R710 Exchange virutalization - TEST REPORT MARCH 2009...

TEST REPORT
FEBRUARY 2006
Virtualized Exchange workload performance comparison of end-to-end solutions:
Dell PowerEdge R710 with Dell EqualLogic storage vs. HP ProLiant DL385 G5 with
HP StorageWorks EVA 4400
TEST REPORT
MARCH 2009
KEY FINDINGS
z
The Dell PowerEdge R710 server and Dell
EqualLogic storage supported 25 percent
more Microsoft Exchange 2007 virtual
machines than did the HP ProLiant DL385
G5 server and HP StorageWorks EVA
4400 storage. (See Figure 1.)
z
The Dell PowerEdge R710 server and Dell
EqualLogic storage had a 29.9 percent
performance-per-watt advantage over the
HP ProLiant DL385 G5 server and HP
StorageWorks EVA 4400 storage. (See
Figure 2.)
Executive summary
Dell Inc. (Dell) commissioned Principled Technologies
(PT) to compare the virtualized Microsoft Exchange 2007
workload performance of two server-and-storage
solutions:
• Dell PowerEdge R710 server and Dell EqualLogic
storage
• HP ProLiant DL385 G5p server and HP
StorageWorks EVA 4400 storage
The Dell PowerEdge R710 solution had two 2.4GHz Intel
Xeon E5530 processors and 72 GB of RAM while the HP
ProLiant DL385 G5 solution had two 2.7GHz AMD
Opteron 2384 processors and 64 GB of RAM. (The Dell
PowerEdge R710 currently supports up to the 2.93GHz Xeon X5570 processor.) The difference in the quantity
and speed of RAM in the systems was due to the system architectures and was not a factor in performance
because each virtual machine (VM) was limited to 4 GB of RAM. We connected the Dell PowerEdge R710 to the
EqualLogic storage via iSCSI and connected the HP ProLiant DL385 G5 to the EVA 4400 storage via Fibre
Channel. We installed build 148592 of a version of ESX still under development as the hypervisor for each server.
ESX build 148592 supports the new virtualization technologies such as Intel VT Extended Page Tables (EPT).
For this comparison, we used Microsoft Exchange LoadGen 2007, a Microsoft-provided tool for benchmarking an
Exchange Mail Server. We
defined the peak number of
VMs per server as the
maximum number of
concurrent VMs under load
where each VM had
acceptable performance.
Figure 1 compares the peak
number of virtual machines
running a Microsoft Exchange
2007 workload that each
solution ran with acceptable
performance. The Dell
PowerEdge R710 ran 10 such
simultaneous VMs, while the
HP ProLiant DL385 G5 ran 8
such simultaneous VMs. Each
VM contained 4000 users for
a total of 40,000 users on the
Dell PowerEdge R710 and
32,000 users on the HP
ProLiant DL385 G5. Thus, the
Dell PowerEdge R710
solution had a 25 percent performance advantage over the HP ProLiant DL385 G5 solution.
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2
4
6
8
10
12
Peak number of virtual machines
Virtualized Exchange 2007 workload results
Higher results are better
HP ProLiant DL385G5
server and HP
StorageWorks EVA 4400
storage
Dell PowerEdge R710
server and Dell
EqualLogic storage
Server and storage solution
Figure 1: Microsoft Exchange 2007 workload performance results for the two solutions. Higher
numbers are better.

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Principled Technologies, Inc.: Virtualized Exchange workload performance comparison of end-to-end
solutions: Dell PowerEdge R710 with Dell EqualLogic storage vs. HP ProLiant GL385 G5 with HP