1001010111001000100000011010010111001100100 0110010101100011011010010110010101110011001

0000110011101110010011011110111010101110000
A Principled Technologies report: Hands-on testing. Real-world results.
0101010001101000011001010010000001101111011
0001101110100011011110111000001110101011100
1100100000011010010111001100100000011000010
0100000011100110110111101100110011101000010
1101011000100110111101100100011010010110010
1011001000010110000100000011001010110100101
1001110110100001110100001011010110000101110
0100110110101100101011001000010000001101101
0110111101101100011011000111010101110011011
0001100100000011011110110011000100000011101
0001101000011001010010000001101111011100100
1100100011001010111001000100000010011110110
0011011101000110111101110000011011110110010
0011000010010111000100000010000010111001001
1011110111010101101110011001000010000000110
0110011000000110000001000000111001101110000
Answer
0110010101100011011010010110010101110011001
database
0000001100001011100100110010100100000011100
1001100101011000110110111101100111011011100
queries in
1101001011100110110010101100100001000000110
0000001100001011100100110010100100000011100
1001100101011000110110111101100111011011100
1101001011100110110010101100100001000000110
0001011011100110010000100000011101000110100
0011001010010000001101111011100100110010001
1001010111001000100000011010010111001100100
0101010001101000011001010010000001101111011
0000110011101110010011011110111010101110000
0001101110100011011110111000001110101011100
1100100000011010010111001100100000011000010
0100000011100110110111101100110011101000010
1101011000100110111101100100011010010110010
1011001000010110000100000011001010110100101
1001110110100001110100001011010110000101110
0100110110101100101011001000010000001101101
0110111101101100011011000111010101110011011
0001100100000011011110110011000100000011101
0001101000011001010010000001101111011100100
1100100011001010111001000100000010011110110
0011011101000110111101110000011011110110010
0011000010010111000100000010000010111001001
1011110111010101101110011001000010000000110

92%
0001011011100110010000100000011101000110100 0110011000000110000001000000111001101110000
Analyze data faster by upgrading to a
0011001010010000001101111011100100110010001
1001010111001000100000011010010111001100100
0110010101100011011010010110010101110011001
0000001100001011100100110010100100000011100
less time
Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd running
*
0000110011101110010011011110111010101110000 1001100101011000110110111101100111011011100
1101001011100110110010101100100001000000110
0001011011100110010000100000011101000110100
Cut query Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Standard on
0011001010010000001101111011100100110010001
1001010111001000100000011010010111001100100
times from 3
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5
0000110011101110010011011110111010101110000
*
hours to just
13 Data analytics aren’t just for big enterprises—small and medium-sized
businesses accumulate lots of data from CRMs, spreadsheets, and various
minutes †
customer or sales databases. That data is worthless if businesses can’t
make sense of it though, so they need a powerful solution that can
analyze information and help them use it to serve customers better.

In the Principled Technologies datacenter, we compared how fast a new 14th generation
Dell EMC™ PowerEdge™ R740xd running Microsoft® SQL Server® 2017 Standard on Red
Hat® Enterprise Linux® 7.5 could analyze data versus an older 12th generation Dell EMC
PowerEdge R720xd running Windows Server® 2012 R2 with SQL Server 2008 R2.

Compared to the legacy solution, a new Dell EMC + Microsoft + Red Hat solution
reduced the amount of time it took to analyze data from nearly three hours to just
13 minutes. Plus, the updated Dell EMC + Microsoft + Red Hat solution used fewer
resources, leaving room to handle other tasks as business grows. This means that if you
upgrade to the new solution, you—and your customers—could get the answers you need
faster than ever, which can help make your business more profitable.

* when running a business analytics workload, compared to a legacy solution consisting of a 12th generation
Dell EMC PowerEdge R720xd running Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 on Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2
†
in our example test

010000001101111011
000001110101011100
100100000011000010
Analyze data faster by upgrading to a Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd running Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Standard October 2018 (Revised)
on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5
 New feature alert:

Meet data challenges with fast query times Microsoft SQL Server 2017
now supports Red Hat
The hardware and software solution you employ to collect and sort Enterprise Linux
your data can have a big impact on your business’s bottom line,
depending on what you do with your data. If you’re looking to Long-time Linux users now have
make correlations and discover hidden insights in your data to help more options when it comes to
plan your next course of action, a speedy and powerful solution choosing a database platform.
can help you do so more quickly. Or perhaps you have an online While previous Microsoft SQL 010101000110
retail business, where analyzing past-purchase data can offer your Server releases required a 000110111010
0101010001101000011001010010000
110010000001
0001101110100011011110111000001
customers suggestions to help them find something they’d like to Windows Server operating system,
010000001110
1100100000011010010111001100100
buy, which leads directly to increased sales. SQL Server 2017 is now supported
110101100010
0100000011100110110111101100110
by Red 101100100001
1101011000100110111101100100011
Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5.
Technology improvements happen quickly. In fact, a 2016 IDC 100111011010
1011001000010110000100000011001
This compatibility gives you one
study found that by failing to upgrade in a timely manner, “IT 010011011010
1001110110100001110100001011010
more way to run your datacenter
011011110110
0100110110101100101011001000010
organizations can lose up to 39 percent of peak performance and 000110010000
0110111101101100011011000111010
exactly how you want.
add up to 40 percent in application management costs and up to 000110100001
0001100100000011011110110011000
148 percent in server administration costs."1 110010001100
0001101000011001010010000001101
001101110100
1100100011001010111001000100000
001100001001
0011011101000110111101110000011
What does all this mean? That if you’re looking to analyze data
101111011101
0011000010010111000100000010000
quickly, updating the hardware and software you use is a simple way 011001100000
1011110111010101101110011001000
to speed up the process. 011001010110
0110011000000110000001000000111
000000110000
0110010101100011011010010110010
100110010101
0000001100001011100100110010100
110100101110
1001100101011000110110111101100
000101101110
1101001011100110110010101100100
001100101001
0001011011100110010000100000011
100101011100
0011001010010000001101111011100
Query time (in seconds) 000011001110
1001010111001000100000011010010
Lower is better 0000110011101110010011011110111
110 10,169 Boost data analysis speeds with
100 a new Dell EMC PowerEdge
90 R740xd running Microsoft SQL
80 Server 2017 Standard on Red Hat
70 Enterprise Linux 7.5
60 Our tests proved that upgrading to a completely new
50
solution based on the latest technology from Dell
EMC, Microsoft, and Red Hat could have you clocking
40 data analysis at speeds you didn’t dream of in the past.
30
We ran 22 queries using HammerDB and a TPC-H-like
20 workload and found that the upgraded Dell EMC +
799 Microsoft + Red Hat solution cut database query time
10
from nearly three hours to just over 13 minutes.
0
Dell EMC PowerEdge Dell EMC PowerEdge
R740xd solution R720xd solution

Analyze data faster by upgrading to a Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd running Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Standard October 2018 (Revised) | 2
on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5
 The data analysis didn’t tax the upgraded solution—speed About the HammerDB benchmark
increased while drive read latency improved, shortening the
HammerDB is an open-source
wait time by 99 percent (averaged over the course of the test)
tool that tests the database
compared to the 12th generation server and older software.
performance of many leading
databases, including Oracle®
Database, Microsoft® SQL Server®,
Average drive read latency (ms) PostgreSQL®, and MySQL™.
Lower is better The benchmark includes two
40 36 built-in workloads derived
from industry-standards: a
30 1 transactional (TPC-C-like)
workload and an analytic
(TPC-H-like) workload. Our
20
test results do not represent
official TPC results and
0
10 are not comparable in
any manner to the official
0.35
TPC-audited results. For
0
Dell EMC PowerEdge Dell EMC PowerEdge more information about
R740xd solution R720xd solution HammerDB, visit www.
hammerdb.com.

We understand that higher disk throughput numbers

are often a sign of stronger performance, but
sometimes new features can reduce throughput
needs and leave headroom on your drives for other
activities, making a decrease in throughput desirable.
Average drive read throughput (MB/s)
SQL Server 2017 on Linux has such a feature,
Lower is better
Clustered Columnstore Indexes (CCI), which provides 60
higher compression rates and query performance by
organizing data in columns. Using this feature with our
50
TPC-H-like workload significantly lowered the load 439
on the drives while increasing workload performance.
40
For instance, we experimented with CCI on the 14th
000011001010010000001101111011
generation solution with SQL Server 2017 on Linux
011011110111000001110101011100
1101111011 and found that using it reduced throughput from 3,345 30
010010111001100100000011000010
0101011100
110110111101100110011101000010
0011000010 MB/s to 160 MB/s. Likewise, moving from the legacy
110111101100100011010010110010
1101000010 solution running SQL Server 2008 to the new solution 20 160
110000100000011001010110100101
0010110010 running SQL Server 2017 on Linux using CCI reduced
001110100001011010110000101110
0110100101
100101011001000010000001101101
0000101110 throughput by 63 percent. Putting less load on your 10
100011011000111010101110011011
0001101101 drives means that ultimately, you can do more work.
011011110110011000100000011101
1110011011
001010010000001101111011100100
0000011101
0
Dell EMC PowerEdge Dell EMC PowerEdge
010111001000100000010011110110
1011100100 R740xd solution R720xd solution
110111101110000011011110110010
0011110110
111000100000010000010111001001
1110110010
101101110011001000010000000110
0111001001
110000001000000111001101110000
0000000110
011011010010110010101110011001
1101110000
011100100110010100100000011100
1110011001
000110110111101100111011011100
0000011100
Analyze data faster by upgrading to a Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd running Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Standard October 2018 (Revised) | 3
110110010101100100001000000110
1011011100
on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5

About the new solution
The Dell EMC
PowerEdge R740xd
The 14th generation Dell EMC
PowerEdge R740xd offers strong
database performance with a
variety of storage configuration
options. It can support up to 24
NVMe drives (we tested with two
SAS HDDs and 12 SATA SSDs)
and is powered by Intel® Xeon®
Scalable processors.2
Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 7.5
According to Red Hat, the 7.5
release of the open-source
OS offers improvements
“including enhanced security
and compliance, usability at
scale, continued integration
with Windows infrastructure on-
premise and in Microsoft Azure®,
and new functionality for storage
cost controls.”3
100101011
00110010100100000011011110111
000011001
010011010110110101101101011000100110111101
10010101110010001000000110100
100000010110000100000011000100110000100100
00001100111011100100110111101
000110010001110101011000100110000100100000
110010001101111011100000001010010000100110
001001000000110010001110101001000000110001
011011110111000000101100001000000110001001
000010010000001100100011101010110001001100
Microsoft SQL Server 2017
010010000001100100011011110111000000010100
Standard on Linux
000010011000010010000001100100011101010010
000011000100110111101110000001011000010000
According to Microsoft, SQL
011000100110000100100000011001000111010101
000100110000100100000011001000110111101110
Server 2017 Standard on
000001010010000100110000100100000011001000
Linux helps users “find rich
110101001011000010000001111001011001010110
programming capabilities, security
001011010000001010010011010110110101101101
110001001101111011100000010110000100000011
innovations, and fast performance
001001100001001000000110010001110101011000
for mid-tier applications and data
001100001001000000110010001101111011100000
marts” with features like end-to-
010100100001001100001001000000110010001110
010010000001100010011011110111000000101100
end database security, enhanced
010000001100010011000010010000001100100011
in-memory performance, basic
010100100000011001000110111101110000000101
reporting and analytics, and
010000100110000100100000011001000111010100
000000110001001101111011100000010110000100
hybrid scenarios.4

Stop sluggish data analysis by refreshing your hardware and software

If your datacenter uses 12th generation or earlier hardware and outdated software versions of Microsoft
Windows Server and Microsoft SQL Server, you aren’t reaping the benefits that updated tech and new software
features can provide. As we found in our tests, a new Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd running Microsoft SQL
Server 2017 Standard on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 was able to dramatically reduce the time it took to answer
queries during our business analytics workload compared to a legacy hardware and software solution. By moving
to a new solution now, you can speed up data analysis, use resources more efficiently, and even plan for future
growth. Remember, you can’t wait forever to analyze your data—your customers won’t wait that long.

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/da-
ta-sheets/en/Documents/poweredge-r740xd-spec-sheet.pdf?newtab=true
3 Red Hat, “Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 released,” accessed May 8, 2018, https://access.redhat.com/announce-
ments/3405871
4 Microsoft SQL Server datasheet, accessed May 8, 2018, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-2017

Read the science behind this report at http://facts.pt/1h0f83

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Facts matter.® Facts matter.®
Technologies ®
Technologies ®

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

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

Analyze data faster by upgrading to a Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd running Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Standard October 2018 (Revised) | 4
on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5