Database Server Hardware Requirements
February 6, 2023
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Content:
If you're planning IT infrastructure deployment and future growth of your business, sooner or later you will need a database (DB) and a database management system (DBMS). These concepts are inseparable, and together form database systems. Not to confuse you, we briefly explain these concepts previously, and now we talk about how to choose a database server hardware.
Most SMB companies buy one server for their database system; this approach is the most cost-effective and easy to deploy, manage and maintain. And since there is only one server, efficiency of entire system will completely depend on it. Any wrong decision will affect the entire business. As usual, your starting point is your task. Without knowing your specific task, my advice will be more or less general.
When the task that your server will solve is determined, you can start configuring. I strongly recommend the principle of "the more, the better", but moderately, of course. First, it is impossible to make a perfect forecast for 5-10 years, since any business must constantly evolve and adapt to changing market; there are too many variables. And second, the error consequence can be more expensive than overpaying for a 20-30% performance margin.
You need consider the following:
In 2014, the number of websites exceeded 1 billion, and today there are almost 2 billion of them. Sounds good, right? As you already understood, along with the number of sites, the amount of Internet data is growing too. It increases by approximately 30% every year. If in 2019 the entire Internet "weighed" approximately 33 billion TB (33 zettabytes), then, according to IDC forecasts, by 2025 this figure will grow to 175 zettabytes.
That's what I meant, saying "the more, the better". The server disk subsystem is responsible for speed, reliability and efficiency of data storage and transmission. And the load will continue to grow. So, if we are talking about a database server, the disk subsystem requires careful consideration.
It consists of (highlights):
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Any drive types — HDD, SSD and other media to store information. The drives you choose will determine your total storage capacity, as well as data processing speed.
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Disk controllers — they can be either RAID controllers or only JBOD controllers. The task of controllers is to "manage" all server drives, check them for existing and possible malfunctions (bad sectors, wear), organize arrays, and much more. The controller choice/availability will affect your data security, system stability and read/write speed.
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Drive cage — a server component where drives are placed. The same server model can be equipped with different drive cages: for SFF (2.5-inch) and LFF (3.5-inch) drives; for 8 drives, for 24 drives, etc. The drive cage choice will affect the amount and type of memory you can install in the server.
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Interfaces, drives and disk controllers "communicate" via buses and interfaces. The most common are SATA, SAS and NVMe. For example, the SATA interface, even in its latest revision 3.5, cannot fully unlock the SSD drive performance, which is important to consider when choosing a server.
For maximum performance, the latest server generations use NVMe SSD drives, organized in RAID arrays with the help of new disk controllers. And if IOPS capacity is not so important, HDD is most often chosen because of the relatively low cost.
Network Controller For Database Server
The disk subsystem interfaces and buses are important for the internal server communication, but since your database system can include a whole complex of devices, network interfaces are no less important. In general, the networking capabilities of next generation servers are more than enough to solve SMB tasks. But sometimes an out-of-the-box network card (2 or 4 1G ports) can't handle it. So, consider the task, but a 10G card will almost certainly cover all your needs for the near future.
RAM For Database Server
The RAM cards installed in the server are highlighted in red.
RAM capacity and speed will directly affect the database server performance. Modern servers and processors support highest RAM speed. But memory capacity must be calculated based on your architecture (for instance, if you are considering a virtual server) and the load nature. Consider the number of database users, how many requests per second the server receives during the workload, and what disk queues occur. In other words, you need a detailed system analysis.
For maximum performance, choose fast memory, next generation servers, and server bases supporting many RAM cards (for scalability). And examine the entire system, testing it over and over again.
CPU For Database Server
CPU 1 and CPU 2 are radiators for cooling 2 processors in a high-density blade server.
Older generation processors cannot provide the same performance as newer generations of the same class. This is due to architectural changes.
Advantages of Intel Xeon Scalable 3 over 2nd generation:
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Up to 1.46x — average performance increase.
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Up to 1.60x — memory bandwidth increase.
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Up to 2.66x — maximum memory capacity increase.
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Up to 1.33x — more PCIe lines per processor.
Some servers support multiple processors (2, 4, etc.) for solving resource-intensive tasks or for future scaling.
To obtain future proof cutting-edge performance, choose either the latest generation processors or older generation products from the high-end segment.