],

CHECK_EXPIRATION=OFF,

CHECK_POLICY=OFF

h. We set the database recovery model back to full.

i. We created the necessary full text index using SQL Server Management Studio.

j. We created a database user and mapped this user to the SQL Server login.

k. We then performed a full backup of the database. This backup allowed us to restore the databases to a

pristine state relatively quickly between tests.

Running the DVD Store tests

We created a series of batch files, SQL scripts, and shell scripts to automate the complete test cycle. DVD Store

outputs an orders-per-minute metric, which is a running average calculated through the test. In this report, we report

the last OPM result reported by each client/target pair.

Each complete test cycle consisted of the general steps listed below. For each scenario, we ran three test cycles,

and reported the median outcome.

1. Clean up prior outputs from the server and all client driver systems.

2. Drop all databases from the test servers.

3. Restore all databases on all test servers.

4. Reboot the server and all client systems.

5. Let the test server idle until the power utilization settled.

6. Start the DVD Store driver on all respective clients.

We used the following DVD Store parameters for testing the servers in this study:

ds2sqlserverdriver.exe --target=<target_IP> --ramp_rate=10 –

warmup_time=10 --run_time=30 --n_threads=20 --db_size=100GB --

think_time=0.12 (Dell) or 0.18 (HP)

Installing and configuring the Exchange 2010 mail test clients (LoadGen)

For our testing, we used 10 virtual client machines to distribute the LoadGen workload evenly for each of the

solutions. To create the mail clients, we installed several software components. First, we made sure to statically assign

an IP address for each client. We followed this process for each installation:

Installing Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Enterprise Edition

1. Insert the installation DVD for Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Enterprise into the DVD drive.

2. At the Language Selection Screen, click Next.

3. Click Install Now.

4. Select Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise (Full Installation), and click Next.

5. Click the I accept the license terms checkbox, and click Next.

6. Click Custom.

7. Click Next.

8. At the User’s password must be changed before logging on warning screen, click OK.

9. Enter the desired password for the administrator in both fields, and click the arrow to continue.