Consolidating legacy Solaris BIND DNS servers onto DELL PowerEdge Solaris servers We analyzed the consolidation potential for customers migrating their older HP ProLiant BL460c G1 or IBM BladeCenter HS21 Solaris and BIND DNS blade servers to the Dell PowerEdge M610.

Migrating from Solaris 9 Enterprise Edition on Sun Fire V440 with Oracle 9i to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 on Dell PowerEdge R900 with Oracle 11g Complete guideand Summary PT has performed hands-on testing and research and drawing on real-world experiences to document best practices and help systems administrators and database administrators simplify operations and take full advantage of new features in RHEL 5.2 and Oracle 11g.

Migrating from Solaris 9 Enterprise Edition on Sun Fire V440 with Oracle 9i to Solaris 10 Enterprise Edition on Dell PowerEdge R900 with Oracle 10g R2 Summarizes and then details the tested and validated approach that PT and Dell recommend for this database migration. Complete guide and Summary.

We evaluated the performance, power consumption, and out-of-box experience of the Dell PowerEdge 2970 and PowerEdge 2970 Energy Smart servers. We compared them with the HP ProLiant DL380 G5 and the IBM System x3650.

SPEC CPU2006 SPECfp_rate performance on Dell, HP, and IBM serversWe tested three servers: Dell PowerEdge 2970 with two Dual-Core AMD Opteron 2222 SE processors, HP ProLiant DL380 G5 with two Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5160 processors, and IBM System x3650 with two Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5160 processors.

SPEC CPU2006 SPECfp_rate power consumption on Dell, HP, and IBM servers We tested four systems: Dell PowerEdge 2970 with two Dual-Core AMD Opteron 2222 SE processors, Dell PowerEdge 2970 Energy Smart with two Dual-Core AMD Opteron 2212 HE processors, HP ProLiant DL380 G5 with two Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5160 processors, and IBM System x3650 with two Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5160 processors.

Out-of-box comparison between Dell, HP, and IBM servers We set up three servers: Dell PowerEdge 2970 Server, HP ProLiant DL380 G5 Storage Server, and IBM System x3650. Due to differences in packaging and design, the times for each step of the setup process for the three systems varied considerably.

64-bit Black-Scholes financial workload performance and power consumption on multiprocessor Intel- and AMD-based servers We measured the 64-bit Black-Scholes financial application-based workload performance and power consumption on servers using the following three processors: AMD Opteron processor 8360 SE, Intel Xeon processor X7350, and Intel Xeon processor X7460.

64-bit SunGard Adaptiv Analytics Benchmark financial workload performance and power consumption on multiprocessor Intel- and AMD-based servers We measured the performance of the 64-bit SunGard Adaptiv Analytics Benchmark workload on servers using the following three processors: AMD Opteron processor 8360 SE, Intel Xeon processor X7350, and Intel Xeon processor X7460.

SPEC CPU2006 SPECint_rate performance and power consumption on multiprocessor Intel- and AMD-based servers We measured the SPEC CPU2006 performance and power consumption on servers using the following three processors: AMD Opteron processor 8360 SE, Intel Xeon processor X7350, and Intel Xeon processor X7460.

vConsolidate performance and power on quad- and dual-processor Intel- and AMD-based servers We measured performance and power with Intel’s vConsolidate version 2.0 (Profile 2) workload using Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V on quad-processor servers using the following processors: Intel Xeon processor X7460, Intel Xeon processor X7350, AMD Opteron processor 8360 SE, Intel Xeon processor X5470.

vConsolidate performance on quad-processor Intel processor-based servers We measured performance and power with Intel’s vConsolidate version 2.0 (Profile 2) workload using Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V on quad-processor servers using the following processors: Intel Xeon processor X7460 and Intel Xeon processor X7350.

SPECjbb2005 performance and power consumption on Sun Solaris 10 multi-processor AMD-based blade servers from Dell, HP, and IBM We tested the following single blades in their respective enclosures: Dell PowerEdge M905, HP ProLiant BL685c G5, and IBM BladeCenter LS42.

SPECjbb performance and power consumption on multi-processor Intel- and AMD-based blade servers We tested the following single blades in their respective enclosures: Dell PowerEdge M905, HP ProLiant BL680c G5, HP ProLiant BL685c G5, and IBM BladeCenter LS42.

Windows Server 2008 SPECjbb2005 performance and power consumption on Dell, HP, and IBM blade servers We tested three dual-socket blade servers: Dell PowerEdge M600, HP BladeSystem c-Class, and IBM BladeCenter H Type 8852.

Intel Modular Server performance on simultaneous email, Web server, Java, and database workloads We measured the system performance of the Intel Modular Server built on Intel Multi-Flex Technology to compare the performance of each Server Compute Module in two states: with that one Server Compute Module running alone and with all Server Compute Modules running simultaneously.

SMB Workload performance testing: PowerEdge T110 vs. an older small business desktop running typical small business server and client applications We compared the SMB workload performance of the current Dell™ PowerEdge™ T110 server and the older HP Compaq dc5700 Microtower PC system.

SMB workload performance comparison: AMD processor-based Dell PowerEdge T105 vs. Intel-based Dell Vostro 220 Mini Tower We measured the small-business workload performance of the Dell™ PowerEdge™ T105 server against that of the Dell™ Vostro™ 220 Mini Tower desktop system.

Performance of three Intel-based SMB servers running Web, email, and database applications We compared the performance on a mixed workload of small- and medium-sized business servers with the following processors: Intel Xeon X3430, Intel Xeon X3450, and Intel Xeon X3470.

Performance of four Intel-based SMB servers running Web, email, and database applications We compared the performance of servers with the following processors: Intel Core 2 Quad Desktop Processor Q8400, Intel Xeon Processor X3220, Intel Xeon Processor X3380, and Intel Xeon Processor X3450. We used WebBench to simulate Web traffic, LoadGen to simulate email activity, and DVD Store to simulate database activity.

SMB workload performance comparison: Dell PowerEdge T410 vs. HP ProLiant ML150 G6 We simultaneously ran three workloads exercising functions that typical small business servers handle. We used WebBench to simulate Web traffic, Microsoft Exchange Load Generator (LoadGen) to simulate email activity, and DVD Store Version 2 (DS2) to simulate database activity. Full report and Summary.

Dell PowerEdge T605 with AMD Opteron 2384 and HP ProLiant ML370 G5 Server with Intel Xeon E5450 comparison We measured the performance of the following servers running Microsoft Windows Server 2008: Dell PowerEdge T605 with AMD Opteron 2384 and HP ProLiant ML370 G5 Server with Intel Xeon E5450. We ran workloads that exercised three of the functions a typical small business server handles: Web, email, and database services.

Performance of four Intel-and AMD-based servers SMB servers using WebBench, LoadSim, and SysBench We measured the performance while running multiple benchmarks simultaneously on small and medium-sized business (SMB) focused servers using the following processors: Intel Pentium® Dual-core processor E2160, Quad-Core Intel Xeon® processor X3220, and Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor X3350.

Performance of three Intel-based SMB servers using WebBench, LoadSim, and SysBench We measured the performance while running multiple benchmarks simultaneously on small and medium-sized business (SMB) focused servers using the following processors: Intel Pentium® Dual-core processor E2160, Quad-Core Intel Xeon® processor X3220, and Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor X3350.

Exchange comparison: Dell PowerEdge R710 vs. HP ProLiant DL380 G6 We tested nearly identical server configurations with internal storage only, running Microsoft Exchange Load Generator (LoadGen) to determine the average throughput of each system in messages per second.

Database comparison: Dell PowerEdge R710 vs. HP ProLiant DL380 G6 We compared the database performance, hardware cost, and power utilization of two servers in similar common enterprise configurations.

SPECjbb2005 performance and price of the Dell PowerEdge R710 and HP ProLiant DL380 G6 We measured real-world price and performance differences of the Dell™ PowerEdge™ R710 server and HP ProLiant DL380 G6 server using SPECjbb®2005.

Tests of servers using Intel’s new X5570 processorIntel commissioned PT to conduct a series of tests of servers with their Xeon processor X5570 vs. servers with other Intel and AMD processors shipping at the time of the tests.

SQL Server consolidation: Replacing eight legacy servers with one Cisco UCS B200 M1 Blade Server We determine how many HP ProLiant DL380 G4 legacy servers running SQL Server we could replace with one Cisco UCS B200 M1 Blade Server using VMware

vSphere 4.

SQL Server performance comparison: Cisco UCS B200 M1 Blade Server vs. HP ProLiant BL465c G6 Server Blade We compare the SQL Server 2008 performance of the following blade servers using VMware vSphere 4: Cisco UCS B200 M1 Blade Server and HP ProLiant BL465c G6 Server Blade.

SQL Server performance comparison: Cisco UCS B250 M1 Extended Memory Blade Server vs. HP ProLiant BL495c G6 Server Blade and HP ProLiant BL460c G6 Server Blade We compare the SQL Server 2008 performance of the following blade servers using VMware vSphere 4: Cisco UCS B250 M1 Extended Memory Blade Server, HP ProLiant BL495c G6 Server Blade, and HP ProLiant BL460c G6 Server Blade.

Exchange performance comparison: Cisco UCS B200 M1 Blade Server vs. HP ProLiant BL465c G6 Server Blade We compare the Microsoft Exchange performance of the following two blade servers using VMware vSphere 4: Cisco UCS B200 M1 Blade Server and HP ProLiant BL465c G6 Server Blade.

Exchange consolidation: Replacing eight legacy servers with one Cisco UCS B200 M1 Blade Server We determine how many HP ProLiant DL380 G4 legacy servers running Microsoft Exchange we could replace with one Cisco UCS B200 M1 Blade Server using VMware vSphere™ 4 (vSphere).

Real-world server consolidation: 35 HP ProLiant DL385 servers onto 5 Dell PowerEdge M610 blade servers with VMware vSphere We consolidated 35 4-year-old HP ProLiant DL385 server and storage solutions onto 5 Dell™ PowerEdge™ M610 blade server and storage solutions.

Real-world server consolidation: 35 HP ProLiant DL385 servers onto 5 Dell PowerEdge M610 blade servers running Hyper-V We consolidated 35 4-year-old HP ProLiant DL385 server and storage solutions onto 5 Dell™ PowerEdge™ M610 blade server and storage solutions.

Initial investment payback analysis: Dell PowerEdge R710 solution with VMware ESX vs. Dell PowerEdge 2850 solution
We estimate how many months it would take to recapture initial investment costs when consolidating multiple 4-year-old Dell™ PowerEdge™ 2850 server and storage solutions onto a Dell PowerEdge R710 server and storage solution using VMware ESX. Full report and summary.

Initial investment payback analysis: Dell PowerEdge R710 solution with VMware ESX vs. HP ProLiant DL385 solution We estimate how many months it would take to recapture initial investment costs when consolidating multiple 4-year-old HP ProLiant DL385 server and storage solutions onto a Dell™ PowerEdge™ R710 server and storage solution using VMware ESX. Full report and summary.

Dell PowerEdge R710 solution vs. HP ProLiant DL385 solutionWe estimate how many months it would take to recapture initial investment costs when consolidating multiple 4-year-old HP ProLiant DL385 server and storage solutions onto a Dell™ PowerEdge™ R710 server and storage solution. Full report and summary.

Dell PowerEdge R710 solution vs. Dell PowerEdge 2850 solution We estimate how many months it would take to recapture initial investment costs when consolidating multiple 4-year-old Dell™ PowerEdge™ 2850 server and storage solutions onto a Dell PowerEdge R710 server and storage solution. Full report and summary.

Dell PowerEdge R710 solution with Hyper-V vs. HP ProLiant DL385 solution We estimate how many months it would take to recapture initial investment costs when consolidating multiple 4-year-old HP ProLiant DL385 server and storage solutions onto a Dell™ PowerEdge™ R710 server and storage solution using Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 with Hyper-V™ technology (Hyper-V). Full report and summary.

Initial investment payback analysis: Dell PowerEdge R710 solution with Hyper-V vs. Dell PowerEdge 2850 solution We estimate how many months it would take to recapture initial investment costs when consolidating multiple 4-year-old Dell™ PowerEdge™ 2850 server and storage solutions onto a Dell PowerEdge R710 server and storage solution using Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 with Hyper-V™ technology (Hyper-V). Full report and summary.

Migrating Exchange Server 2003 to highly available Exchange Server 2010 on Dell PowerEdge R510 servers with capacity Near Line SAS drives Shows the best practices and benefits of this migration.

Exchange 2010 migration: Legacy HP ProLiant DL385 to Dell PowerEdge R510 We examine the benefits of migrating a legacy Exchange 2003 infrastructure to Exchange 2010.

M610 vs. HP BL460c: Full enclosure SPECpower_ssj2008 testing We used the SPECpower_ssj2008 test tool to compare the performance per watt per dollar of the Dell™ PowerEdge™ M610 blade server solution and the HP ProLiant BL460c G6 server solution.

Time comparison for OS deployment: Dell Unified Server Configurator version 1.1 vs. HP SmartStart version 8.25 x 64 We compared the operating system deployment times of the following system management applications: Dell™ Unified Server Configurator version 1.1 and HP SmartStart version 8.25 x64.

Using the Dell Management Console and additional Symantec solutions to manage servers in Dell-only and heterogemeous environments We examine the capabilities of the Dell™ Management Console version 1.0 and the expanded capabilities of the Dell Management Console in combination with the Altiris™ Management Suite version 7 in a Dell™ PowerEdge™ environment and in a multi-vendor environment.

Red Hat RHEL 5.2
vConsolidate performance and power on Intel- and AMD-based servers running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 We measured power and performance with Intel’s vConsolidate version 2.0 (Profile 3) workload on quad-processor servers running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 using the following processors: AMD Opteron processor 8360 S, Intel Xeon processor X7350, and Intel Xeon processor X7460

SPEC CPU2006 SPECint_rate performance on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 Intel-based serversWe tested two configurations: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 running native on an Intel Xeon® X7460-based (2.66 GHz) server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 running as a guest on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 on the same server.

SPEC CPU2006 SPECfp_rate performance on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 Intel-based serversWe tested two configurations: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 running native on an Intel Xeon® X7460-based (2.66 GHz) server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 running as a guest on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 on the same server.

SPECjbb2005 performance on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 Intel-based servers We tested two configurations: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 running native on an Intel Xeon® X7460-based (2.66 GHz) server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 running as a guest on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 on the same server.

Virtualized database comparison: Dell PowerEdge R710 vs. HP ProLiant DL380 G6 We compared the database performance and hardware cost of two servers in similar common enterprise configurations running eight virtual machines.

Virtualized Exchange comparison: Dell PowerEdge R710 vs. HP ProLiant DL380 G6 We used LoadGen to compare the virtualized Microsoft Exchange performance two servers in similar common enterprise configurations.

Migrating legacy physical servers to Hyper-V virtual machines on Dell PowerEdge M610 blade servers featuring the Intel Xeon Processor 5500 seriesSummarizes and then details the tested and validated approach that PT recommends for this migration.

Migrating legacy physical servers to VMware vSphere virtual machines on Dell PowerEdge M610 blade servers featuring the Intel® Xeon® Processor 5500 seriesSummarizes and then details the tested and validated approach that PT recommends for this migration.

Virtualized Exchange workload performance comparison of end-to-end solutions with iSCSI storage connections: Dell PowerEdge R900 with Dell EqualLogic PS5000 vs. HP Proliant DL585 with HP StorageWorks EVA 4400 Each server ran multiple Exchange 2007 workloads, one per virtual machine (VM). Each VM’s workload used the Microsoft Exchange Load Generator. By combining multiple virtual machines with a disk-intensive workload, the test placed a heavy load on both the server and the storage. Thus, it measured the performance of the overall solution--server and storage.

Virtualized Exchange workload performance comparison of end-to-end solutions with iSCSI storage connections: Dell PowerEdge R905 with Dell EqualLogic PS5000 vs. HP ProLiant DL580 with HP StorageWorks EVA 4400We tested the following server-and-storage solutions: Dell PowerEdge R905 server with Dell EqualLogic PS5000 storage array and HP ProLiant DL580 server with HP StorageWorks EVA 4400 storage array.

vConsolidate performance and power on IBM and HP quad-core multiprocessor Intel processor-based servers (full report and one-page summary) We measured power and performance with Intel’s vConsolidate OEM version 1 workload using VMware ESX Server 3.5 on three servers: the four-way HP ProLiant DL580 G5, the four-way IBM System x3850 M2, and the eight-way IBM System x3950 M2.

vConsolidate performance on IBM and HP quad-core multiprocessor Intel processor-based servers (full report and one-page summary ) We measured power and performance with Intel’s vConsolidate OEM version 1 workload using VMware ESX Server 3.5 on two servers: HP ProLiant DL580 G5 and IBM System x3850 M2.

vConsolidate performance onMicrosoft Windows Server 2008 using dual-processor Intel-based servers We measured the Hyper-V virtualization performance improvement of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition R2 over that of SP2, and of the Intel Xeon processor X5570 over that of the E5450.

SPECfp_rate performance on Dell, HP, and IBM servers We tested three servers: Dell PowerEdge 2970 with two Dual-Core AMD Opteron 2222 SE processors, HP ProLiant DL380 G5 with two Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5160 processors, and IBM System x3650 with two Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5160 processors.

SPEC CPU2006 SPECfp_rate_base performance on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 and 3 AS Intel-based servers We tested three servers: a Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3 server on a Dual-Core Intel Xeon processor 7140M-based (3.4 GHz) server, a Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3 guest on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 server on a Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor X7350-based (2.93 GHz) server, and a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 server on a Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor X7350-based (2.93 GHz) server.

SPEC CPU2006 SPECint_rate_base performance on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 and 3 AS Intel-based servers We tested three servers: a Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3 server on a Dual-Core Intel Xeon processor 7140M-based (3.4 GHz) server, a Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3 guest on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 server on a Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor E7340-based (2.93 GHz) server, and a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 server on a Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor E7340-based (2.93 GHz) server.

Linpack performance on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 and 3 AS Intel-based servers We tested three servers: a Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3 server on a Dual-Core Intel Xeon processor 7140M-based (3.4 GHz) server, a Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3 guest on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 server on a Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor E7340-based (2.93 GHz) server, and a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 server on a Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor E7340-based (2.93 GHz) server.

OLTP performance comparison: Intel Xeon Processor E5506-based Dell PowerEdge R710 server vs. Intel Xeon Processor E5520-based Dell PowerEdge R710 serverWe used DVD Store test tool to compare the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 performance of two Intel Xeon processors, each running on the same server.

OLTP performance comparison: Intel Xeon Processor E5540-based Dell PowerEdge R710 server vs. Intel Xeon Processor X5550-based Dell PowerEdge R710 server We used DVD Store test tool to compare the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 performance of two Intel Xeon processors, each running on the same server.

Dell manual server installation timeWe measured the manual setup time of preparing a server and installing Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition SP2 and several common server applications.

Out-of-box comparison between Dell, HP, and IBM servers We compared the out-of-box experience of the following three servers: Dell PowerEdge 2970 Server, HP ProLiant DL380 G5 Storage Server, and IBM System x3650. Due to differences in packaging and design, the times for each step of the setup process for the three systems varied considerably.

Dell 11th Generation PowerEdge servers We conduct a series of tests of these new Dell servers vs. competing HP servers shipping at the time of the tests.

BIND DNS performance on Dell and Sun servers running Solaris We measured the DNS performance of the following two servers running the Sun Solaris operating system: Dell PowerEdge R900 running BIND 9.3.5-P1 on Solaris 10 and Sun Fire V440 running BIND 8.3.3 on Solaris 9.

Migrating from Solaris 9 Enterprise Edition on Sun Fire V440 with BIND 8.3.3 to Solaris 10 Enterprise Edition on Dell PowerEdge R900 with BIND 9.3.5-P1 Covers installing Solaris 10 and configuring DNS on the PowerEdge R900 and migrating a simple DNS configuration from the Sun Fire V440 to the Dell PowerEdge R900.

OLTP and Exchange Server performance summary of Intel Xeon Processor E5506, E5520, E5540, and X5550 on the Dell PowerEdge R710 server We used DVD Store and LoadGen to compare the performance of four Intel Xeon processors, each running on the same Dell PowerEdge R710 server.

Exchange Server 2007 workload performance comparison: Intel Xeon Processor E5506-based Dell PowerEdge R710 server vs. Intel Xeon Processor E5520-based Dell PowerEdge R710 server We used the Microsoft Exchange Load Generator test tool to compare the performance of two Intel Xeon processors, each running on the same server.

Exchange Server 2007 workload performance comparison: Intel Xeon Processor E5540-based Dell PowerEdge R710 server vs. Intel Xeon Processor X5550-based Dell PowerEdge R710 server We used the Microsoft Exchange Load Generator test tool to compare the performance of two Intel Xeon processors, each running on the same server.