Reading a DPACK
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I'm looking for some help on reading a DPACK and determining what one should be looking to purchase based upon it.
Here's one we can use as a basis for discussion.
https://dpack2.dell.com/dpackproject/1268e756-7fae-40ab-80c3-9bb483712d70 -
First you determine what architecture and design you will be using. You don't start with the DPACK.
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This DPACK suggests that you are heavily over provisioned. You need much less than you currently have.
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@scottalanmiller said in Reading a DPACK:
First you determine what architecture and design you will be using. You don't start with the DPACK.
Assume single server. I can read the RAM/IOPs/Storage needs, it's the CPU that I'm unsure of.
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You currently have 28 cores and peak at around 30-35% of your current capacity. If buying a new server, you need one with roughly 35% of the power that you have in your farm today to get equal or better performance than you have been getting.
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There is no trivial way to measure CPU performance. The simple means used here is cores times speed. This is misleading as an Intel G6 core is not the same as an Intel G8 core is not the same as an AMD core. So this can be pretty misleading. But as long as you are getting faster core architectures in the future, you know that meeting or beating the coreXspeed calc of the past is more than enough.
So you have 22GHz of cumulative performance here. Likely this means that dual quad core procs in a new server will be plenty.
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It's been a while since I've run a DPACK, but can you run this on your own these days or do you have to get a Dell rep to put it together for you?
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Been a while since I've used it but that report looks a lot simpler now. Might run it again on our environment to see what we're running at to look at a refresh.
@scottalanmiller you mention determine what design/architecture you want before looking at the DPACK, but how do you go about it if you don't know the requirements? e.g. if my DPACK shows I could run what a IPOD setup is already doing on a single server then I don't need to look at Hypercoverage or another SAN setup?
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@hobbit666 said in Reading a DPACK:
@scottalanmiller you mention determine what design/architecture you want before looking at the DPACK, but how do you go about it if you don't know the requirements? e.g. if my DPACK shows I could run what a IPOD setup is already doing on a single server then I don't need to look at Hypercoverage or another SAN setup?
A single server is the most hyperconverged setup you can get. Hyperconvergance doesn't imply HA or FT.
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@dashrender said in Reading a DPACK:
@hobbit666 said in Reading a DPACK:
@scottalanmiller you mention determine what design/architecture you want before looking at the DPACK, but how do you go about it if you don't know the requirements? e.g. if my DPACK shows I could run what a IPOD setup is already doing on a single server then I don't need to look at Hypercoverage or another SAN setup?
A single server is the most hyperconverged setup you can get. Hyperconvergance doesn't imply HA or FT.
Good way to put it.
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@hobbit666 said in Reading a DPACK:
e.g. if my DPACK shows I could run what a IPOD setup is already doing on a single server then I don't need to look at Hypercoverage or another SAN setup?
DPACK tells you nothing about what you can run, only how much of it to run. No details in the DPACK will ever give you any insight at all into if an IPOD is acceptable to use or not.
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@scottalanmiller said in Reading a DPACK:
DPACK tells you nothing about what you can run, only how much of it to run. No details in the DPACK will ever give you any insight at all into if an IPOD is acceptable to use or not.
We already have a IPOD set-up what I want to know is how do I determine that architecture and design I "should" be running if I don't know what my current set-up is preforming like?
We run Dynamics GP and SQL server. If I don't know the current load how to I know what solution to look at?
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@hobbit666 said in Reading a DPACK:
We already have a IPOD set-up what I want to know is how do I determine that architecture and design I "should" be running if I don't know what my current set-up is preforming like?
That depends on your business needs, not your capacity. The DPACK is not part of that process.
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@hobbit666 said in Reading a DPACK:
We run Dynamics GP and SQL server. If I don't know the current load how to I know what solution to look at?
That's the DPACK that will help you with the capacity planning. But again, capacity doesn't tell you anything about your architectural needs.
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Think of the design of your system as getting an architect to design your house. The DPACK only does capacity, so all you know is how many bedrooms you have used in the past. The architect will certainly want to know how many bedrooms should be included in his design, but the style of the house, the materials used, the weather conditions it must withstand... none of those are influenced by the number of bedrooms. The capacity only tells you how big to make it, not what to make.
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@hobbit666 said in Reading a DPACK:
@scottalanmiller said in Reading a DPACK:
DPACK tells you nothing about what you can run, only how much of it to run. No details in the DPACK will ever give you any insight at all into if an IPOD is acceptable to use or not.
We already have a IPOD set-up what I want to know is how do I determine that architecture and design I "should" be running if I don't know what my current set-up is preforming like?
We run Dynamics GP and SQL server. If I don't know the current load how to I know what solution to look at?
Architecture has nothing (or at least little) to do with performance.
From my offline conversations yesterday, you need to determine what your requirements are - i.e. do you need HA? do you need FT?
For example, if you don't need HA or FT then you start with an architecture of a single server. Then knowing the info from DPACK, you can determine if you can reasonable get that into a single server.
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@dashrender said in Reading a DPACK:
...you can determine if you can reasonable get that into a single server.
And how big that server is. The size of a single server ranges from a single low end quad core processor to something like eight, high end, twenty core processors. Small servers to big servers can be a workload difference of around one hundred fold, just within the AMD64 space and not getting into weird gear with more than eight sockets! Add in ARM and Power systems and those numbers more to thousands of fold differences.
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How long should you run a DPACK for 48hrs a week?
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@hobbit666 said in Reading a DPACK:
How long should you run a DPACK for 48hrs a week?
The longer you run it, the more chances you'll run into occasional processes that run in your environment that might put more strain on your system.
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@dashrender that's what I'm thinking.
Might just set it off tomorrow then start a new thread about reviewing the data and designing a new setup.
