On 11 July Lenovo posted a TPC-H 10TB benchmark result using Windows SQL Server 2016 and Windows Server 2016 that broke world records. Microsoft has now commented on the breakthrough, describing the server's performance as “unparalleled.”
The benchmarks used four of Intel's Xeon E7-8890 v4 processors, 6TB of memory and eight SanDisk ioMemory SX350 6.4TB PCIe flash adapters. This allowed a score of 1,106,832.6 QphH @ 10,000 GB, with a price of $0.79 USD/ QphH :10,000GB.
The benchmark beats the previous non-clustered performance score by 5.7%, which used the same processors, OS, database and memory size. Price per performance also beats records at 26% lower than the competitor.
Microsoft's Reaction
The SQL Server Team had a lot to say on the TechNet blog about the record and what it means for their SQL Server:
“These results, in addition to recent benchmarks by software and hardware partners, as well as key applications, show that SQL Server 2016 is the fastest in-memory database on the planet for your applications.”
They mention Lenovo's TPC-H 30TB world record, which also used SQL Server 2016 and proves that the technology is consistently the fastest in the market.
Going into more detail about the other benchmarks, they write:
“SQL Server 2016 owns the top TPC-E performance benchmarks4 for transaction processing, the top TPC-H performance benchmarks for data warehousing, and the top performance benchmarks with leading business applications. PROS Holdings uses SQL Server 2016's superior performance and built-in R Service to deliver advanced analytics more than 100x faster than before, resulting in higher profits for their customers. KPMG, a leader in audit, tax, and advisory solution, posted 2.5x faster execution time with ten times the table compression with their solution using SQL Server 2016.”
The statistics reinforce the benefits of upgrading to SQL Server 2016, with Queries running up to 34x faster according to Microsoft's internal testing. Their claim of the best performance on the market is now looking to be entirely true.
Further information about SQL Server 2016 is found on the official website, and it can be tested for free through the developer edition.