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another question regarding this server I'm about to buy.

I have to buy a server to run Terminal Server to host an ERP application, plus I would like to consolidate a few other servers onto it. This ERP application wants CPU above all else; it is pegged at 100%, it spends about 40% of its time in kernel mode, and this is the same for all cores on the existing physical server. There are about 40 concurrent users. This application is more OLTP than OLAP.

Because the ERP application predates client/server databases, it using byte-range locking to prevent concurrency-induced errors, so it really wants to be on the same computer as its datafiles (otherwise corruption errors occur more often), which means having several 1vCPU TS servers is undesirable.

Does anyone have experience with Magny-Cours for ESXi? Will throwing 2 Magny-Cours CPUs be a better idea than Nehalem? Any given user can only use 1 vCPU (app predates threads, too), but is that 40% kernel time involve a lot of contention? How would I find out?

I've seen a lot of horror stories regarding running TS on ESX(i).

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  • Take a look at the new Nehalem-EX and the chipsets they require; One system can house 2TB ram, 8 sockets, 10 cores (+HT).
    – Marcin
    Apr 20, 2011 at 14:23
  • re: horror stories of running TS on ESX, that's because people run stuff on insufficient hardware, it's not a problem with the technology but with the implementation. May 3, 2011 at 6:01

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We're running the xeon 5680 procs and they scream. Personally, i would go with Intel over AMD nowadays for just about any type of workload. Secondly, if it's primarly a singled threaded app, i would seek out intel procs with higher clock rates more so then more cores. Our 6 cores are running at 3.33GHz, a lot better than the 2.2GHz that an 8 core would offer.

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  • Thanks! This and a few other things have pushed me in the Intel direction... we'll see how this goes. Jun 20, 2011 at 12:46

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