RE: SQL Server Performance Problems Not Due to VMware

drummonds — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:55:53 GMT

Thanks for the additional information, Brian. I'd agree with both of your comments, with caveats. As you can see from above, the SQL priority boost did deliver additional gains to performance. Our experience with real deployments is that the gain we measured may not translate into the same benefits in production environments. This being due to the fact that increased priority of the SQL process can cause problems with other processes that could be integral to your architecture's efficiency.

However, I will note that the purpose of this blog was to point out that priority boost could generate up to 5% gain, but this is trivial in the context of performance problems that are halving SQL performance or worse.

RE: SQL Server Performance Problems Not Due to VMware

KBrianKelley — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:46:41 GMT

I'm a big fan of virtualization and we've sought to virtualize where it made sense (and it usually does). However, some of the things you're saying with regards to SQL Server configuration I disagree with. I would in no way say that SQL Server priority boost is a Microsoft best practice for SQL Server configuration. In fact, the truth is it's not. Reference:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319942

"Based on actual support experience, you do not need to use priority boost for good performance. If you do use priority boost, it can interfere with smooth server functioning under some conditions and you should not use it except under very unusual circumstances. For example, Microsoft Product Support Services might use priority boost when they investigate a performance issue."

And large pages only come into play when you have x64 or ia64 installations with at least 8 GB of RAM (reference: http://blogs.msdn.com/slavao/archive/2005/02/11/371063.aspx). So for smaller installations, that's not available and cannot be suggested as a best practice.

Virtual Performance

RE: SQL Server Performance Problems Not Due to VMware

RE: SQL Server Performance Problems Not Due to VMware