They are pin-compatible with the older Sandy Bridge-EP processors, so they will work in existing two-socket servers, such as the Dell PowerEdge R720 or the HP Proliant DL380p Gen 8. This means that you should be able to get an Ivy Bridge-EP in an existing server model fairly quickly.

Once this happens, the question will be which exact E5-2600 v2 processor you should pick for SQL Server 2012 or SQL Server 2014 usage? Since SQL Server 2012 uses core-based licensing, you really want to get the most performance possible from each physical core that you buy a SQL Server core license for.

There are several different choices available, based on your budget, performance and scalability requirements, ranging from four physical cores without hyper-threading to twelve physical cores with hyper-threading.

Remember, only physical cores count for licensing purposes (on non-virtualized servers). If there are two or more models with the same physical core count, you should prefer the one with the highest clock speed (since the license cost is the same).  You also want to avoid the low-power models (that have the L suffix at the end of the model number). They save a relatively small amount of electrical power at the cost of a pretty significant performance penalty.

This leaves five viable choices, depending on your desired physical core count, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Recommended Xeon E5-2600 v2 Processor Models for SQL Server 2012/2014

In my opinion, there is no good technical reason to select any of the other available models from this product family for SQL Server 2012/2014 usage.

I think it is interesting that the new eight-core E5-2667 v2 has higher clock speeds and slightly better single-threaded performance than the previous generation, eight-core E5-2690 processor. The new four-core E5-2637 v2 also has higher clock speeds and slightly better single-threaded performance than the previous generation, four-core E5-2643 processor. Getting better performance for the same SQL Server 2012 license cost is always a good thing!

Hardware 201: Selecting and Sizing Database Hardware for OLTP Performance

The foundation of database performance is the underlying server hardware and storage subsystem. Even the best designed and optimized database application can be crippled by an inadequate hardware and storage infrastructure. Recent advances in new processors and chipsets, along with improvements in magnetic and SSD storage have dramatically changed the evaluation and selection process compared to the past. Many database professionals struggle to keep up with new technology and often simply let someone else make their hardware selection and sizing decisions. Unfortunately, the DBA usually gets the blame for any performance issues that crop up later. Don’t let this happen to you! This session covers current and upcoming hardware from both Intel and AMD and gives you the tools and resources to make better hardware selection decisions to support SQL Server OLTP workloads.

Attendance was quite good for a hardware-related session, and there were a lot of interesting questions after the presentation.

Just in case this session whetted your appetite for a much deeper level of knowledge about SQL Server Hardware, you should consider attending the upcoming two-day IEHW: Immersion Event on SQL Server Hardware course that I will be teaching in Bellevue, WA on September 18-19, 2013.

Hardware 201: Selecting and Sizing Database Hardware for OLTP Performance

The foundation of database performance is the underlying server hardware and storage subsystem. Even the best designed and optimized database application can be crippled by an inadequate hardware and storage infrastructure. Recent advances in new processors and chipsets, along with improvements in magnetic and SSD storage have dramatically changed the evaluation and selection process compared to the past. Many database professionals struggle to keep up with new technology and often simply let someone else make their hardware selection and sizing decisions. Unfortunately, the DBA usually gets the blame for any performance issues that crop up later. Don’t let this happen to you! This session covers current and upcoming hardware from both Intel and AMD and gives you the tools and resources to make better hardware selection decisions to support SQL Server OLTP workloads.

Just in case you are curious, I will be driving my red Tesla Model S P85 to both meetings, so if you are interested in seeing and possibly riding in a Tesla, you might want to show up…

Regardless of that, both meetings should be a lot of fun, and I hope to see a lot of people there!

I am really excited to get the chance to teach the IEHW class, and I think it will be a lot of fun!  Here is the rundown on all three classes:

• IEHW: Immersion Event on SQL Server Hardware (two days, Sept 18-19) 
• Dates, logistics, and registration
• Detailed curriculum

My colleagues Jonathan Kehayias and Erin Stellato will be teaching the three day IE0 class on September 30-October 2.

• IE0: Immersion Event for the Accidental DBA (three days, Sept 30 – Oct 2)
• Dates, logistics, and registration
• Detailed curriculum

My colleague Bob Beauchemin will be teaching the four day advanced T-SQL class on September 30-October 3.

• IETS: Immersion Event on Advanced T-SQL (four days, Sept 30-Oct 3)
• Dates, logistics, and registration
• Detailed curriculum

These classes are all open for registration now.

The RMOUG event was interesting, since I had never been to an Oracle conference before. It felt a little strange, since I did not know anyone (and no one knew me). 

I was also surprised that there was a noticeably higher percentage of women in attendance than you normally see at most technical conferences. Typically, you might see only roughly 1-2% of the attendees at most computer-related conferences being female (which is very unfortunate). Just from my casual observation yesterday, it seemed like the female percentage was at least double or triple that (which is still extremely low).

I am not sure what can really be done to change those numbers, besides continuing to encourage and mentor women who want to work in I.T.  I think there are a lot of societal factors that discourage many young women from pursuing I.T. careers.

The LiveMeeting link is here. If you want a chance to win a $50.00 Amazon gift certificate, you need to register here.

Here is the abstract for the presentation:

Hardware 301: Diving Deeper into Database Hardware

Making the right hardware selection decisions is extremely important for database scalability. Having properly sized and configured hardware can both increase application performance and reduce capital expenses dramatically. Unfortunately, there are so many different choices and options available when it comes to selecting hardware and storage subsystems, it is very easy to make bad choices based on outmoded conventional wisdom. This session will give you a framework for how to pick the right hardware and storage subsystem for your workload type. You will learn how to evaluate and compare key hardware components, such as processors, chipsets, and memory. You will also learn how to evaluate and compare different types of storage subsystems for different database workload types. This session will give you the knowledge you need to make sure you get the best performance and scalability possible from your hardware budget!

I really enjoy talking about SQL Server hardware, so this should be a lot of fun. I hope you are able to take the time to listen to the presentation!

As a DBA and consultant, I would like to see everyone running SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition. It has many, many truly compelling features that make it absolutely worth the extra licensing cost compared to SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition. Despite this, I recognize that some organizations simply cannot afford these extra licensing costs (even though it is still far more affordable than Oracle licensing).

The first SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition licensing limit is that you are restricted to 64GB of RAM for the Database Engine and 64GB of RAM for SSAS and SSRS. Even if your database server has a much higher amount of RAM than 64GB, it will only be able to use 64GB of RAM for each of these services.

I think that is is a ridiculously low RAM limit, given the fact that DDR3 ECC RAM for servers is currently priced at around $10-$15/GB for 16GB DIMMs. Microsoft is essentially limiting you to using about $1000.00 of RAM if you are using SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition.

Modern, two-socket servers have 24 memory slots, so they can hold 384GB of RAM with these affordable 16GB DIMMs.  Even though you are limited to 64GB of RAM per service per instance, you should strongly consider getting a slightly larger amount, such as 72GB or 96GB, so that you can set your Max Server Memory setting to 65536 (which would be 64GB), and still leave plenty of RAM for the operating system.

This 64GB RAM limit did not exist for SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition, which could use up to the OS limit for RAM. It was first introduced in SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition, and was not changed for SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition. That was a mistake, in my opinion, designed to drive more Enterprise Edition sales.

Windows Server 2012 Standard Edition can use up to 4TB of RAM (unlike Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition, which was limited to 32GB of RAM), so there is even more precedent for not placing artificially low RAM limits on the Standard Editions of Microsoft Server products.

The second hardware-related licensing limit for SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition is that you are limited to the lesser of 16 physical processor cores or four processor sockets, whichever is less. I don’t really have a problem with the four processor socket limit, but I do think that a 16 physical processor core limit is simply too low. A two-socket, AMD Opteron 6200 or 6300 series based system could have 32 physical cores, while a two-socket Intel Xeon E7-2800 series based system could have 20 physical cores.

Of course, you really should not be using any of those processor families for SQL Server 2012 usage, since the Intel Xeon E5-2600 series is far superior for single-threaded performance and would also have a lower core-based licensing cost. It is also likely that the upcoming Intel Xeon E5-2600 v2 series (Ivy Bridge-EP) could have up to ten physical cores per processor, which would put a two-socket server over the 16 physical core limit.

I would really like to see Microsoft eliminate both the RAM limit and the physical core count limit for SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition. The features and advantages of SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition are valuable enough to convince people to buy Enterprise Edition when it is appropriate without these artificially low license limits. Microsoft could support this notion by doing a better job of explaining and selling the benefits of Enterprise Edition, with some blog posts and whitepapers.

I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions on this!

Purchase Experience

When I got there slightly after 8AM, there were about 25-30 people in line, so I decided to get in the line (after getting a blue paper wrist band and a couple of silly pieces of paper). During the next two hours before the store opened at 10AM, the line grew to about 150 people. During this period, they had drawings for two XBOX 360 systems, they gave everyone a sack/backpack with a Microsoft t-shirt, a pen, and a magnet, and they also gave everyone a bottle of water.

There were also small teams of Microsoft employees going through the line showing us the Surface RT, the different keyboards and the available accessories. They were also trying to get us to fill out a little card that specified what exact Surface RT model we wanted along with any accessories, service plans, or personal training. This was all fine, since we were stuck in line anyway, and luckily they were not too aggressive about pushing the $99.00 “Microsoft Complete” service plan. They also told us that there was a purchase limit of five Surface RT units per customer, which reassured me that they had plenty of stock to handle the line.

Once the doors opened at 10AM, there was the obligatory cheering and high fives from the Microsoft employees going down the line. My assumption (which turned out to be wrong) was that they would let a few people in the store at a time, where you would present your filled in card, and then they would go get what you wanted and simply let you pay and take your stuff home. Unfortunately, that was not Microsoft’s plan…

What they wanted to do was have each customer assigned to an associate, who would give a short demonstration of the device, answer any questions, and then guide you through the purchase experience. After you bought the device, they wanted to do an “Out of Box Experience” where they would open up your box, fire up the system, and help you get it configured, and also give you some quick training on how to use it. I am sure that some people appreciate this level of “hand-holding” (especially people who normally go to an Apple Store), but I had absolutely no interest in that whatsoever. They did have about 10-12 associates setup for this whole dog and pony show, so it was a parallel operation, but it was taking 20-30 minutes for each customer.

As I got closer to the front of the line, I could see what they were doing and I figured out why people were going in, but no one had come out yet. Some of my neighbors in line came to the same conclusion, and we all agreed that we did not have time for that nonsense. When I was assigned to my hand-holding associate, I politely told him that I just wanted to buy what I had selected with no demonstration or box opening. This seemed to blow his mind at first, and his initial response was that they “had to make sure that everything was working properly”.  I responded “I am sure everything is fine, and this will save you a lot of time”, which caused him to confer with a supervisor to see if this rebellious behavior would be permitted. Luckily, after much whispering, they decided that this unplanned departure from the plan would be allowed, but it still took nearly 15 minutes more after that for me to simply buy my 64GB Surface RT with a bundled Black Touch Cover and an HD Digital AV Adapter. I am such a troublemaker!

The Surface RT

The available choices are a 32GB device without a Touch Cover for $499.00, a 32GB device with a Black Touch Cover for $599, or a 64GB device with a Black Touch Cover for $699. You can also buy a separate Surface Touch Cover in a variety of colors for $119.99 or a Surface Type Cover for $129.99. This makes the bundles a decent deal, saving you $19.99 over the separate pieces (as long as you like black). It would have been nice to have been able to buy a 64GB device without a Touch Cover for $599, but that is not an option.

The Surface RT uses a quad-core 1.3GHz NVidia Tegra 3 CPU, and it has 2GB of DDR3 RAM. It has 54.1GB of formatted space in the 64GB model in a device that is listed as an MMC Memory Card in Device Manager. It has a single, full-sized USB 2.0 port, that I quickly discovered works great with my Logitech Unifying Receiver for my Anywhere MX mouse.

The Touch Cover keyboard works just fine for me, especially since I am merely a glorified hunt and peck typist. The kickstand works as advertised, and it feels like a tiny laptop when I am using it. The battery life seems like it will easily hit the advertised 9-10 hours of usage. The Wi-Fi system has better range than my regular Toshiba Portege laptop, judging by the number of networks it can pickup in my neighborhood. It seems to stream movies from NetFlix and HuluPlus with absolutely no issues on my Wi-Fi 802.11N network.

I did go into Windows Update and install Microsoft Update, and then I pulled down all of the available updates (I think there were four or five updates including one for Office 2013). This process was not so difficult as to force me to give up on the Surface RT and write an angry blog post, but your mileage might vary.

On the downside, the magnetic connector for the charger is a little hard to get connected, and the cord is a little too short. Application startup time is slower than what I am used to, but I am spoiled with very fast 6Gbps SSDs and Ivy Bridge processors in my regular machines. Once you are in an application, everything seems pretty snappy. There are fewer applications than I would like to see in the Store, but I am sure this will improve over time. The ones that I have downloaded and tried so far all seem to work pretty well.

The contrast and brightness on the screen are excellent, and it does not have a huge problem with glare or reflections. It would have been nice to have had higher resolution, but that would have affected the battery life and performance, and would have pushed the cost even higher than it already is. I think Microsoft would have been better off to come in at a lower price point, even if that caused them to sell them at a loss for a while.

I am going to be keeping my Surface RT, but I may end up giving it to one of my nieces after the Surface RT Pro comes out in a few months. The Pro will have an Ivy Bridge Core i5 processor and will be running the regular Windows 8 Professional, so it will have a lot more horsepower at the cost of less battery life and a few ounces more weight.

I plan on taking it to the SQL PASS Summit next week as a backup presentation machine and for carrying around on the days when I am not presenting. My biggest problem is simply getting used to the Windows 8 user interface, but that is something I have to do anyway since I have to work with Windows Server 2012.

I plan on developing additional hardware-related courses that are SQL Server specific, and even deeper in scope. In the meantime, you might appreciate my recent post on SQLskills.com, Two Database Servers Compared.