Power Edge R720, ESXi 5.5, SQL-Server 2008R2 - the best way to configure the processor?

[malefik]

Коллеги, имеется Dell Power Edge R720 с XEON Е-5-2620 2,1GHz (1 socket, 6 cores, 12 logical processors). Использую ESXi 5.5, RAID-10 на 8SSD.  Как наиболее оптимально настроить виртуальную машину на Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise для работы SQL-сервера (2008R2)+ 1С (8.2) на этой виртуальной машине? Больше всего интересует вопрос настройки процессора - как лучше: 8 sockets/1 cores, 1 sockets/8 cores, 4 sockets/2 cores или 2 sockets/4 cores?

Colleagues, there is Dell Power Edge R720 with XEON E-5-2620 2,1 GHz (1 socket, 6 cores, 12 logical processors). Using ESXi 5.5, RAID-10 on 8SSD. How best to configure the virtual machine on Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise for SQL-Server (2008R2) + 1C (8.2) on this virtual machine? Most interested in the question CPU settings - how best to 8 sockets/1 cores, 1 sockets/8 cores, 4 sockets/2 cores or 2 sockets/4 cores?

Большое спасибо за помощь!

Thank you very much for your help!

[jrmunday]

Hi malefik

Most interested in the question CPU settings - how best to 8 sockets/1 cores, 1 sockets/8 cores, 4 sockets/2 cores or 2 sockets/4 cores?

From a performance perspective, 1 socket with 8 cores should perform the same as 8 sockets with 1 core each. The guest operating system will however interpret this differently and this is a useful consideration for reducing cost where applications are licensed per socket. Also, make sure that you align your allocations on the physical NUMA boundary to reduce memory latency.

Please see this best practice doc which will give you guidance (section 4.2);

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/solutions/SQL_Server_on_VMware-Best_Practices_Guide.pdf

Additional information here;

Run SQL on a Virtual Machine with VMware Virtualization | VMware United Kingdom

Cheers,

Jon

[ClintColding]

From a performance perspective, 1 socket with 8 cores should perform the same as 8 sockets with 1 core each.

This is not true, see here: Does corespersocket Affect Performance? | VMware vSphere Blog - VMware Blogs

The way that the scheduler works is if you had 1 socket with 8 cores, you would have to wait until 8 physical cores were available. Even if you only needed a single core. However if you have a VM with 8 sockets, each with 1 core, and you only needed a single core, it can be scheduled wherever there's room.

If you are licensed based on sockets, use as many as you can.

[jrmunday]

Hi Clint,

That's a good article, thanks for sharing it. It doesn't cover scheduling and also concludes that there is a performance benefit when your NUMA topology matches (as I recommended above);

To summarize, this test demonstrates that changing the corespersocket configuration of a virtual machine does indeed have an impact on performance in the case when the manually configured virtual NUMA topology does not optimally match the physical NUMA topology.

[vlho]

Hi Clint,

you wrote, quote:

"... you would have to wait until 8 physical sockets were available."

Don't you mean: ... 8 physical cores ... ?

Thanks.

[ClintColding]

He won't have to worry about NUMA as he has a single proc system. I still believe that configuring the VM with as many sockets as you can and still be within licensing compliance will give the best performance as it will be easier to schedule and will reduce CPU WAIT times.

vlho wrote:

Hi Clint,

you wrote, quote:

"... you would have to wait until 8 physical sockets were available."

Don't you mean: ... 8 physical cores ... ?

Thanks.

You're correct, my typo.