A Principled Technologies report: Hands-on testing. Real-world results.

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Support
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nearly
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7x
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Serve more online customers with new

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as many
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customers Dell EMC servers and Microsoft SQL
Cut wait
Server 2017 software
times by A Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd server with Microsoft
88% SQL Server 2017 Standard and Windows Server
2016 could help set up your business for long-term
customer growth
Successful businesses have the vision to stay one step ahead of the
crowd. Why not apply that same visionary thinking to your datacenter?
Your legacy servers and SQL Server® database environment could be
lagging when it comes to order processing and response times. Replacing
those servers with new hardware and software could help you support
more online customers as your business needs increase.

In hands-on testing, we ran an order processing workload on a legacy

Dell EMC™ PowerEdge™ R720xd server with older software, as well as
the new 14th generation PowerEdge R740xd server running Microsoft®
SQL Server 2017 Standard and Windows Server® 2016 Standard. The
new solution significantly improved transactional database performance,
processing almost seven times as many orders per minute and reducing
user wait times. By upgrading your existing SQL Server environment to
new Dell EMC servers and the latest software from Microsoft, you could
increase transactional database performance immediately, with room for
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future business growth. 1001110110100001110100001011010
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Dell EMC 0001100100000011011110110011000
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PowerEdge 1100100011001010111001000100000
R740xd 0011011101000110111101110000011
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Serve more online customers with new Dell EMC servers and Microsoft SQL Server 2017 software July 2018
 Why refresh your server hardware and software?
Upgrading an outdated server infrastructure can offer a host of business benefits. According to a 2016 report
by the International Data Corporation (IDC), average server performance deteriorated 14 percent per year—
meaning that, by year five in a server’s life, its performance hovered at just 40 percent of what it once was.
IDC claims this performance decline could increase application management costs by 40 percent and server
administration costs by 148 percent.1

In the short term, new Dell EMC servers with the latest Microsoft software help your business hit the refresh
button and avoid the performance decline and increased costs associated with legacy server infrastructure. And
as your customer base continues to grow long-term, the Microsoft-Dell EMC solution’s improved transactional
database performance could help you better support the expected influx of database users.

Support more customers with a new Microsoft-Dell EMC solution

We used the DVD Store 2 (DS2) benchmark to gauge how many online transactions the solution could process,
as measured in orders per minute. First, we ran the workload on a legacy Dell EMC PowerEdge R720xd server
running standard editions of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012 R2. Then we ran the same
workload on a new Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd server with updated software: Microsoft SQL Server 2017
Standard and Windows Server 2016 Standard.

Our testing revealed that the Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd solution delivered markedly better transactional
database performance than the legacy solution, processing 6.7 times as many orders per minute and lowering
average application latencies by 88 percent. These benchmark results provide important insights into real-
world benefits. A solution that can process more orders increases your capacity to support more customers as
your business grows. And reduced application latency indicates that users will spend less time waiting for a
response—decreasing the risk that they’ll take their business elsewhere. If your database is running on legacy
hardware and software, it might be time for a refresh.

About the solution

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd Windows Server 2016 SQL Server 2017 Standard

The 14th generation Dell EMC According to Microsoft, Windows According to Microsoft, SQL Server
PowerEdge R740xd offers strong Server 2016 is a “cloud-ready 2017 Standard helps users “find rich
database performance with a variety operating system that supports your programming capabilities, security
of storage configuration options. It current workloads while introducing innovations, and fast performance
can support up to 24 NVMe drives new technologies that make it easy for mid-tier applications and data
(we tested with two SAS HDDs and to transition to cloud computing.”3 marts” with features like end-to-end
12 SATA SSDs) and is powered by database security, enhanced in-
Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors.2 memory performance, basic reporting
and analytics, and hybrid scenarios.4

Serve more online customers with new Dell EMC servers and Microsoft SQL Server 2017 software July 2018 | 2
 Serve more customers with more orders per minute
About the DVD Store 2 benchmark
In our testing, the PowerEdge R740xd solution delivered 6.7
times as many orders per minute as the legacy solution—nearly DVD Store 2 (DS2) models an online
two hundred thousand compared to the legacy solution’s 29,135. DVD store where customers log
in, search for movies, and make
Why does this test result matter for your application? Imagine
purchases. DS2 reports the rate
you’re an online clothing retailer who puts on a one-day-only
at which orders are processed as
sale. As customers rush to your website, your database has
orders per minute (OPM). Over
to process each interaction—whether someone’s clicking on
the course of a test run, DS2
a new page or reviewing their cart. If these interactions come in
updates the rate’s running
faster and in greater bulk than your servers can handle, application
average in 1-second
wait times could skyrocket. This slowdown could negatively impact a
intervals. For our results,
user’s experience and even drive them away from your site. A study by
we used the last reported
Bing engineers on the impact of server delays found that a 2-second
OPM number after a
slowdown resulted in a 4.3 percent loss in revenue per user.5
30-minute run. The DS2
By contrast, a server solution that can handle 6.7 times as many orders workload performs actions
per minute reduces the chance of a slowdown (even during periods of like adding new customers
peak use) and opens up new options for datacenter use. Your business to mimic the wide range
could choose to consolidate, using fewer servers to process just as many of database functions an
orders. This can reduce datacenter costs like power and cooling, as well as e-commerce environment
ease the burden on IT staff. Alternatively, you could expand your overall would need. For more
capacity by fitting servers that process more orders into the same amount information, see http://
of datacenter space. With either approach, your business could stand to en.community.dell.com/
benefit from upgrading to new Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers with techcenter/extras/w/wiki/
Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Standard and Windows Server 2016. dvd-store

Orders per minute

250,000

197,635
200,000

150,000

100,000

50,000 29,135

PowerEdge R740xd PowerEdge R720xd

Serve more online customers with new Dell EMC servers and Microsoft SQL Server 2017 software July 2018 | 3
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Help users wait less with faster response times 0011000010010111000100000010000
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New Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers with 0110010101100011011010010110010
standard editions of SQL Server 2017 and Windows Application latency
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Server 2016 could also dramatically decrease read/

60
write and application latency. On average, this
solution reduced drive read latency by 99 percent and 48
50
write latency by 98 percent versus the legacy solution.
40
While read/write latency indicates how long the Time
system waits between orders, application latency (ms)
30
measures how long a user would wait for a response
after sending an order. This helps us understand 20
how users would experience the system—and
consequently your business. The new PowerEdge 10 6
R740xd solution cut application latency for the DVD
Store 2 workload by 88 percent. This means a user
PowerEdge R740xd PowerEdge R720xd
could spend less time waiting, potentially translating
into higher customer satisfaction.

Conclusion
You want to serve more customers and accommodate future business growth—but are updated servers and
software the answer? Our testing showed that a Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd server, with Microsoft SQL Server
2017 Standard and Windows Server 2016 Standard, handled significantly more orders per minute and reduced
application latency compared to a legacy solution—benefits that can directly translate into a better customer
experience. With a new Microsoft and Dell EMC solution, your business could stop worrying about whether your
legacy servers will support customer growth, and start winning those customers so you can increase revenue.

1 IDC, “Why Upgrade Your Server Infrastructure Now?” Accessed May 8, 2018, https://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-re-
ports/idc-why-upgrade-server-infrastructure.pdf
2 Dell EMC, “Dell EMC R740xd spec sheet,” accessed May 8, 2018, http://i.dell.com/sites/doccontent/shared-content/
data-sheets/en/Documents/poweredge-r740xd-spec-sheet.pdf?newtab=true
3 Microsoft Windows datasheet, accessed May 8, 2018, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/windows-server
4 Microsoft SQL Server datasheet, accessed May 8, 2018, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-2017-editions
5 Jake Brutlag and Eric Schurman, ”Performance Related Changes and their User Impact,” accessed May 8, 2018, https://
www.slideshare.net/dyninc/the-user-and-business-impact-of-server-delays-additional-bytes-and-http-chunking-in-web-
search-presentation

Read the science behind this report at http://facts.pt/ehdjn5

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Principled Technologies is a registered trademark of Principled Technologies, Inc.

All other product names are the trademarks of their respective owners.
This project was commissioned by Dell Technologies. For additional information, review the science behind this report.

Serve more online customers with new Dell EMC servers and Microsoft SQL Server 2017 software July 2018 | 4