Performance Tuning Guidelines for

Windows Server 2012

April 12, 2013

Abstract

This guide describes important tuning parameters and settings that

you can adjust to improve the performance and energy efficiency of
the Windows Server 2012 operating system. It describes each setting
and its potential effect to help you make an informed decision about
its relevance to your system, workload, and performance goals.
The guide is for information technology (IT) professionals and system
administrators who need to tune the performance of a server that is
running Windows Server 2012.
For the most current version of this guide, see Performance Tuning
Guidelines for Windows Server 2012.

Disclaimer: This document is provided as-is. Information and views expressed in this document, including
URL and other Internet website references, may change without notice. Some information relates to prereleased product which may be substantially modified before its commercially released. Microsoft makes no
warranties, express or implied, with respect to the information provided here. You bear the risk of using it.
Some examples depicted herein are provided for illustration only and are fictitious. No real association or
connection is intended or should be inferred.
This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft
product. You may copy and use this document for your internal, reference purposes.
2013 Microsoft. All rights reserved.

Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 2

Document History
Date
Change

April 12, 2013

October 12,
2012

Added note in the Performance Tuning for TPC-E

workload section that the tunings are specifically for
OLTP benchmarking and should not be perceived
as general SQL tuning guidance.
Updated Server Core Installation Option, Correct
Memory Sizing for Child Partitions, and Correct
Memory Sizing for Root Partition

Contents
Introduction........................................................................................ 7
In This Guide....................................................................................... 8
Choosing and Tuning Server Hardware...............................................9
Choosing Server Hardware: Performance Considerations...............9
Choosing Server Hardware: Power Considerations........................12
Processor Terminology...................................................................13
Power and Performance Tuning.....................................................14
Calculating Server Energy Efficiency.........................................14
Measuring System Energy Consumption...................................15
Diagnosing Energy Efficiency Issues..........................................16
Using Power Plans in Windows Server........................................16
Tuning Processor Power Management Parameters.....................17
Performance Tuning for the Networking Subsystem.........................21
Choosing a Network Adapter.........................................................22
Offload Capabilities....................................................................22
Receive-Side Scaling (RSS)........................................................22
Receive-Segment Coalescing (RSC)...........................................25
Network Adapter Resources.......................................................26
Message-Signaled Interrupts (MSI/MSI-X)..................................26
Interrupt Moderation..................................................................27
Tuning the Network Adapter..........................................................27
Enabling Offload Features..........................................................27
Increasing Network Adapter Resources.....................................28
Workload Specific Tuning...........................................................29
System Management Interrupts................................................29
Tuning TCP................................................................................. 30
Network-Related Performance Counters....................................31
Performance Tools for Network Workloads........................................33
Tuning for NTttcp...........................................................................33
TCP/IP Window Size....................................................................33
Server Performance Advisor 3.0....................................................34
Performance Tuning for the Storage Subsystem...............................35
Choosing Storage..........................................................................35
Estimating the Amount of Data to Be Stored.............................36
Choosing a Storage Solution......................................................37
Hardware Array Capabilities......................................................39
Choosing the Right Resiliency Scheme......................................43
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 3

Selecting a Stripe Unit Size........................................................49

Determining the Volume Layout................................................49
Choosing and Designing Storage Tiers......................................50
Storage Spaces............................................................................. 50
Storage Spaces Configuration Options......................................50
Deployment Elements: A New Unit of Scale...............................51
Storage-Related Parameters and Performance Counters..............53
I/O Priorities............................................................................... 53
Logical Disks and Physical Disks................................................54
Processor Information................................................................56
Power Protection and Advanced Performance Option................56
Block Alignment (DISKPART)......................................................57
Solid-State Drives......................................................................57
Trim and Unmap Capabilities.....................................................59
Response Times.........................................................................59
Queue Lengths...........................................................................60
Performance Tuning for Web Servers................................................62
Selecting the Proper Hardware for Performance...........................62
Operating System Practices..........................................................62
Tuning IIS 8.0................................................................................. 62
Kernel-Mode Tunings.....................................................................63
Cache Management Settings.....................................................63
Request and Connection Management Settings........................64
User-Mode Settings.......................................................................65
User-Mode Cache Behavior Settings..........................................65
Compression Behavior Settings.................................................66
Tuning the Default Document List..............................................67
Central Binary Logging..............................................................67
Application and Site Tunings......................................................68
Managing IIS 8.0 Modules..........................................................69
Classic ASP Settings...................................................................69
ASP.NET Concurrency Setting....................................................70
Worker Process and Recycling Options......................................71
Secure Sockets Layer Tuning Parameters..................................71
ISAPI.......................................................................................... 72
Managed Code Tuning Guidelines..............................................72
Other Issues that Affect IIS Performance.......................................72
NTFS File System Setting...............................................................73
Networking Subsystem Performance Settings for IIS....................73
Performance Tuning for File Servers.................................................74
Selecting the Proper Hardware for Performance...........................74
Server Message Block Model.........................................................74
SMB Model Overview.................................................................74
SMB Configuration Considerations................................................75
Tuning Parameters for SMB File Servers........................................75
SMB Server Tuning Example......................................................78
Services for NFS Model..................................................................78
Services for NFS Model Overview..............................................78
Tuning Parameters for NFS File Servers.....................................79
General Tuning Parameters for Client Computers.........................82
File Client Tuning Example.........................................................85
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 4

Performance Tuning for a File Server Workload (FSCT).....................87

Registry Tuning Parameters for Servers........................................87
Registry Tuning Parameters for Client Computers.........................88
Performance Counters for SMB 3.0...................................................89
Performance Tuning for File Server Workload (SPECsfs2008)............90
Registry-Tuning Parameters for NFS File Servers...........................90
Performance Tuning for Active Directory Servers..............................91
Considerations for Read-Heavy Scenarios.....................................91
Considerations for Write-Heavy Scenarios....................................92
Using Indexing to Improve Query Performance.............................92
Optimizing Trust Paths...................................................................92
Active Directory Performance Counters........................................93
Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Session Host (Formerly
Terminal Server)...............................................................................94
Selecting the Proper Hardware for Performance...........................94
CPU Configuration......................................................................94
Processor Architecture...............................................................94
Memory Configuration...............................................................94
Disk............................................................................................ 95
Network..................................................................................... 95
Tuning Applications for Remote Desktop Session Host..................96
Remote Desktop Session Host Tuning Parameters........................96
Page file..................................................................................... 96
Antivirus and Antispyware.........................................................97
Task Scheduler...........................................................................97
Desktop Notification Icons.........................................................97
RemoteFX data compression.....................................................97
Device redirection......................................................................98
Client Experience Settings.........................................................98
Desktop Size............................................................................100
Windows System Resource Manager...........................................100
Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Virtualization Host..........101
General Considerations...............................................................101
Storage.................................................................................... 101
Memory....................................................................................101
CPU.......................................................................................... 101
Virtual GPU..............................................................................102
RemoteFX GPU Processing Power.....................................103
Performance Optimizations.........................................................105
Dynamic Memory.....................................................................105
Tiered Storage.........................................................................106
CSV Cache............................................................................... 106
Pooled Virtual Desktops...........................................................106
Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Gateway.........................108
Monitoring and Data Collection...................................................109
Performance Tuning Remote Desktop Services Workload for
Knowledge Workers........................................................................110
Recommended Tunings on the Server.........................................111
Monitoring and Data Collection...................................................113
Performance Tuning for Virtualization Servers................................114
Terminology................................................................................. 114
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 5

Hyper-V Architecture...................................................................115
Server Configuration...................................................................116
Hardware Selection..................................................................116
Server Core Installation Option................................................117
Dedicated Server Role.............................................................118
Guest Operating Systems........................................................118
CPU Statistics...........................................................................118
Processor Performance................................................................119
Virtual Machine Integration Services.......................................119
Enlightened Guests..................................................................119
Virtual Processors....................................................................119
Background Activity.................................................................120
Weights and Reserves..............................................................120
Tuning NUMA Node Preference.................................................121
Memory Performance..................................................................121
Enlightened Guests..................................................................121
Correct Memory Sizing for Child Partitions...............................121
Correct Memory Sizing for Root Partition.................................122
Storage I/O Performance.............................................................122
Virtual Controllers....................................................................122
Virtual Disks............................................................................. 123
Block Size Considerations........................................................125
Sector Size Implications...........................................................126
Block Fragmentation................................................................127
Pass-through Disks...................................................................128
Advanced Storage Features.....................................................128
NUMA I/O................................................................................. 129
Offloaded Data Transfer Integration.........................................129
Unmap Integration...................................................................130
Network I/O Performance............................................................130
Hyper-V-specific Network Adapter............................................130
Install Multiple Hyper-V-specific Network Adapters on
Multiprocessor virtual machines..............................................131
Offload Hardware.....................................................................131
Network Switch Topology.........................................................131
VLAN Performance...................................................................131
Dynamic VMQ..........................................................................131
MAC Spoofing Guidance...........................................................133
Single Root I/O Virtualization...................................................134
Live Migration..........................................................................134
Performance Tuning for SAP Sales and Distribution........................136
Operating System Tunings on the Server....................................136
Tunings on the Database Server.................................................137
Tunings on SAP Application Server..............................................138
Monitoring and Data Collection...................................................139
Performance Tuning for OLTP Workloads.........................................141
Server Under Test Tunings...........................................................141
SQL Server Tunings for OLTP Workloads......................................142
Disk Storage Tunings...................................................................144
TPC-E Database Size and Layout.................................................144
Client Systems Tunings...............................................................145
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 6

Monitoring and Data Collection...................................................145

Root Counters.............................................................................147
Resources....................................................................................... 149

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 7

Introduction
When you run a server system in your organization, you might have
business needs that are not met by using the default settings. For
example, you might need the lowest possible energy consumption,
or the lowest possible latency, or the maximum possible throughput
on your server. This guide describes how you can tune the server
settings in Windows Server 2012 and obtain incremental
performance or energy efficiency gains, especially when the nature
of the workload varies little over time.
To have the most impact, your tuning changes should consider the
hardware, the workload, the power budgets, and the performance
goals of your server. This guide describes important tuning
considerations and settings that can result in improved performance
or energy efficiency. This guide describes each setting and its
potential effect to help you make an informed decision about its
relevance to your system, workload, performance, and energy usage
goals.
Since the release of Windows Server 2008, customers have become
increasingly concerned about energy efficiency in the datacenter. To
address this need, Microsoft and its partners invested a large
amount of engineering resources to develop and optimize the
features, algorithms, and settings in Windows Server 2012 and
Windows Server 2008 R2 to maximize energy efficiency with minimal
effects on performance. This guide describes energy consumption
considerations for servers and provides guidelines for meeting your
energy usage goals. Although power consumption is a more
commonly used term, energy consumption is more accurate
because power is an instantaneous measurement (Energy = Power *
Time). Power companies typically charge datacenters for both the
energy consumed (megawatt-hours) and the peak power draw
required (megawatts).
Note Registry settings and tuning parameters changed significantly
from Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Windows
Server 2008 R2 to Windows Server 2012. Be sure to use the latest
tuning guidelines to avoid unexpected results.
As always, be careful when you directly manipulate the registry. If
you must edit the registry, back it up before you make any changes.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 8

In This Guide
This guide contains key performance recommendations for the
following components:

Server Hardware

Networking Subsystem

Storage Subsystem

This guide also contains performance tuning considerations for the

following server roles:

Web Servers

File Servers

Active Directory Servers

Remote Desktop Session Host

Remote Desktop Virtualization Host

Remote Desktop Gateway

Virtualization Servers (Hyper-V)

Performance Tools for Network Workloads

SAP Sales and Distribution

TCP-E Workload

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 9

Choosing and Tuning Server Hardware

It is important to select the proper hardware to meet your expected
performance and power goals. Hardware bottlenecks limit the
effectiveness of software tuning. This section provides guidelines for
hardware to provide a good foundation for the role that a server will
play.
It is important to note that there is a tradeoff between power and
performance when choosing hardware. For example, faster
processors and more disks will yield better performance, but they
can also consume more energy.
See Choosing Server Hardware: Power Considerations later in this
guide for more details about these tradeoffs. Later sections of this
guide provide tuning guidelines that are specific to a server role and
include diagnostic techniques for isolating and identifying
performance bottlenecks for certain server roles.

Choosing Server Hardware: Performance Considerations

Table 1 lists important items that you should consider when you
choose server hardware. Following these guidelines can help remove
performance bottlenecks that might impede the servers
performance.
Table 1. Server Hardware Recommendations
Compon Recommendation
ent

Processo
rs

Choose 64-bit processors for servers. 64-bit processors

have significantly more address space, and are required
for Windows Server 2012. No 32-bit editions of the
operating system will be provided, but 32-bit applications
will run on the 64-bit Windows Server 2012 operating
system.
To increase the computing resources in a server, you can
use a processor with higher-frequency cores, or you can
increase the number of processor cores. If CPU is the
limiting resource in the system, a core with 2x frequency
typically provides a greater performance improvement
than two cores with 1x frequency. Multiple cores are not
expected to provide a perfect linear scaling, and the
scaling factor can be even less if hyperthreading is
enabled because hyperthreading relies on sharing
resources of the same physical core.
It is important to match and scale the memory and I/O
subsystem with the CPU performance and vice versa.
Do not compare CPU frequencies across manufacturers
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 10

Cache
Memory
(RAM)
and
paging
storage

Peripher
al bus

Disks

and generations of processors because the comparison

can be a misleading indicator of speed.
Choose large L2 or L3 processor caches. The larger
caches generally provide better performance, and they
often play a bigger role than raw CPU frequency.
Increase the RAM to match your memory needs.
When your computer runs low on memory and it needs
more immediately, modern operating systems use hard
disk space to supplement system RAM through a
procedure called paging. Too much paging degrades the
overall system performance.
You can optimize paging by using the following guidelines
for page file placement:

Isolate the page file on its own storage device(s), or at

least make sure it doesnt share the same storage
devices as other frequently accessed files. For
example, place the page file and operating system
files on separate physical disk drives.

Place the page file on a drive that is not fault-tolerant.

Note that, if the disk fails, a system crash is likely to
occur. If you place the page file on a fault-tolerant
drive, remember that fault-tolerant systems are often
slower to write data because they write data to
multiple locations.

Use multiple disks or a disk array if you need

additional disk bandwidth for paging. Do not place
multiple page files on different partitions of the same
physical disk drive.

In Windows Server 2012, it is highly recommended that

the primary storage and network interfaces are PCI
Express (PCIe), and that servers with PCIe buses are
chosen. Also, to avoid bus speed limitations, use PCIe x8
and higher slots for 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapters.
Choose disks with higher rotational speeds to reduce
random request service times (~2 ms on average when
you compare 7,200- and 15,000-RPM drives) and to
increase sequential request bandwidth. However, there
are cost, power, and other considerations associated with
disks that have high rotational speeds.
2.5-inch enterprise-class disks can service a significantly
larger number of random requests per second compared
to equivalent 3.5-inch drives.
Store frequently accessed data (especially sequentially
accessed data) near the beginning of a disk because
this roughly corresponds to the outermost (fastest)
tracks.
Be aware that consolidating small drives into fewer highcapacity drives can reduce overall storage performance.
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 11

Fewer spindles mean reduced request service

concurrency; and therefore, potentially lower throughput
and longer response times (depending on the workload
intensity).
Table 2 lists the recommended characteristics for network and
storage adapters for high-performance servers. These settings can
help prevent your networking or storage hardware from being a
bottleneck when they are under heavy load.
Table 2. Networking and Storage Adapter Recommendations
Recommend
Description
ation

WHQL
certified
64-bit
capability

Copper and
fiber (glass)
adapters

Dual- or
quad-port
adapters

Interrupt
moderation

The adapter has passed the Windows Hardware

Quality Labs (WHQL) certification test suite.
Adapters that are 64-bit-capable can perform direct
memory access (DMA) operations to and from high
physical memory locations (greater than 4 GB). If the
driver does not support DMA greater than 4 GB, the
system double-buffers the I/O to a physical address
space of less than 4 GB.
Copper adapters generally have the same
performance as their fiber counterparts, and both
copper and fiber are available on some Fibre Channel
adapters. Certain environments are better suited to
copper adapters, whereas other environments are
better suited to fiber adapters.
Multiport adapters are useful for servers that have a
limited number of PCI slots.
To address SCSI limitations on the number of disks
that can be connected to a SCSI bus, some adapters
provide two or four SCSI buses on a single adapter
card. Fibre Channel disks generally have no limits to
the number of disks that are connected to an adapter
unless they are hidden behind a SCSI interface.
Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Serial ATA (SATA)
adapters also have a limited number of connections
because of the serial nature of the protocols, but you
can attach more disks by using switches.
Network adapters have this feature for load-balancing
or failover scenarios. Using two single-port network
adapters usually yields better performance than using
a single dual-port network adapter for the same
workload.
PCI bus limitation can be a major factor in limiting
performance for multiport adapters. Therefore, it is
important to consider placing them in a highperforming PCIe slot that provides enough bandwidth.
Some adapters can moderate how frequently they
interrupt the host processors to indicate activity or its
completion. Moderating interrupts can often result in
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 12

Receive Side
Scaling (RSS)
support
Offload
capability
and other
advanced
features such
as messagesignaled
interrupt
(MSI)-X
Dynamic
interrupt and
deferred
procedure
call (DPC)
redirection

reduced CPU load on the host, but unless interrupt

moderation is performed intelligently, the CPU
savings might increase latency.
RSS is a technology that enables packet receiveprocessing to scale with the number of available
computer processors. Particularly important with faster
Ethernet (10 GB or more).
Offload-capable adapters offer CPU savings that yield
improved performance. For more information, see
Choosing a Network Adapter later in this guide.

Windows Server 2012 has functionality that enables

PCIe storage adapters to dynamically redirect
interrupts and DPCs. This capability, originally called
NUMA I/O, can help any multiprocessor system by
improving workload partitioning, cache hit rates, and
on-board hardware interconnect usage for I/Ointensive workloads.

Choosing Server Hardware: Power Considerations

Although much of this guide focuses on how to obtain the best
performance from Windows Server 2012, it is also important to
recognize the increasing importance of energy efficiency in
enterprise and data center environments. High performance and lowenergy usage are often conflicting goals, but by carefully selecting
server components, you can achieve the correct balance between
them.
Table 3 contains guidelines for power characteristics and capabilities
of server hardware components.
Table 3. Server Hardware Energy Saving Recommendations
Compon
Recommendation
ent

Processo
rs

Frequency, operating voltage, cache size, and process

technology affect the energy consumption of processors.
Processors have a thermal design point (TDP) rating that
gives a basic indication of energy consumption relative to
other models. In general, opt for the lowest TDP
processor that will meet your performance goals. Also,
newer generations of processors are generally more
energy efficient, and they may expose more power states
for the Windows power management algorithms, which
enables better power management at all levels of
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 13

Memory
(RAM)

Disks

Network
and
storage
adapters
Power
supplies
Fans

USB
devices

Remotel
y
manage
d power
strips

performance. Or they may use some of the new

cooperative power management techniques that
Microsoft has developed in partnership with hardware
manufacturers.1
Memory accounts for an increasing fraction of the total
system power. Many factors affect the energy
consumption of a memory DIMM, such as memory
technology, error correction code (ECC), bus frequency,
capacity, density, and number of ranks. Therefore, it is
best to compare expected power ratings before
purchasing large quantities of memory. Low-power
memory is now available, but you must consider the
performance and cost trade-offs. If your server will be
paging, you should also factor in the energy cost of the
paging disks.
Higher RPM means increased energy consumption. Also,
2.5-inch drives generally require less power than 3.5-inch
drives. For more information about the energy costs for
different RAID configurations, see Performance Tuning for
Storage Subsystem later in this guide.
Some adapters decrease energy consumption during idle
periods. This is an important consideration for 10 Gb
networking adapters and high-bandwidth (4-8 Gb)
storage links. Such devices can consume significant
amounts of energy.
Increasing power supply efficiency is a great way to
reduce energy consumption without affecting
performance. High-efficiency power supplies can save
many kilowatt-hours per year, per server.
Fans, like power supplies, are an area where you can
reduce energy consumption without affecting system
performance. Variable-speed fans can reduce RPM as the
system load decreases, eliminating otherwise
unnecessary energy consumption.
Windows Server 2012 enables selective suspend for USB
devices by default. However, a poorly written device
driver can still disrupt system energy efficiency by a
sizeable margin. To avoid potential issues, disconnect
USB devices, disable them in the BIOS, or choose servers
that do not require USB devices.
Power strips are not an integral part of server hardware,
but they can make a large difference in the data center.
Measurements show that volume servers that are
plugged in, but have been ostensibly powered off, may
still require up to 30 watts of power. To avoid wasting
electricity, you can deploy a remotely managed power
strip for each rack of servers to programmatically
disconnect power from specific servers.

1 See Collaborative Processor Performance Control in the Advanced

Configuration and Power Interface.
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 14

Processor Terminology
The processor terminology used throughout this guide reflects the
hierarchy of components available in Figure 1. Terms used from
largest to smallest granularity of components are the following:
Processor Socket
NUMA node
Core
Logical Processor

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 15

Processor
NUMA Nodes
Cores
LPs

Figure 1. Processor terminology

Power and Performance Tuning

Energy efficiency is increasingly important in enterprise and data
center environments, and it adds another set of tradeoffs to the mix
of configuration options.
Windows Server 2012 is optimized for excellent energy efficiency
with minimum performance impact across a wide range of customer
workloads. This section describes energy-efficiency tradeoffs to help
you make informed decisions if you need to adjust the default power
settings on your server. However, the majority of server hardware
and workloads should not require administrator power tuning when
running Windows Server 2012.

Calculating Server Energy Efficiency

When you tune your server for energy savings, you must also
consider performance. Tuning affects performance and power,
sometimes in disproportionate amounts. For each possible
adjustment, consider your power budget and performance goals to
determine whether the trade-off is acceptable.
You can calculate your server's energy efficiency ratio for a useful
metric that incorporates power and performance information. Energy
efficiency is the ratio of work that is done to the average power that
is required during a specified amount of time. In equation form:

Energy Efficiency=

Rate of Work Done

Average Watts Of Power Required

You can use this metric to set practical goals that respect the
tradeoff between power and performance. In contrast, a goal of 10
percent energy savings across the data center fails to capture the
corresponding effects on performance and vice versa. Similarly, if
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 16

you tune your server to increase performance by 5 percent, and that

results in 10 percent higher energy consumption, the total result
might or might not be acceptable for your business goals. The
energy efficiency metric allows for more informed decision making
than power or performance metrics alone.

Measuring System Energy Consumption

You should establish a baseline power measurement before you tune
your server for energy efficiency.
If your server has the necessary support, you can use the power
metering and budgeting features in Windows Server 2012 to view
system-level energy consumption through Performance Monitor
(Perfmon). One way to determine whether your server has support
for metering and budgeting is to review the Windows Server Catalog.
If your server model qualifies for the new Enhanced Power
Management qualification in the Windows Logo Program, it is
guaranteed to support the metering and budgeting functionality.
Another way to check for metering support is to manually look for
the counters in Performance Monitor. Open Performance Monitor,
select Add Counters, and locate the Power Meter counter group.
If named instances of power meters appear in the box labeled
Instances of Selected Object, your platform supports metering.
The Power counter that shows power in watts appears in the
selected counter group. The exact derivation of the power data value
is not specified. For example, it could be an instantaneous power
draw or an average power draw over some time interval.
If your server platform does not support metering, you can use a
physical metering device connected to the power supply input to
measure system power draw or energy consumption.
To establish a baseline, you should measure the average power
required at various system load points, from idle to 100 percent
(maximum throughput). Such a baseline generates a load line.
Figure 2 shows load lines for three sample configurations.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 17

100%
90%
Configuration 1

Configuration 2
80%
Power (% of max watts)
70%
Configuration 3

60%

Workload (% of max)

Figure 2. Sample load lines

You can use load lines to evaluate and compare the performance and
energy consumption of configurations at all load points. In this
particular example, it is easy to see what is the best configuration.
However, there can easily be scenarios where one configuration
works best for heavy workloads and one works best for light
workloads. You need to thoroughly understand your workload
requirements to choose an optimal configuration. Dont assume that
when you find a good configuration, it will always remain optimal.
You should measure system utilization and energy consumption on a
regular basis and after changes in workloads, workload levels, or
server hardware.

Diagnosing Energy Efficiency Issues

The Windows PowerCfg tool supports a command-line option that
you can use to analyze the idle energy efficiency of your server.
When you run the powercfg command with the /energy option, the
tool performs a 60-second test to detect potential energy efficiency
issues. The tool generates a simple HTML report in the current
directory. To ensure an accurate analysis, make sure that all local
applications are closed before you run the powercfg command.
Note Windows PowerCfg is not available in operating systems
earlier than Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
Shortened timer tick rates, drivers that lack power management
support, and excessive CPU utilization are a few of the behavioral
issues that are detected by the powercfg /energy command. This
tool provides a simple way to identify and fix power management
issues, potentially resulting in significant cost savings in a large
datacenter.
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 18

For more information on the powercfg /energy option, see

Resources later in this guide.

Using Power Plans in Windows Server

Windows Server 2012 has three built-in power plans designed to
meet different sets of business needs. These plans provide a simple
way for an administrator to customize a server to meet power or
performance goals. Table 4 describes the plans, lists common
scenarios in which to use each plan, and gives some implementation
details for each plan.
Table 4. Built-in Server Power Plans
Plan
Description
Common
applicable
scenarios
Balanced
Default setting.
General
(recommend Targets good
computing
ed)
energy efficiency
with minimal
performance
impact.
High
Increases
Low
Performance performance at
latency
the cost of high
application
energy
s
consumption.
Application
Power and
code that
thermal
is sensitive
limitations,
to
operating
processor
expenses, and
performan
reliability
ce
considerations
changes
apply.
Power Saver
Limits
Deployme
performance to
nts with
save energy and
limited
reduce operating
power
cost.
budgets
Thermal
constraints

Implementation
highlights
Matches capacity
to demand.
Energy-saving
features balance
power and
performance.
Processors are
always locked at
the highest
performance
state (including
turbo
frequencies). All
cores are
unparked.

Caps processor
frequency at a
percentage of
maximum (if
supported), and
enables other
energy-saving
features.

These plans exist in the Windows operating system for alternating

current (AC) and direct current (DC) powered systems, but in this
guide we assume that servers are using an AC power source.
For more information on power plans, power policies, and power
policy configurations, see Resources later in this guide.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 19

Tuning Processor Power Management Parameters

Each power plan shown in Table 4 represents a combination of
numerous underlying power management parameters. The built-in
plans are three collections of recommended settings that cover a
wide variety of workloads and scenarios. However, we recognize that
these plans will not meet every customers needs.
The following sections describe ways to tune some specific processor
power management parameters to meet goals not addressed by the
three built-in plans. If you need to understand a wider array of power
parameters, see Power Policy Configuration and Deployment in
Windows. This document provides a detailed explanation of power
plans and parameters, and it includes instructions for adjusting
parameter values by using the PowerCfg tool.
Processor Performance Boost Mode

Intel Turbo Boost and AMD Turbo CORE technologies are features that
allow processors to achieve additional performance when it is most
useful (that is, at high system loads). However, this feature increases
CPU core energy consumption, so Windows Server 2012 configures
Turbo technologies based on the power policy that is in use and the
specific processor implementation.
Turbo is enabled for High Performance power plans on all Intel and
AMD processors and it is disabled for Power Saver power plans. For
Balanced power plans on systems that rely on traditional P-statebased frequency management, Turbo is enabled by default only if
the platform supports the EPB register.
Note At the time of writing this guide, the EPB register is only
supported in Intel Westmere and later processors.
For Intel Nehalem and AMD processors, Turbo is disabled by default
on P-state-based platforms. However, if a system supports
Collaborative Processor Performance Control (CPPC), which is a new
alternative mode of performance communication between the
operating system and the hardware (defined in ACPI 5.0), Turbo may
be engaged if the Windows operating system dynamically requests
the hardware to deliver the highest possible performance levels.
To enable or disable the Turbo Boost feature, you must configure the
Processor Performance Boost Mode parameter. Processor
Performance Boost Mode has five allowable values, as shown in
Table 5. For P-state-based control, the choices are Disabled, Enabled
(Turbo is available to the hardware whenever nominal performance is
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 20

requested), and Efficient (Turbo is available only if the EPB register is

implemented). For CPPC-based control, the choices are Disabled,
Efficient Enabled (Windows specifies the exact amount of Turbo to
provide), and Aggressive (Windows asks for maximum
performance to enable Turbo). In Windows Server 2012, the default
value for Boost Mode is 3.
Table 5. Processor Performance Boost Mode parameter values
Value (Name)
P-state-based
CPPC
Behavior
Behavior

0 (Disabled)
1 (Enabled)

Disabled
Enabled

2 (Aggressive)
Enabled
3
(Efficient Efficient
Enabled)
4
(Efficient Efficient
Aggressive)

Disabled
Efficient
Enabled
Aggressive
Efficient
Enabled
Aggressive

The following commands set Processor Performance Boost Mode

to Enabled on the current power plan (specify the policy by using a
GUID alias):
Powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PERFBOOSTMODE 1
Powercfg -setactive scheme_current

Note You must run the powercfg -setactive command to enable

the new settings. You do not need to reboot the server.
To set this value for power plans other than the currently selected
plan, you can use aliases such as SCHEME_MAX (Power Saver),
SCHEME_MIN (High Performance), and SCHEME_BALANCED
(Balanced) in place of SCHEME_CURRENT. Replace scheme current
in the powercfg -setactive commands previously shown with the
desired alias to enable that power plan. For example, to adjust the
Boost Mode in the Power Saver plan and make Power Saver the
current plan, run the following commands:
Powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_max sub_processor PERFBOOSTMODE 1
Powercfg -setactive scheme_max
Minimum and Maximum Processor Performance State

Processors change between performance states (P-states) very

quickly to match supply to demand, delivering performance where
necessary and saving energy when possible. If your server has
specific high-performance or minimum-power-consumption
requirements, you might consider configuring the Minimum

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 21

Processor Performance State parameter or the Maximum

Processor Performance State parameter.
The values for the Minimum and Maximum Processor
Performance State parameters are expressed as a percentage of
maximum processor frequency, with a value in the range 0 100.
If your server requires ultra-low latency, invariant CPU frequency, or
the highest performance levels, you might not want the processors
switching to lower-performance states. For such a server, you can
cap the minimum processor performance state at 100 percent by
using the following commands:
Powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PROCTHROTTLEMIN
100
Powercfg -setactive scheme_current

If your server requires lower energy consumption, you might want to

cap the processor performance state at a percentage of maximum.
For example, you can restrict the processor to 75 percent of its
maximum frequency by using the following commands:
Powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor PROCTHROTTLEMAX
75
Powercfg -setactive scheme_current

Note Capping processor performance at a percentage of maximum

requires processor support. Check the processor documentation to
determine whether such support exists, or view the Perfmon counter
% of maximum frequency in the Processor group to see if any
frequency caps were applied.
Processor Performance Core Parking Maximum and Minimum Cores

Core parking is a feature that was introduced in Windows

Server 2008 R2. The processor power management (PPM) engine
and the scheduler work together to dynamically adjust the number
of cores that are available to run threads. The PPM engine chooses a
minimum number of cores for the threads that will be scheduled.
Cores that are chosen to park generally do not have any threads
scheduled, and they will drop into very low power states when they
are not processing interrupts, DPCs, or other strictly affinitized work.
The remaining set of unparked cores are responsible for the
remainder of the workload. Core parking can potentially increase
energy efficiency during lower usage periods on the server because
parked cores can drop into deep low-power states.
For most servers, the default core-parking behavior provides a
reasonable balance of throughput and energy efficiency. On
processors where core parking may not show as much benefit on
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 22

generic workloads, it can be disabled by default. If your server has

specific core parking requirements, you can control the number of
cores that are available to park by using the Processor
Performance Core Parking Maximum Cores parameter or the
Processor Performance Core Parking Minimum Cores
parameter in Windows Server 2012.
One scenario that core parking has difficulty with is when there are
one or more active threads affinitized to a non-trivial subset of CPUs
in a NUMA node (that is, more than 1 CPU, but less than the entire
set of CPUs on the node). When the core parking algorithm is picking
cores to unpark (assuming an increase in workload intensity occurs),
it does not know to pick the cores within the active affinitized subset
(or subsets) to unpark, and thus may end up unparking cores that
wont actually be utilized.
The values for these parameters are percentages in the range 0
100. The Processor Performance Core Parking Maximum Cores
parameter controls the maximum percentage of cores that can be
unparked (available to run threads) at any time, while the
Processor Performance Core Parking Minimum Cores
parameter controls the minimum percentage of cores that can be
unparked. To turn off core parking, set the Processor Performance
Core Parking Minimum Cores parameter to 100 percent by using
the following commands:
Powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPMINCORES 100
Powercfg -setactive scheme_current

To reduce the number of schedulable cores to 50 percent of the

maximum count, set the Processor Performance Core Parking
Minimum Cores parameter to 50 as follows:
Powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor CPMAXCORES 50
Powercfg -setactive scheme_current
Processor Performance Core Parking Utility Distribution

Utility Distribution is an algorithmic optimization in Windows Server

2012 that is designed to improve power efficiency for some
workloads. It tracks unmovable CPU activity (that is, DPCs,
interrupts, or strictly affinitized threads), and it predicts the future
work on each processor based on the assumption that any movable
work can be distributed equally across all unparked cores. Utility
Distribution is enabled by default for the Balanced power plans for
some processors. It can reduce processor power consumption by
lowering the requested CPU frequencies of workloads that are in a
reasonably steady state. However, Utility Distribution is not
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 23

necessarily a good algorithmic choice for workloads that are subject

to high activity bursts or for programs where the workload quickly
and randomly shifts across processors. For such workloads, we
recommend disabling Utility Distribution by using the following
commands:
Powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor DISTRIBUTEUTIL 0
Powercfg -setactive scheme_current

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 24

Performance Tuning for the Networking Subsystem

Figure 3 shows the network architecture, which includes many
components, interfaces, and protocols. The following sections
discuss tuning guidelines for some of the components involved in
server workloads.
Figure 3. Network stack components

User-Mode Applications

WMS

System Drivers
Protocol Stack

DNS

AFD.SYS
TCP/IP

NDIS

UDP/IP

IIS
HTTP.SYS
VPN

NDIS

Network Interface

Network Driver

The network architecture is layered, and the layers can be broadly

divided into the following sections:

The network driver and Network Driver Interface Specification

(NDIS)

These are the lowest layers. NDIS exposes interfaces for the
driver below it and for the layers above it, such as TCP/IP.

The protocol stack

This implements protocols such as TCP/IP and UDP/IP. These

layers expose the transport layer interface for layers above them.

System drivers

These are typically clients that use a transport data extension

(TDX) or Winsock Kernel (WSK) interface to expose interfaces to
user-mode applications. The WSK interface was introduced in
Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista, and it is exposed by
AFD.sys. The interface improves performance by eliminating the
switching between user mode and kernel mode.

User-mode applications

These are typically Microsoft solutions or custom applications.

Tuning for network-intensive workloads can involve each layer. The
following sections describe some tuning recommendations.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 25

Choosing a Network Adapter

Network-intensive applications require high-performance network
adapters. This section explores some considerations for choosing
network adapters.

Offload Capabilities
Offloading tasks can reduce CPU usage on the server, which
improves the overall system performance. The network stack in
Microsoft products can offload one or more tasks to a network
adapter if you choose one that has the appropriate offload
capabilities. Table 6 provides details about each offload capability.
Table 6. Offload Capabilities for Network Adapters
Offload type

Description

Checksum
calculation

The network stack can offload the calculation and

validation of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and
User Datagram Protocol (UDP) checksums on send
and receive code paths. It can also offload the
calculation and validation of IPv4 and IPv6
checksums on send and receive code paths.
The TCP/IP transport layer can offload the
calculation and validation of encrypted checksums
for authentication headers and Encapsulating
Security Payloads (ESPs). The TCP/IP transport layer
can also offload the encryption and decryption of
ESPs.
The TCP/IP transport layer supports Large Send
Offload v2 (LSOv2). With LSOv2, the TCP/IP
transport layer can offload the segmentation of
large TCP packets to the hardware.
RSC is the ability to group packets together to
minimize the header processing that is necessary
for the host to perform. A maximum of 64 KB of
received payload can be coalesced into a single
larger packet for processing.
Receive-side scaling (RSS) is a network driver
technology that enables the efficient distribution of
network receive processing across multiple CPUs in
multiprocessor systems.

IP security
authentication
and
encryption
Segmentation
of large TCP
packets
Receive
Segment
Coalescing
(RSC)
Receive-Side
Scaling (RSS)

Receive-Side Scaling (RSS)

Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows
Server 2008 support Receive Side Scaling (RSS). A server may have
multiple logical processors that share hardware resources (such as a
physical core) and are treated as Simultaneous Multi-Threading
(SMT) peers. Intel Hyper-Threading Technology is an example. RSS
directs network processing to up to one logical processor per core.
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 26

For example, given a server with Intel Hyper-Threading and 4 cores

(8 logical processors), RSS will use no more than 4 logical processors
for network processing.
RSS distributes incoming network I/O packets among logical
processors so that packets that belong to the same TCP connection
are processed on the same logical processor, which preserves
ordering. RSS also load balances UDP unicast and multicast traffic
from Windows Server 2012, and it routes related flows (as
determined by hashing the source and destination addresses) to the
same logical processor, thereby preserving the order of related
arrivals. This helps improve scalability and performance for receiveintensive scenarios that have fewer network adapters than eligible
logical processors.
Windows Server 2012 provides the following ways to tune RSS
behavior:

Windows PowerShell cmdlets: Get-NetAdapterRSS, SetNetAdapterRSS, Enable-NetAdapterRss, DisableNetAdapterRss

For more information, see Network Adapter Cmdlets in Windows
PowerShell in the Windows Server Library.
These cmdlets allow you to see and modify RSS parameters per
network adapter. Pass the cmdlet name to Get-Help for details.

RSS Profiles: One of the parameters that is available is the RSS

Profile, which is used to determine which logical processors are
assigned to which network adapter. Possible profiles include:
o

Closest. Logical processor numbers near the network

adapters base RSS processor are preferred. Windows may
rebalance logical processors dynamically based on load.

ClosestStatic. Logical processor numbers near the

network adapters base RSS processor are preferred.
Windows will not rebalance logical processors dynamically
based on load.

NUMA. Logical processor numbers will tend to be selected

on different NUMA nodes to distribute the load. Windows
may rebalance logical processors dynamically based on
load.

NUMAStatic. This is the default profile. Logical

processor numbers will tend to be selected on different
NUMA nodes to distribute the load. Windows will not
rebalance logical processors dynamically based on load.

Conservative: RSS uses as few processors as possible to

sustain the load. This option helps reduce the number of
interrupts.
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 27

Depending on the scenario and the workload characteristics, you can

use the following Windows PowerShell cmdlet to choose how many
logical processors can be used for RSS on a per-network adapter
basis, the starting offset for the range of logical processors, and
which node the network adapter allocates memory from:

* MaxProcessors: Sets the maximum number of RSS

processors to be used. This ensures that application traffic is
bound to a maximum number of processors on a given interface.
set-netadapterRSS Name Ethernet MaxProcessors <value>

* BaseProcessorGroup: Sets the base processor group of a

NUMA node. This impacts the processor array that is used by RSS.

set-netadapterRSS Name Ethernet BaseProcessorGroup <value>

* MaxProcessorGroup: Sets the Max processor group of a

NUMA node. This impacts the processor array that is used by RSS.
Setting this would restrict a maximum processor group so that
load balancing is aligned within a k-group.
set-netadapterRSS Name Ethernet MaxProcessorGroup <value>

* BaseProcessorNumber: Sets the base processor number

of a NUMA node. This impacts the processor array that is used by
RSS. This allows partitioning processors across network adapters.
This is the first logical processor in the range of RSS processors
that is assigned to each adapter.
set-netadapterRSS Name Ethernet BaseProcessorNumber <Byte Value>

* NumaNode: The NUMA node that each network adapter

can allocate memory from. This can be within a k-group or from
different k-groups.

set-netadapterRSS Name Ethernet NumaNodeID <value>

* NumberofReceiveQueues: If your logical processors

seem to be underutilized for receive traffic (for example, as
viewed in Task Manager), you can try increasing the number
of RSS queues from the default of 2 to the maximum that is
supported by your network adapter. Your network adapter may
have options to change the number of RSS queues as part of the
driver.
set-netadapterRSS Name Ethernet NumberOfReceiveQueues <value>

For more information, see Scalable Networking: Eliminating

the Receive Processing BottleneckIntroducing RSS.
Understanding RSS Performance

Tuning RSS requires understanding the configuration and the loadbalancing logic. To verify that the RSS settings have taken effect, the
Get-NetAdapterRss Windows PowerShell cmdlet gives better
insight.
PS C:\Users\Administrator> get-netadapterrss
Name

: testnic 2
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 28

InterfaceDescription
: Broadcom BCM5708C NetXtreme II GigE
(NDIS VBD Client) #66
Enabled
: True
NumberOfReceiveQueues
:2
Profile
: NUMAStatic
BaseProcessor: [Group:Number]
: 0:0
MaxProcessor: [Group:Number]
: 0:15
MaxProcessors
:8
IndirectionTable: [Group:Number]
:
0:0 0:4 0:0 0:4 0:0 0:4 0:0 0:4

(# indirection table entries are a power of 2 and based on #

of processors)

0:0 0:4 0:0 0:4 0:0 0:4 0:0 0:4

In addition to echoing parameters that were set, the key aspect of

the output is to understand indirection table output. The indirection
table displays the hash table buckets that are used to distribute
incoming traffic. In this example, the n:c notation designates the
Numa K-Group:CPU index pair that is used to direct incoming
traffic. We see exactly 2 unique entries (0:0 and 0:4), which
represent k-group 0/cpu0 and k-group 0/cpu 4, respectively.
We further see only one k-group for this system (k-group 0) and a n
(where n <= 128) indirection table entry. Because the number of
receive queues is set to 2, only 2 processors (0:0, 0:4) are chosen
even though maximum processors is set to 8. In effect, the
indirection table is hashing incoming traffic to only use 2 CPUs out of
the 8 that are available.
To fully utilize the CPUs, the number of RSS Receive Queues should
be equal to or greater than Max Processors. For the previous
example, the Receive Queue should be set to 8 or greater.
RSS and virtualization

RSS provides hashing and scalability to host interface only. RSS does
not provide any interaction with virtual machines, instead users can
configure VMQ in those scenarios.
RSS can be enabled for guest virtual machines in the case of SR-IOV
because the virtual function driver supports RSS capability. In this
case, the guest and the host will have the benefit of RSS. Note that
the host does not get RSS capability because the virtual switch is
enabled with SR-IOV.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 29

LBFO and RSS

RSS can be enabled on a network adapter that is teamed. In this

scenario, only the underlying physical network adapter can be
configured to use RSS. A user cannot set RSS cmdlets on the teamed
network adapter.

Receive-Segment Coalescing (RSC)

Receive Segment Coalescing (RSC) helps performance in Windows
Server 2012 by reducing the number of IP headers that are
processed for a given amount of received data. It should be used to
help scale the performance of received data by grouping (or
coalescing) the smaller packets into larger units. This approach can
affect latency with benefits mostly seen in throughput gains. RSC is
recommended to increase throughput for received heavy workloads.
Consider deploying network adapters that support RSC. On these
network adapters, ensure that RSC is on (this is the default setting),
unless you have specific workloads (for example, low latency, low
throughput networking) that show benefit from RSC being off.
In Windows Server 2012, the following Windows PowerShell cmdlets
allow you to configure RSC capable network adapters: EnableNetAdapterRsc, Disable-NetRsc, GetNetAdapterAdvancedProperty, and SetNetAdapterAdvancedProperty.
Understanding RSC diagnostics

RSC can be diagnosed through the following cmdlets.

PS C:\Users\Administrator> Get-NetAdapterRsc
Name
IPv4FailureReason

IPv4Enabled IPv6Enabled IPv4Operational IPv6Operational

IPv6Failure
Reason

-------------- ----------- --------------- ------------------------------- -----------Ethernet

NoFailure

True
NicProperties

False

True

False

The Get cmdlet shows whether RSC is enabled in the interface and if
TCP enables RSC to be in operational state. The failure reason
provides details about the failure to enable RSC on that interface.
In the previous scenario, IPv4 RSC is supported and operational in
the interface. To understand diagnostic failures, one can see the
coalesced bytes or exceptions caused. This gives an indication of
the coalescing issues.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 30

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $x = Get-NetAdapterStatistics myAdapter

PS C:\Users\Administrator> $x.rscstatistics
CoalescedBytes
:0
CoalescedPackets
:0
CoalescingEvents
:0
CoalescingExceptions : 0
RSC and virtualization

RSC is only supported in the physical host when the host network
adapter is not bound to the virtual switch. RSC is disabled by the
operating system when host is bound to the virtual switch. Also,
virtual machines do not get the benefit of RSC because virtual
network adapters do not support RSC.
RSC can be enabled for a virtual machine when SR-IOV is enabled. In
this case, virtual functions will support RSC capability; hence, virtual
machines will also get the benefit of RSC.

Network Adapter Resources

A few network adapters actively manage their resources to achieve
optimum performance. Several network adapters let the
administrator manually configure resources by using the Advanced
Networking tab for the adapter. For such adapters, you can set the
values of a number of parameters including the number of receive
buffers and send buffers.
In Windows Server 2012, configuration has been simplified by the
use of the following Windows PowerShell cmdlets:

Get-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty

SetNetAdapterAdvancedProperty

Enable-NetAdapter

Enable-NetAdapterBinding

Enable-NetAdapterChecksumOffload

Enable-NetAdapterLso

Enable-NetAdapterIPSecOffload

Enable-NetAdapterPowerManagemetn

Enable-NetAdapterQos

Enable-NetAdapterRDMA
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 31

Enable-NetAdapter

Enable-NetAdapterSriov

Message-Signaled Interrupts (MSI/MSI-X)

Network adapters that support MSI/MSI-X can target their interrupts
to specific logical processors. If the adapters also support RSS, then
a logical processor can be dedicated to servicing interrupts and
deferred procedure calls (DPCs) for a given TCP connection. This
preserves the cache locality of TCP structures and greatly improves
performance.

Interrupt Moderation
To control interrupt moderation, some network adapters expose
different interrupt moderation levels, or buffer coalescing
parameters (sometimes separately for send and receive buffers), or
both. You should consider buffer coalescing or batching when the
network adapter does not perform interrupt moderation. Interrupt
moderation helps reduce overall CPU utilization by minimizing the
per-buffer processing cost, but the moderation of interrupts and
buffer batching can have a negative impact on latency-sensitive
scenarios.
Suggested Network Adapter Features for Server Roles

Table 7 lists high-performance network adapter features that can

improve performance in terms of throughput, latency, or scalability
for some server roles.
Table 7. Benefits from Network Adapter Features for Different
Server Roles
Server role
Checksum Large Send
Receive-side Receive
offload
Offload (LSO) scaling (RSS) Segment
Coalescing
(RSC)

File server

Web server

Mail server
(short-lived
connections)

Database
server

FTP server

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 32

Media server

Disclaimer The recommendations in Table 7 are intended to serve

as guidance only for choosing the most suitable technology for
specific server roles under a predetermined traffic pattern. The
users experience can be different, depending on workload
characteristics and the hardware that is used.

Tuning the Network Adapter

You can optimize network throughput and resource usage by tuning
the network adapter, if any tuning options are exposed by the
adapter. Remember that the correct tuning settings depend on the
network adapter, the workload, the host computer resources, and
your performance goals.

Enabling Offload Features

Turning on network adapter offload features is usually beneficial.
Sometimes, however, the network adapter is not powerful enough to
handle the offload capabilities with high throughput. For example,
enabling segmentation offload can reduce the maximum sustainable
throughput on some network adapters because of limited hardware
resources. However, if the reduced throughput is not expected to be
a limitation, you should enable offload capabilities, even for such
network adapters.
Note Some network adapters require offload features to be
independently enabled for send and receive paths.
Enabling RSS for Web Scenarios

RSS can improve web scalability and performance when there are
fewer network adapters than logical processors on the server. When
all the web traffic is going through the RSS-capable network
adapters, incoming web requests from different connections can be
simultaneously processed across different CPUs. It is important to
note that due to the logic in RSS and HTTP for load distribution,
performance can be severely degraded if a non-RSS-capable network
adapter accepts web traffic on a server that has one or more RSScapable network adapters. We recommend that you use RSS-capable
network adapters or disable RSS from the Advanced Properties
tab. To determine whether a network adapter is RSS-capable, view
the RSS information on the Advanced Properties tab for the
device.
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 33

RSS Profiles and RSS Queues

RSS Profiles are new in Windows Server 2012. The default profile is
NUMA Static, which changes the default behavior from previous
versions of Windows. We suggest reviewing the available profiles and
understanding when they are beneficial. If your logical processors
seem to be underutilized for receive traffic, for example, as viewed
in Task Manager, you can try increasing the number of RSS queues
from the default of 2 to the maximum that is supported by your
network adapter. Your network adapter may have options to change
the number of RSS queues as part of the driver.

Increasing Network Adapter Resources

For network adapters that allow manual configuration of resources,
such as receive and send buffers, you should increase the allocated
resources. Some network adapters set their receive buffers low to
conserve allocated memory from the host. The low value results in
dropped packets and decreased performance. Therefore, for receiveintensive scenarios, we recommend that you increase the receive
buffer value to the maximum. If the adapter does not expose manual
resource configuration, it dynamically configures the resources, or it
is set to a fixed value that cannot be changed.
Enabling Interrupt Moderation

To control interrupt moderation, some network adapters expose

different interrupt moderation levels, buffer coalescing parameters
(sometimes separately for send and receive buffers), or both. You
should consider interrupt moderation for CPU-bound workloads, and
consider the trade-off between the host CPU savings and latency
versus the increased host CPU savings because of more interrupts
and less latency. If the network adapter does not perform interrupt
moderation, but it does expose buffer coalescing, increasing the
number of coalesced buffers allows more buffers per send or receive,
which improves performance.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 34

Workload Specific Tuning

Tuning for Low Latency Packet Processing within the operating system

The network adapter has a number of options to optimize operating

system-induced latency. This is the elapsed time between the
network driver processing an incoming packet and the network
driver sending the packet back. This time is usually measured in
microseconds. For comparison, the transmission time for packet
transmissions over long distances is usually measured in
milliseconds (an order of magnitude larger). This tuning will not
reduce the time a packet spends in transit.
Some tuning suggestions for microsecond-sensitive networks
include:

Set the computer BIOS to High Performance, with C-states

disabled. However, note that this is system and BIOS
dependent, and some systems will provide higher
performance if the operating system controls power
management. You can check and adjust your power
management settings from Control Panel or by using the
powercfg command.

Set the operating system power management profile to High

Performance System. Note that this will not work properly
if the system BIOS has been set to disable operating system
control of power management.

Enable Static Offloads, for example, UDP Checksums, TCP

Checksums, and Send Large Offload (LSO)

Enable RSS if the traffic is multi-streamed, such as highvolume multicast receive

Disable the Interrupt Moderation setting for network card

drivers that require the lowest possible latency. Remember,
this can use more CPU time and it represents a tradeoff.

Handle network adapter interrupts and DPCs on a core

processor that shares CPU cache with the core that is being
used by the program (user thread) that is handling the
packet. CPU affinity tuning can be used to direct a process to
certain logical processors in conjunction with RSS
configuration to accomplish this. Using the same core for the
interrupt, DPC, and user mode thread exhibits worse
performance as load increases because the ISR, DPC, and
thread contend for the use of the core.

System Management Interrupts

Many hardware systems use System Management Interrupts (SMI)
for a variety of maintenance functions, including reporting of error
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 35

correction code (ECC) memory errors, legacy USB compatibility, fan

control, and BIOS controlled power management. The SMI is the
highest priority interrupt on the system and places the CPU in a
management mode, which preempts all other activity while it runs
an interrupt service routine, typically contained in BIOS.
Unfortunately, this can result in latency spikes of 100 microseconds
or more. If you need to achieve the lowest latency, you should
request a BIOS version from your hardware provider that reduces
SMIs to the lowest degree possible. These are frequently referred to
as low latency BIOS or SMI free BIOS. In some cases, it is not
possible for a hardware platform to eliminate SMI activity altogether
because it is used to control essential functions (for example, cooling
fans).
Note The operating system can exert no control over SMIs because
the logical processor is running in a special maintenance mode,
which prevents operating system intervention.

Tuning TCP
TCP Receive Window Auto-Tuning

Prior to Windows Server 2008, the network stack used a fixed-size

receive-side window that limited the overall potential throughput for
connections. One of the most significant changes to the TCP stack is
TCP receive window auto-tuning. You can calculate the total
throughput of a single connection when you use this fixed size
default as:
Total achievable throughput in bytes = TCP window * (1 /
connection latency)
For example, the total achievable throughput is only 51 Mbps on a
1 GB connection with 10 ms latency (a reasonable value for a large
corporate network infrastructure). With auto-tuning, however, the
receive-side window is adjustable, and it can grow to meet the
demands of the sender. It is entirely possible for a connection to
achieve a full line rate of a 1 GB connection. Network usage
scenarios that might have been limited in the past by the total
achievable throughput of TCP connections can now fully use the
network.

Windows Filtering Platform

The Windows Filtering Platform (WFP) that was introduced in
Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 provides APIs to nonApril 12, 2013
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 36

Microsoft independent software vendors (ISVs) to create packet

processing filters. Examples include firewall and antivirus software.
Note A poorly written WFP filter can significantly decrease a
servers networking performance.
For more information, see Windows Filtering Platform in the Windows
Dev Center.
TCP Parameters

The following registry keywords from Windows Server 2003 are no

longer supported, and they are ignored in Windows Server 2012,
Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008:

TcpWindowSize

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters

NumTcbTablePartitions

HKLM\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters

MaxHashTableSize

HKLM\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters

Network-Related Performance Counters

This section lists the counters that are relevant to managing network
performance.
Resource Utilization

IPv4, IPv6
o

Datagrams Received/sec

Datagrams Sent/sec

TCPv4, TCPv6
o

Segments Received/sec

Segments Sent/sec

Segments Retransmitted/sec

Network Interface(*), Network Adapter(*)

o

Bytes Received/sec

Bytes Sent/sec

Packets Received/sec
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 37

Packets Sent/sec

Output Queue Length

This counter is the length of the output packet queue (in

packets). If this is longer than 2, delays occur. You should
find the bottleneck and eliminate it if you can. Because
NDIS queues the requests, this length should always be 0.

Processor Information
o

% Processor Time

Interrupts/sec

DPCs Queued/sec

This counter is an average rate at which DPCs were added

to the logical processor's DPC queue. Each logical
processor has its own DPC queue. This counter measures
the rate at which DPCs are added to the queue, not the
number of DPCs in the queue. It displays the difference
between the values that were observed in the last two
samples, divided by the duration of the sample interval.
Potential Network Problems

Network Interface(*), Network Adapter(*)

o

Packets Received Discarded

Packets Received Errors

Packets Outbound Discarded

Packets Outbound Errors

WFPv4, WFPv6
o

UDPv4, UDPv6
o

Packets Discarded/sec

Datagrams Received Errors

TCPv4, TCPv6
o

Connection Failures

Connections Reset

Network QoS Policy

o

Packets dropped

Packets dropped/sec
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Per Processor Network Interface Card Activity

o

Low Resource Receive Indications/sec

Low Resource Received Packets/sec

Microsoft Winsock BSP

o

Dropped Datagrams

Dropped Datagrams/sec

Rejected Connections

Rejected Connections/sec

Receive Side Coalescing (RSC) performance

Network Adapter(*)
o

TCP Active RSC Connections

TCP RSC Average Packet Size

TCP RSC Coalesced Packets/sec

TCP RSC Exceptions/sec

Performance Tools for Network Workloads

Tuning for NTttcp
NTttcp is a Winsock-based port of ttcp to Windows. It helps measure
network driver performance and throughput on different network
topologies and hardware setups. It provides the customer with a
multithreaded, asynchronous performance workload for measuring
an achievable data transfer rate on an existing network setup.
For more information, see How to Use NTttcp to Test Network
Performance in the Windows Dev Center.
When setting up NTttcp, consider the following:

A single thread should be sufficient for optimal throughput.

Multiple threads are required only for single-to-many clients.

Posting enough user receive buffers (by increasing the value

passed to the -a option) reduces TCP copying.

You should not excessively post user receive buffers because

the first buffers that are posted would return before you need
to use other buffers.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 39

It is best to bind each set of threads to a logical processor

(the second delimited parameter in the -m option).

Each thread creates a logical processor that connects to

(listens) a different port.

Table 8. Example Syntax for NTttcp Sender and Receiver

Syntax
Details

Example Syntax for a

Sender
NTttcps m 1,0,10.1.2.3
a2

Example Syntax for

a Receiver
NTttcpr m 1,0,10.1.2.3 a
6 fr

Single thread.
Bound to CPU 0.
Connects to a computer that uses IP
10.1.2.3.
Posts two send-overlapped buffers.
Default buffer size: 64 K.
Default number of buffers to
send: 20 K.
Single thread.
Bound to CPU 0.
Binds on local computer to IP
10.1.2.3.
Posts six receive-overlapped buffers.
Default buffer size: 64 KB.
Default number of buffers to
receive: 20 K.
Posts full-length (64 K) receive
buffers.

Note Make sure that you enable all offloading features on the
network adapter.

TCP/IP Window Size

For 1 GB adapters, the settings shown in Table 8 should provide good
throughput because NTttcp sets the default TCP window size to 64 K
through a specific logical processor option (SO_RCVBUF) for the
connection. This provides good performance on a low-latency
network. In contrast, for high-latency networks or for 10 GB
adapters, the default TCP window size value for NTttcp yields less
than optimal performance. In both cases, you must adjust the TCP
window size to allow for the larger bandwidth delay product. You can
statically set the TCP window size to a large value by using the -rb
option. This option disables TCP Window Auto-Tuning, and we
recommend using it only if the user fully understands the resultant
change in TCP/IP behavior. By default, the TCP window size is set at a
sufficient value and adjusts only under heavy load or over highlatency links.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 40

Server Performance Advisor 3.0

Microsoft Server Performance Advisor (SPA) 3.0 helps IT
administrators collect metrics to identify, compare, and diagnose
potential performance issues in a Windows Server 2012, Windows
Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2008 deployment. SPA generates
comprehensive diagnostic reports and charts, and it provides
recommendations to help you quickly analyze issues and develop
corrective actions.
For more information, see Server Performance Advisor 3.0 in the
Windows Dev Center.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 41

Performance Tuning for the Storage Subsystem

Decisions about how to design or configure storage software and
hardware usually consider performance. Performance is improved or
degraded as a result of trade-offs between multiple factors such as
cost, reliability, availability, power, or ease-of-use. There are many
components involved in handling storage requests as they work their
way through the storage stack to the hardware, and trade-offs are
made between such factors at each level. File cache management,
file system architecture, and volume management translate
application calls into individual storage access requests. These
requests traverse the storage driver stack and generate streams of
commands that are presented to the disk storage subsystem. The
sequence and quantity of calls and the subsequent translation can
improve or degrade performance.
Figure 4 shows the storage architecture, which includes many
components in the driver stack.
File System Drivers

NTFS

FASTFAT

Volume Snapshot and Management Drivers

VOLSNAP

VOLMGR

VOLMGRX

Partition and Class Drivers

PARTMGR CLASSPNP

Port Driver

STORPORT

DISK

SPACEPORT

Adapter Interface

Miniport Driver

Figure 4. Storage driver stack

The layered driver model in Windows sacrifices some performance

for maintainability and ease-of-use (in terms of incorporating drivers
of varying types into the stack). The following sections discuss
tuning guidelines for storage workloads.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 42

Choosing Storage
The most important considerations in choosing storage systems
include:

Understanding the characteristics of current and future

storage workloads.

Understanding that application behavior is essential for

storage subsystem planning and performance analysis.

Providing necessary storage space, bandwidth, and latency

characteristics for current and future needs.

Selecting a data layout scheme (such as striping),

redundancy architecture (such as mirroring), and backup
strategy.

Using a procedure that provides the required performance

and data recovery capabilities.

Using power guidelines; that is, calculating the expected

average power required in total and per-unit volume (such as
watts per rack).

For example, when compared to 3.5-inch disks, 2.5-inch disks

have greatly reduced power requirements, but they can also be
packed more compactly into racks or servers, which can increase
cooling requirements per rack or per server chassis.
The better you understand the workloads on a specific server or set
of servers, the more accurately you can plan. The following are some
important workload characteristics:

Read vs. Write ratio

Sequential vs. random access

Typical request sizes

Request concurrency, interarrival rates, and patterns of

request arrival rates

Estimating the Amount of Data to Be Stored

When you estimate how much data will be stored on a new server,
consider these issues:

How much data you will move to the new server from existing
servers

How much data you will store on the server in the future

A general guideline is to assume that growth will be faster in the

future than it was in the past. Investigate whether your organization
plans to hire many employees, whether any groups in your
organization are planning large projects that will require additional
storage, and so on.
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 43

You must also consider how much space is used by operating system
files, applications, redundancy, log files, and other factors. Table 9
describes some factors that affect server storage capacity.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 44

Table 9. Factors that Affect Server Storage Capacity

Factor
Required storage capacity

Operating
system
files

Page file

Memory
dump

Application
s
Log files

Data layout
and
redundanc
y
Shadow
copies

At least 15 GB.
To provide space for optional components, future
service packs, and other items, plan for an additional
3 to 5 GB for the operating system volume. A
Windows Server installation can require even more
space for temporary files.
For smaller servers, 1.5 times the amount of RAM, by
default.
For servers that have hundreds of gigabytes of
memory, you might be able to eliminate the page
file; otherwise, the page file might be limited
because of space constraints (available disk
capacity). The benefit of a page file of larger than
50 GB is unclear.
Depending on the memory dump file option that you
have chosen, use an amount as large as the physical
memory plus 1 MB.
On servers that have very large amounts of memory,
full memory dumps become intractable because of
the time that is required to create, transfer, and
analyze the dump file.
Varies according to the application.
Example applications include backup and disk quota
software, database applications, and optional
components.
Varies according to the applications that create the
log file.
Some applications let you configure a maximum log
file size. You must make sure that you have enough
free space to store the log files.
Varies depending on cost, performance, reliability,
availability, and power goals.
For more information, see Choosing the Raid Level
later in this guide.
10 percent of the volume, by default, but we
recommend increasing this size based on frequency
of snapshots and rate of disk data updates.

Choosing a Storage Solution

There are many considerations in choosing a storage solution that
matches the expected workload. The range of storage solutions that
are available to enterprises is immense.
Some administrators will choose to deploy a traditional storage
array, backed by SAS or SATA hard drives and directly attached or
accessed through a separately managed Fibre Channel or iSCSI
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 45

fabric. The storage array typically manages the redundancy and

performance characteristics internally. Figure 5 illustrates some
storage deployment models that are available in Windows Server
2012.

Figure 5. Storage deployment models

Alternatively, Windows Server 2012 introduces a new technology
called Storage Spaces, which provides platform storage
virtualization. This enables customers to deploy storage solutions
that are cost-efficient, highly-available, resilient, and performant by
using commodity SAS/SATA hard drives and JBOD enclosures. For
more information, see Storage Spaces later in this guide.
Table 10 describes some of the options and considerations for a
traditional storage array solution.
Table 10. Options for Storage Array Selection
Option
Description

SAS or SATA

Hardware
RAID
capabilities
Maximum
storage
capacity
Storage
bandwidth

These serial protocols improve performance, reduce

cable length limitations, and reduce cost. SAS and
SATA drives are replacing much of the SCSI market.
In general, SATA drives are built with higher capacity
and lower cost targets than SAS drives. The
premium benefit associated with SAS is typically
attributed to performance.
For maximum performance and reliability, the
enterprise storage controllers should offer resiliency
capabilities. RAID levels 0, 1, 0+1, 5, and 6 are
described in Table 11.
Total usable storage space.
The maximum peak and sustained bandwidths at
which storage can be accessed are determined by
the number of physical disks in the array, the speed
of the controllers, the type of bus protocol (such as
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 46

SAS or SATA), the hardware-managed or softwaremanaged RAID, and the adapters that are used to
connect the storage array to the system. The more
important values are the achievable bandwidths for
the specific workloads to be run on servers that
access the storage.

Hardware Array Capabilities

Most storage solutions provide some resiliency and performanceenhancing capabilities. In particular, storage arrays may contain
varying types and capacities of caches that can serve to boost
performance by servicing reads and writes at memory speeds rather
than storage speeds. In some cases, the addition of noninterruptible
power supplies or batteries are required to keep the additional
performance from coming at a reliability cost.
A hardware-managed array is presented to the operating system as
a single drive, which can be termed a logical unit number (LUN),
virtual disk, or any number of other names for a single contiguously
addressed block storage device.
Table 11 lists some common options for the storage arrays.
Table 11. Storage Array Performance and Resiliency Options (RAID
levels)
Option
Description

Just a bunch
of disks
(JBOD)

This is not a RAID level. It provides a baseline for

measuring the performance, reliability, availability,
cost, capacity, and energy consumption of various
resiliency and performance configurations. Individual
disks are referenced separately, not as a combined
entity.
In some scenarios, a JBOD configuration actually
provides better performance than striped data layout
schemes. For example, when serving multiple lengthy
sequential streams, performance is best when a
single disk services each stream. Also, workloads that
are composed of small, random requests do not
experience performance improvements when they
are moved from a JBOD configuration to a striped
data layout.
A JBOD configuration is susceptible to static and
dynamic hot spots (frequently accessed ranges of
disk blocks) that reduce available storage bandwidth
due to the resulting load imbalance between the
physical drives.
Any physical disk failure results in data loss in a JBOD
configuration. However, the loss is limited to the
failed drives. In some scenarios, a JBOD configuration
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 47

provides a level of data isolation that can be

interpreted as offering greater reliability than striped
configurations.
Spanning

This is not a RAID level. It is the concatenation of

multiple physical disks into a single logical disk. Each
disk contains one continuous set of sequential logical
blocks. Spanning has the same performance and
reliability characteristics as a JBOD configuration.

Striping
(RAID 0)

Striping is a data layout scheme in which sequential

logical blocks of a specified size (the stripe unit) are
distributed in a circular fashion across multiple disks.
It presents a combined logical disk that stripes disk
accesses over a set of physical disks. The overall
storage load is balanced across all physical drives.
For most workloads, a striped data layout provides
better performance than a JBOD configuration if the
stripe unit is appropriately selected based on server
workload and storage hardware characteristics. The
overall storage load is balanced across all physical
drives.
This is the least expensive RAID configuration
because all of the disk capacity is available for storing
the single copy of data.
Because no capacity is allocated for redundant data,
striping does not provide data recovery mechanisms
such as those provided in the other resiliency
schemes. Also, the loss of any disk results in data loss
on a larger scale than a JBOD configuration because
the entire file system or raw volume spread across n
physical disks is disrupted; every nth block of data in
the file system is missing.

Mirroring
(RAID 1)

Mirroring is a data layout scheme in which each

logical block exists on multiple physical disks
(typically two, but sometimes three in mission-critical
environments). It presents a virtual disk that consists
of a set of two or more mirrored disks.
Mirroring often has worse bandwidth and latency for
write operations when compared to striping or JBOD.
This is because data from each write request must be
written to a pair of physical disks. Request latency is
based on the slowest of the two (or more) write
operations that are necessary to update all copies of
the updated data blocks. In more complex
implementations, write latencies may be reduced by
write logging or battery-backed write caching, or by
relaxing the requirement for dual write completions
before returning the I/O completion notification.
Mirroring has the potential to provide faster read
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 48

operations than striping because it can (with a

sufficiently intelligent controller) read from the least
busy physical disk of the mirrored pair, or the disk
that will experience the shortest mechanical
positioning delays.
Mirroring is the most expensive resiliency scheme in
terms of physical disks because half (or more) of the
disk capacity stores redundant data copies. A
mirrored array can survive the loss of any single
physical disk. In larger configurations, it can survive
multiple disk failures if the failures do not involve all
the disks of a specific mirrored disk set.
Mirroring has greater power requirements than a nonmirrored storage configuration. It doubles the number
of disks; therefore, it doubles the required amount of
idle power. Also, mirroring performs duplicate write
operations that require twice the power of nonmirrored write operations.
In the simplest implementations, mirroring is the
fastest of the resiliency schemes in terms of recovery
time after a physical disk failure. Only a single disk
(the other part of the broken mirror pair) must
participate in bringing up the replacement drive. The
second disk is typically still available to service data
requests throughout the rebuilding process. In more
complex implementations, multiple drives may
participate in the recovery phase to help spread out
the load for the duration of the rebuild.
Striped
mirroring
(RAID 0+1 or
10)

The combination of striping and mirroring is intended

to provide the performance benefits of striping and
the redundancy benefits of mirroring.
The cost and power characteristics are similar to
those of mirroring.

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Rotated
parity or
parity disks
(RAID 5)

An array with rotated parity (denoted as RAID 5 for

expediency) presents a logical disk that is composed
of multiple physical disks that have data striped
across the disks in sequential blocks (stripe units) in a
manner similar to simple striping (RAID 0). However,
the underlying physical disks have parity information
spread throughout the disk array, as in the example
shown in Figure 6.
For read requests, RAID 5 has characteristics that
resemble those of striping. However, small RAID 5
writes are much slower than those of other resiliency
schemes because each parity block that corresponds
to the modified data block(s) must also be updated.
This process requires three additional disk requests in
the simplest implementation, regardless of the size of
the array. Each small write requires two reads (old
data and old parity) and two writes (new data and
new parity). Because multiple physical disk requests
are generated for every logical write, bandwidth is
reduced by up to 75 percent.
RAID 5 arrays provide data recovery capabilities
because data can be reconstructed from the parity.
Such arrays can survive the loss of any one physical
disk, as opposed to mirroring, which can survive the
loss of multiple disks if the mirrored pair (or triplet) is
not lost.
RAID 5 requires additional time to recover from a lost
physical disk compared to mirroring because the data
and parity from the failed disk can be re-created only
by reading all the other disks in their entirety. In a
basic implementation, performance during the
rebuilding period is severely reduced due to the
rebuilding traffic and because the reads and writes
that target the data that was stored on the failed disk
must read all the disks (an entire stripe) to recreate the missing data. More complex
implementations incorporating multiple arrays may
take advantage of more parallelism from other disks
to help speed up recovery time.
RAID 5 is more cost efficient than mirroring because it
requires only an additional single disk per array,
instead of double (or more) the total number of disks
in an array.
Power guidelines: RAID 5 might consume more or less
energy than a mirrored configuration, depending on
the number of drives in the array, the characteristics
of the drives, and the characteristics of the workload.
RAID 5 might use less energy if it uses significantly
fewer drives. The additional disk adds to the required
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 50

amount of idle power as compared to a JBOD array,

but it requires less additional idle power versus a full
mirrored set of drives. However, RAID 5 requires four
accesses for every random write request (in the basic
implementation) to read the old data, read the old
parity, compute the new parity, write the new data,
and write the new parity.
This means that the power needed beyond idle to
perform the write operations is up to four times that
of a JBOD configuration or two times that of a
mirrored configuration.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 51

Option

Description

(RAID 5
continued)

(Depending on the workload, there may be only two

seeks, not four, that require moving the disk
actuator.) Thus, although unlikely in most
configurations, RAID 5 might have greater energy
consumption. This might happen if a heavy workload
is being serviced by a small array or an array of disks
with idle power that is significantly lower than their
active power.

Double
rotated
parity, or
double
parity disks
(RAID 6)

Traditional RAID 6 is basically RAID 5 with additional

redundancy built in. Instead of a single block of parity
per stripe of data, two blocks of redundancy are
included. The second block uses a different
redundancy code (instead of parity), which enables
data to be reconstructed after the loss of any two
disks. More complex implementations may take
advantage of algorithmic or hardware optimizations
to reduce the overhead that is associated with
maintaining the extra redundant data.
As far as power and performance, the same general
statements can be made for RAID 6 that were made
for RAID 5, but to a larger magnitude.

Rotated redundancy schemes (such as RAID 5 and RAID 6) are the

most difficult to understand and plan for. Figure 6 shows a RAID 5
example, where the sequence of logical blocks presented to the host
is A0, B0, C0, D0, A1, B1, C1, E1, and so on.

Figure 6. RAID 5 overview

Choosing the Right Resiliency Scheme

Each RAID level involves a trade-off between the following factors:

Performance

Reliability

Availability

Cost
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 52

Capacity

Power

To determine the best array configuration for your servers, evaluate

the Read and Write loads of all data types and then decide how
much you can spend to achieve the performance, availability, and
reliability that your organization requires. Table 12 describes
common configurations and their relative performance, reliability,
availability, cost, capacity, and energy consumption.
Table 12. RAID Trade-Offs
Configurat
ion

Performanc
e

JBOD

Striping
(RAID 0)

Requireme
nts:

Two-disk
minimum

Reliability

Availability

Cost,
capacity,
and power
Pros:
Pros:
Pros:
Pros:
Concurre
Data

Single

Minimum
nt
isolation;
loss does
cost
sequential
single loss
not prevent
Minimum
streams to
affects one
access to
power
separate
disk
other disks
disks
Cons:
Cons:
Data loss
Susceptib
after one
ility to load
failure
imbalance
Pros:
Pros:
Balanced

Minimum
load
cost
Potential

Minimum
for better
power
response
times,
throughput,
and
concurrency
Cons:
Cons:

Data loss
Single
Cons:
after one
loss
Difficu
failure
prevents
lt stripe unit
access to
Single
size choice
entire array
loss affects
the entire
array

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Configurat
ion
Mirroring
(RAID 1)

Performanc
e

Pros:
Two
data
sources for
every read
request (up
to 100%
performanc
e
improveme
nt)

Requireme
nts:

Two-disk
minimum

Cons:

Reliability

Availability

Pros:

Pros:

Single
loss and
often
multiple
losses (in
large
configuratio
ns) are
survivable

Cost,
capacity,
and power

Single
loss and
often
multiple
losses (in
large
configuratio
ns) do not
Cons:
prevent

Twice
access
the cost of
RAID 0 or
JBOD

Up to
twice the
power

Writes
must
update all
mirrors
(simplest
implementa
-tion)
Striped
Pros:
Pros:
Pros:
mirroring

Two
Single loss Single loss
(RAID 0+1
data
and often
and often
or 10)
sources for
multiple
multiple
every read
losses (in
losses (in
Requireme
request (up
large
large
nts:
to 100%
configuratio
configuratio

Fourperformanc
ns) are
ns) do not
disk
e
survivable
prevent
minimum
improveme
access
nt)

Balan
ced load

Potent
ial for
better
response
Cons:
times,

Twice
throughput,
the
cost
of
and
RAID
0
or
concurrency
JBOD
Up to twice
Cons:
the power

Writes
must
update
mirrors

Difficu
lt stripe unit
size choice

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Configurat
ion

Performanc
e

Rotated
Parity or

Parity Disks
(RAID 5)

Requireme
nts:

One
additional
disk
required.

Thre
e-disk
minimum

Reliability

Availability

Cost,
capacity,
and power
Pros:
Pros:
Pros:
Pros:
Balan
Single
Single
Only
ced load
loss
loss does
one more
survivable;
not prevent
disk to
Potent
active write
access
power
ial for
requests
better read
might still
response
become
times,
corrupted
throughput,
and
concurrency
Cons:
Cons:

Multip Cons:
Cons:
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Up to
le losses
Up to
le losses
prevent
four times
75% write
affect entire
access to
the power
performanc
array
entire array
for write
e reduction
requests
After a
To
because of
(excluding
Readsingle loss,
speed
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Modifyarray is
reconstructi
power)
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vulnerable
on,
until
application
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access
ased read
ed
might be
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slowed or
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stopped
mode
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sectors
must be
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on;
potential
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slowdown
Dange
r of data in
invalid state
after power
loss and
recovery if
not
carefully
implemente
d

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 55

Configurat
ion

Performanc
e

Mutiple
Rotated

parity or
double

parity disks
(RAID 6)
Requireme
nts:

Two
additional
disks
required

Five-
disk
minimum

Reliability

Availability

Cost,
capacity,
and power
Pros:
Pros:
Pros:
Pros:
Balan
Single
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ced load
loss
loss does
two more
survivable;
not prevent
disks to
Potent
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ial for
requests
better read
might still
response
be
times,
corrupted
throughput,
and
concurrency
Cons:
Cons:
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Cons:
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Up to
than two
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than two
losses
six times
83% write
losses
prevent
the power
performanc
affect entire
access to
for write
e reduction
array
entire array
requests
because of
(excluding
After two
To speed
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RMW
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power)
array is
on,
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vulnerable
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ased read
until
access
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e in failure
ed
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mode
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on;
potential for
major
slowdown
Danger of
data in
invalid state
after power
loss and
recovery if
not
carefully
implemente
d

The following are sample uses for various RAID levels:

JBOD configuration: Concurrent video streaming

Striping (RAID 0): Temporary or reconstructable data,

workloads that can develop hot spots in the data, and
workloads with high degrees of unrelated concurrency
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Mirroring (RAID 1): Database logs, critical data, and

concurrent sequential streams

Striped mirroring (RAID 0+1): A general purpose combination

of performance and reliability for critical data, workloads with
hot spots, and high-concurrency workloads

Rotated parity or parity disks (RAID 5): Web pages,

semicritical data, workloads without small writes, scenarios in
which capital and operating costs are an overriding factor,
and read-dominated workloads

Multiple rotated parity or double parity disks (RAID 6): Data

mining, critical data (assuming quick replacement or hot
spares), workloads without small writes, scenarios in which
cost or power is a major factor, and read-dominated
workloads. RAID 6 might also be appropriate for massive
datasets, where the cost of mirroring is high and double-disk
failure is a real concern (due to the time required to complete
an array parity rebuild for disk drives greater than 1 TB).

If you use more than two disks, striped mirroring is usually a better
solution than only mirroring.
To determine the number of physical disks that you should include in
an array, consider the following information:

Bandwidth (and often response time) improves as you add

disks.

Reliability (in terms of mean time to failure for the array)

decreases as you add disks.

Usable storage capacity increases as you add disks, but so

does cost.

For striped arrays, the trade-off is between data isolation

(small arrays) and better load balancing (large arrays). For
mirrored arrays, the trade-off is between better cost per
capacity (for basic mirrors, which is a depth of two physical
disks) and the ability to withstand multiple disk failures (for
depths of three or four physical disks). Read and Write
performance issues can also affect mirrored array size. For
arrays with rotated parity (RAID 5), the trade-off is between
better data isolation and mean time between failures (MTBF)
for small arrays, versus better cost, capacity, and power for
large arrays.

Because hard disk failures are not independent, array sizes

must be limited when the array is made up of actual physical
disks (that is, a bottom-tier array). The exact amount of this
limit is very difficult to determine.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 57

The following is the array size guideline with no available hardware

reliability data:

Bottom-tier RAID 5 arrays should not extend beyond a single

desk-side storage tower or a single row in a rack-mount
configuration. This means approximately 8 to 14 physical
disks for 3.5-inch storage enclosures. Smaller 2.5-inch disks
can be racked more densely; therefore, they might require
being divided into multiple arrays per enclosure.

Bottom-tier mirrored arrays should not extend beyond two

towers or rack-mount rows, with data being mirrored between
towers or rows when possible. These guidelines help avoid or
reduce the decrease in time between catastrophic failures
that is caused by using multiple buses, power supplies, and
so on from separate storage enclosures.

Selecting a Stripe Unit Size

Hardware-managed arrays allow stripe unit sizes ranging from 4 KB
to more than 1 MB. The ideal stripe unit size maximizes the disk
activity without unnecessarily breaking up requests by requiring
multiple disks to service a single request. For example, consider the
following:

One long stream of sequential requests on a JBOD

configuration uses only one disk at a time. To keep all striped
disks in use for such a workload, the stripe unit should be at
least 1/n where n is the request size.

For n streams of small serialized random requests, if n is

significantly greater than the number of disks and if there are
no hot spots, striping does not increase performance over a
JBOD configuration. However, if hot spots exist, the stripe unit
size must maximize the possibility that a request will not be
split while it minimizes the possibility of a hot spot falling
entirely within one or two stripe units. You might choose a low
multiple of the typical request size, such as five times or ten
times, especially if the requests are aligned on some
boundary (for example, 4 KB or 8 KB).

If requests are large, and the average or peak number of

outstanding requests is smaller than the number of disks, you
might need to split some requests across disks so that all
disks are being used. You can interpolate an appropriate
stripe unit size from the previous two examples. For example,
if you have 10 disks and 5 streams of requests, split each
request in half (that is, use a stripe unit size equal to half the
request size). Note that this assumes some consistency in
alignment between the request boundaries and the stripe
unit boundaries.

Optimal stripe unit size increases with concurrency and

typical request sizes.
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 58

Optimal stripe unit size decreases with sequentiality and with

good alignment between data boundaries and stripe unit
boundaries.

Determining the Volume Layout

Placing individual workloads into separate volumes has advantages.
For example, you can use one volume for the operating system or
paging space and one or more volumes for shared user data,
applications, and log files. The benefits include fault isolation, easier
capacity planning, and easier performance analysis.
You can place different types of workloads into separate volumes on
different physical disks. Using separate disks is especially important
for any workload that creates heavy sequential loads (such as log
files), where a single set of physical disks can be dedicated to
handling the updates to the log files. Placing the page file on a
separate virtual disk might provide some improvements in
performance during periods of high paging.
There is also an advantage to combining workloads on the same
physical disks, if the disks do not experience high activity over the
same time period. This is basically the partnering of hot data with
cold data on the same physical drives.
The first partition on a volume that is utilizing hard disks usually
uses the outermost tracks of the underlying disks, and therefore it
provides better performance. Obviously, this guidance does not
apply to solid-state storage.

Choosing and Designing Storage Tiers

With the cost of solid state devices dropping, it is important to
consider including multiple tiers of devices into a storage
deployment to achieve better balance between performance, cost,
and energy consumption. Traditional storage arrays offer the ability
to aggregate and tier heterogenous storage, but Storage Spaces
provides a more robust implementation.

Storage Spaces
Windows Server 2012 introduces a new technology called Storage
Spaces, which provides flexible configuration options and supports a
range of hardware choices, while providing the user with similar
sophisticated storage features that were previously available only
with more traditional storage solutions.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 59

Figure 7. Storage Spaces deployment model

Storage Spaces Configuration Options

Storage Spaces provides multiple configuration options that can
enhance performance when a storage space is created. These
include the stripe unit size and number of columns to utilize in a
storage space.
Storage Spaces allows a stripe unit size of 16 KB to 16 MB, with the
default being 256 KB. Storage Spaces also provides tiering support.
It gives administrators control over data placement or tiering at the
Space granularity. If a workload requires high-performance storage,
the space can be allocated from solid-state drives or 15 K RPM disks.
Similarly, if the workload will have less intensive access (such as
archiving), the space can be allocated from near-line disks. This level
of tiering allows organizations to easily lower costs by only
purchasing hardware that is necessary for the workload.
A storage space can also be configured at creation time with the
number of columns that constitute the space. The number of
columns corresponds to the number of physical disks among which
to stripe data. For a mirrored storage space, the number of physical
disks to use is equal to the number of copies (2 or 3) multiplied by
the number of columns specified. For example, 4 columns on a twoway mirror will utilize 8 physical disks. By default, Storage Spaces
will try to use 4 columns per copy in a two-way mirrored space if
sufficient disks are available, but it will reduce that number as
necessary. The number of columns can range from 1 column to 128
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 60

per copy. The following Windows PowerShell script can be used to

configure stripe size and number of columns when creating a storage
space:
New-Virtualdisk Interleave (XKB) NumberofColumns Y

Figure 8. Tiered Storage Spaces on different types of media

Deployment Elements: A New Unit of Scale

Storage Spaces also enables a new unit of scale in Windows Server
2012, called Deployment Elements. Combining the virtualization
capabilities of Storage Spaces, failover clustering, and cluster shared
volumes (CSV), enterprises can deploy a resilient, performant, and
elastic solution that can scale easily and quickly by using simple,
cost-effective building blocks.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 61

Figure 9. Deployment elements

Deployment Elements consist of 2 to 4 servers attached to shared
SAS JBOD configurations. By connecting each deployment element
together using a high-speed, low-latency network, Deployment
Elements can be combined into a CSV cluster consisting of up to 64
servers, supporting up to 4,000 virtual machines.

Figure 10. Components and configurations for deployment

elements
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 62

Storage Spaces provides similar types of resiliency options as

standalone array solutions, as described in the following table.
Option
Striped spaces

Description
Striping is a data layout scheme in which sequential
logical blocks of a specified size (the stripe unit) are laid
out in a circular fashion across multiple disks. It presents
a combined logical disk that stripes access over a set of
physical disks. The overall storage load is balanced
across all physical drives.

Mirrored spaces

Mirroring is a data layout scheme in which each logical

block exists on multiple physical disks. It presents a
logical virtual disk that consists of a set of two or more
mirrored disks. At a minimum, mirrored spaces can be
configured to be resilient to at least one (two-way mirror)
or two (three-way mirror) concurrent physical disk
failures. A mirrored space may survive the loss of even
more disks if all copies of a stripe unit are not
simultaneously lost.

Parity spaces

Parity spaces present a logical disk that is composed of

multiple physical disks that have data striped across the
disks in stripe units. However, the underlying physical
disks have parity information spread throughout the disk
array.
Parity spaces tends to have lower write performance than
mirrored spaces, because each parity block that
corresponds to the modified data block must also be
updated. This process requires additional disk requests;
however, parity spaces tend to be more space-efficient
than mirrored spaces.
Parity spaces provide data recovery capabilities because
data can be reconstructed from the parity. Parity spaces
can survive the loss of any one physical disk. Parity is
more cost efficient than mirroring because it requires only
one additional disk per virtual disk, instead of double (or
triple) the total number of disks in an array as with
mirroring.

Storage-Related Parameters and Performance Counters

This section describes performance counters that you can use for
workload characterization and capacity planning and to identify
potential bottlenecks.

I/O Priorities
Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows
Server 2008 can specify an internal priority level on individual I/Os.
The Windows Server operating system primarily uses this ability to
lower the priority of background I/O activity and to give precedence
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 63

to response-sensitive I/Os (for example, multimedia). However,

extensions to file system APIs let applications specify I/O priorities
per handle. The storage stack logic to sort out and manage I/O
priorities has overhead, so if some disks will be targeted by only a
single priority of I/Os (such as SQL Server database disks), you can
improve performance by disabling the I/O priority management for
those disks by setting the following registry entry to zero:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceClasses
\{Device GUID}\DeviceParameters\Classpnp\IdlePrioritySupported

Logical Disks and Physical Disks

On servers that have heavy I/O workloads, you should enable the
disk counters on a sampling basis or in specific scenarios to diagnose
storage-related performance issues. Continuously monitoring disk
counters can incur up to a few percent CPU overhead penalty.
The same counters are valuable in the logical disk and the physical
disk counter objects. Logical disk statistics are tracked at the volume
level, and physical disk statistics are tracked by the partition
manager.
The following counters are exposed through volume and partition
managers:

% Idle Time

This counter is of little value when multiple physical drives are

behind logical disks. Imagine a subsystem of 100 physical drives
presented to the operating system as five disks, each backed by
a 20-disk RAID 0+1 array. Now imagine that the administrator
spans the five disks to create one logical disk (volume x). One
can assume that any serious system that needs that many
physical disks has at least one outstanding request to volume x
at any given time. This makes the volume appear to be 0% idle,
when in fact the 100-disk array could be up to 99% idle with only
a single request outstanding.

% Disk Time, % Disk Read Time, % Disk Write Time

The % Disk Time counter is nothing more than the Avg. Disk
Queue Length counter multiplied by 100. It is the same value
displayed in a different scale.
If the Avg. Disk Queue Length is equal to 1, the % Disk Time will
equal 100. If the Avg. Disk Queue Length is 0.37, then the % Disk
Time will be 37. So if the Avg. Disk Queue length value is greater
than 1, the % Disk Time will be greater than 100%. The same
logic applies to the % Disk Read Time and % Disk Write Time
counters. Their data comes from the Avg. Disk Read Queue
Length and Avg. Disk Write Queue Length counters, respectively.
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Average Disk Bytes / { Read | Write | Transfer }

This counter collects average, minimum, and maximum request

sizes. If possible, you should observe individual or sub-workloads
separately. You cannot differentiate multimodal distributions by
using average values if the request types are consistently
interspersed.

Average Disk Queue Length, Average Disk { Read |

Write } Queue Length

These counters collect concurrency data, including peak loads

and workloads that contain significant bursts. These counters
represent the number of requests that are active below the driver
that takes the statistics. This means that the requests are not
necessarily queued; they could actually be in service or
completed and on the way back up the path. Possible active
locations include the following:

Waiting in an ATA port queue or a Storport queue

Waiting in a queue in a miniport driver

Waiting in a disk controller queue

Waiting in an array controller queue

Waiting in a hard disk queue (that is, on board a physical

disk)

Actively receiving service from a physical disk

Completed, but not yet back up the stack to where the

statistics are collected

It is important to note that these values are not strictly accurate;

rather, they are derived values. Avg. Disk Queue Length is equal
to (Disk Transfers/sec) * (Disk sec/Transfer). This is based on
Littles Law from the mathematical theory of queues. The same
derivation is performed for the Read and Write versions of this
counter. The main concern for interpreting these values is that
they make the assumption that the number of outstanding
requests is the same at the start and the end of each sampling
interval.
For guidelines, see Queue Lengths later in this guide.

Average Disk second / {Read | Write | Transfer}

These counters collect disk request response time data and

possibly extrapolate service time data. They are probably the
most straightforward indicators of storage subsystem
bottlenecks. If possible, you should observe individual or subworkloads separately. You cannot differentiate multimodal
distributions by using Perfmon if the requests are consistently
interspersed.
For guidelines, see Response Times later in this guide.

Current Disk Queue Length

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This counter instantly measures the number of active requests;

therefore, it is subject to extreme variance. This counter is of
limited use except to check for the existence of many short
bursts of activity or to validate specific instances of the Average
Disk Queue Length counter values. (As described earlier, these
values are derived rather than measured, and they rely on the
number of outstanding requests being equal at the start and end
of each sampling interval.)

Disk Bytes / second, Disk {Read | Write } Bytes /

second

This counter collects throughput data. If the sample time is long

enough, a histogram of the arrays response to specific loads
(queues, request sizes, and so on) can be analyzed. If possible,
you should observe individual or subworkloads separately.

Disk {Reads | Writes | Transfers } / second

This counter collects throughput data. If the sample time is long

enough, a histogram of the arrays response to specific loads
(queues, request sizes, and so on) can be analyzed. If possible,
you should observe individual or subworkloads separately.

Split I/O / second

This counter measures the rate of high-level I/Os split into

multiple low-level I/Os due to file fragmentation. It is useful only if
the value is not statistically significant in comparison to the disk
I/O rate. If it becomes significant, in terms of split I/Os per second
per physical disk, further investigation could be needed to
determine the size of the original requests that are being split
and the workload that is generating them.
Note If the standard stacked drivers scheme in Windows is
circumvented for a controller, monolithic drivers can assume
the role of partition manager or volume manager. If so, the
monolithic driver writer must supply the counters listed earlier
through the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
interface, or the counters will not be available.

Processor Information

% DPC Time, % Interrupt Time, % Privileged Time

If the interrupt time and deferred procedure call (DPC) time are a
large part of privileged time, the kernel is spending a long time
processing I/Os. Sometimes, it is best to keep interrupts and DPCs
affinitized to only a few CPUs on a multiprocessor system to
improve cache locality. At other times, it is best to distribute the
interrupts and DPCs among many CPUs to prevent the interrupt
and DPC activity from becoming a bottleneck on individual CPUs.

DPCs Queued / second

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This counter is another measurement of how DPCs are using CPU

time and kernel resources.

Interrupts / second

This counter is another measurement of how interrupts are using

CPU time and kernel resources. Modern disk controllers often
combine or coalesce interrupts so that a single interrupt
processes multiple I/O completions. Of course, there is a trade-off
between delaying interrupts (and therefore completions) and
amortizing CPU processing time.

Power Protection and Advanced Performance Option

The following two performance-related options for every disk are
located under Disk > Properties > Policies:

Enable write caching

Enable an advanced performance mode that assumes the

storage is protected against power failures

Enable write caching means that the storage hardware can indicate
to the operating system that a write request is complete, even
though the data has not been flushed from the volatile intermediate
hardware cache(s) to its final nonvolatile storage location. With this
action, a period of time passes during which a power failure or other
catastrophic event could result in data loss. However, this period is
typically fairly short because write caches in the storage hardware
are usually flushed during any period of idle activity. Cache flushes
are also requested frequently by the operating system, NTFS, or
some applications, to explicitly force writes to be written to the final
storage medium in a specific order. Alternately, hardware time-outs
at the cache level might force dirty data out of the caches.
Other than cache flush requests, the only means of synchronizing
writes is to tag them as write-through. Storage hardware is
supposed to guarantee that write-through request data has reached
nonvolatile storage (such as magnetic media on a disk platter)
before it indicates a successful request completion to the operating
system. Some commodity disks or disk controllers may not honor
write-through semantics. In particular, SATA and USB storage
components may not support the ForceUnitAccess flag that is used
to tag write-through requests in the hardware. Enterprise storage
subsystems typically use battery-backed write caching or use
SAS/SCSI/FC hardware to correctly maintain write-through semantics.
In Windows Server 2012, NTFS exclusively uses cache flushes to
protect its metadata.

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The advanced performance disk policy option is available only

when write caching is enabled. This option strips all write-through
flags from disk requests and removes all flush-cache commands from
the request stream. If you have power protection (such as an
uninterruptible power supply, or UPS) for all hardware write caches
along the I/O path, you do not need to worry about write-through
flags and cache flushes. By definition, any dirty data that resides in a
power-protected write cache is safe, and it appears to have occurred
in-order to the software. If power is lost to the final storage
location while the data is being flushed from a write cache, the
cache manager can retry the write operation after power has been
restored to the relevant storage components.

Block Alignment (DISKPART)

NTFS aligns its metadata and data clusters to partition boundaries in
increments of the cluster size (which is selected during file system
creation or set by default to 4 KB). In releases of the Windows Server
operating system earlier than Windows Server 2008, the partition
boundary offset for a specific disk partition could be misaligned
when it was compared to array disk stripe unit boundaries. This
caused small requests to be unintentionally split across multiple
disks. To force alignment, you were required to use diskpar.exe or
DiskPart.exe at the time the partition was created.
In Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows
Server 2008, partitions are created by default with a 1 MB offset,
which provides good alignment for the power-of-two stripe unit sizes
that are typically found in hardware. If the stripe unit size is set to a
size that is greater than 1 MB, the alignment issue is much less of an
issue because small requests rarely cross large stripe unit
boundaries.
Note Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, and
Windows Server 2008 default to a 64 KB offset if the disk is smaller
than 4 GB.
If alignment is still an issue, even with the default offset, you can use
DiskPart.exe to force alternative alignments when you create a
partition.

Solid-State Drives
Previously, the cost of large quantities of nonvolatile memory used
as block storage was prohibitive for most server configurations.
Exceptions included aerospace or military applications in which the
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high shock and vibration tolerance of solid-state storage is highly

desirable.
As the cost of flash memory continues to decrease, new hierarchies
of storage become feasible, where nonvolatile memory (NVM) is
used to improve the storage subsystem response time on servers.
The typical vehicle for incorporating NVM in a server is the solidstate drive (SSD). One cost-effective strategy is to place only the
hottest data of a workload into nonvolatile memory. In Windows
Server 2012, as in previous versions of Windows Server, partitioning
can be performed only by applications that store data on an SSD;
Windows operating systems do not try to dynamically determine
what data should optimally be stored on SSDs versus rotating media.
There are emerging non-Microsoft storage management products, in
software and hardware+software combinations, which allow data
placement and migration to be performed without human
intervention. This is called tiering.
Choosing suitable SSDs to complement the hierarchy is a tradeoff
between the cost of the additional storage layer, endurance of the
media (with associated servicing costs), improved responsiveness of
the system, and improved energy efficiency. Current server SSDs are
designed around one or more types of flash memory. Some
important flash memory characteristics include:

Cost per capacity is orders of magnitude higher than for the

rotational media, while SSD access times are 2-3 orders of
magnitude better for random I/Os.

Read latency is substantially higher than write latency.

Media lifetime is limited by the number of erase and write

operations.

SSDs are inherently parallel devices, and they operate better

with longer I/O queues.

Power consumption of an SSD may spike with load, especially

for random workloads. Contrary to many claims, an SSDs
power efficiency needs to be evaluated relative to the load,
and it is not always superior to that of a hard disk drive.

SSDs are commonly grouped by their designers along the axes of

performance (especially latency), price per capacity, and endurance.
Server grade SSDs are designed to withstand substantially higher I/O
pressure by overprovisioning flash media, which increases cost per
capacity. Therefore, server SSDs can support much higher random
write IOPS rates, while being marginally better at read rates than
desktop SSDs. Throughput characteristics of SSDs are improving with
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 69

time, with the rapid rate of changes currently in the industry making
it crucial to consult up-to-date performance, power, and reliability
comparison data.
Due to superior media performance, the interconnect to the SSD
plays an important role. While most of the client and entry-level
server designs settled on using SATA interconnect (SATA version 3.0
becoming dominant recently) as the most compatible, better
operation characteristics may be achieved by using newer, PCIebased interconnect schemes. PCIe SSDs bring substantial
advantages, like more scalable throughput, lower latency, and, in
some cases, improved energy efficiency relative to throughput. One
of the drawbacks of this technology is its relative immaturity,
creating vertically integrated silos based on proprietary driver
stacks. To evaluate PCIe SSDs, it is important to test complete
combinations of the storage device, server platform, and software
layer, including the impact of reliability and maintainability on the
total cost of ownership (TCO).

Trim and Unmap Capabilities

Windows Server 2012 provides storage allocation transparency to
storage devices, including traditional storage arrays, hard disk
drives, SSDs, and Storage Spaces. Although this transparency is
critical for reducing capacity utilization in thinly provisioned
environments, it can also have an important impact on performance
and power consumption. Providing greater visibility into whats
allocated for storage devices from a holistic view enables the devices
to make better resource utilization decisions that result in higher
performance. In addition, because the storage footprint for a
deployment is reduced, power consumption can be reduced also.
The storage stack in Windows Server 2012 will issue standardsbased trims or unmaps for any space that becomes unallocated,
even within virtualized environments. Further, the new Storage
Optimizer runs automatically to help further reduce the physical
footprint of the data by consolidating data from sparsely populated
slabs to more densely populated slabs.
Together, these technologies can help improve performance and
power consumption. Administrators should investigate whether their
storage devices support Trim or Unmap commands to ensure an
efficient and performant deployment.

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Response Times
You can use tools such as Perfmon to obtain data on disk request
response times. Write requests that enter a write-back hardware
cache often have very low response times (less than 1 ms) because
completion depends on dynamic RAM (DRAM) speeds instead of
rotating disk speeds. The data is lazily written to disk media in the
background. As the workload begins to saturate the cache, response
times increase until the write caches only potential benefit is a
better ordering of requests to reduce positioning delays.
For JBOD arrays, Reads and Writes have approximately the same
performance characteristics. Writes can be slightly longer due to
additional mechanical settling delays. With modern hard disks,
positioning delays for random requests are 5 to 15 ms. Smaller 2.5inch drives have shorter positioning distances and lighter actuators,
so they generally provide faster seek times than comparable larger
3.5-inch drives. Positioning delays for sequential requests should be
insignificant except for streams of write-through requests, where
each positioning delay should approximate the required time for a
complete disk rotation. (Write-through requests are typically
identified by the ForceUnitAccess (FUA) flag on the disk request.)
Transfer times are usually less significant when they are compared to
positioning delays, except for large or sequential requests, which are
instead dominated by disk media access speeds as the requests
become larger or more sequential. Modern enterprise disks access
their media at 50 to 150 MB/s depending on rotation speed and
sectors per track, which varies across a range of blocks on a specific
disk model. The outermost tracks can have up to twice the
sequential throughput of innermost tracks.
If the stripe unit size is well chosen, each request is serviced by a
single diskexcept for low-concurrency workloads. So, the same
general positioning and transfer times still apply.
For simple implementations of mirrored arrays, a write completion
must wait for both disks to complete the request. Depending on how
the requests are scheduled, the two completions of the requests
could take a long time. Although writes for mirrored arrays generally
should not take twice the time to complete, they are typically slower
than a JBOD configuration. Reads can experience a performance
increase if the array controller is dynamically load balancing or
factoring in spatial locality. More complex implementations may use

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 71

logging or battery-backed write caching or other means to improve

write latencies.
For RAID 5 arrays (rotated parity), small writes become four separate
requests in the basic read-modify-write scenario. In the best case,
this is approximately the equivalent of two mirrored reads plus a full
rotation of the two disks that hold the data and corresponding parity,
if you assume that the read/write pairs continue in parallel.
You must consider the performance effect of redundancy on Read
and Write requests when you plan subsystems or analyze
performance data. For example, Perfmon might show that 50 writes
per second are being processed by volume x, but in reality, this
could mean 100 requests per second for a mirrored array virtual
disk, 200 requests per second for a RAID 5 array or parity virtual
disk, or even more than 200 requests per second if the requests are
split across stripe units.
Use the following response-time guidelines if no workload details are
available:

For a lightly loaded system, average write response times

should be less than 25 ms on RAID 5 or RAID 6, and less than
15 ms on non-RAID 5 or non-RAID 6 disks. Average read
response times should be less than 15 ms regardless.

For a heavily loaded system that is not saturated, average

write response times should be less than 75 ms on RAID 5 or
RAID 6, and less than 50 ms on non-RAID 5 or non-RAID 6
disks. Average read response times should be less than
50 ms.

Queue Lengths
Several opinions exist about what constitutes excessive disk request
queuing. This guide assumes that the boundary between a busy disk
subsystem and a saturated subsystem is a persistent average of two
requests per physical disk. A disk subsystem is near saturation when
every physical disk is servicing a request and has at least one
queued-up request to maintain maximum concurrencythat is, to
keep the data pipeline flowing. In this guideline, disk requests that
split into multiple requests (because of striping or redundancy
maintenance) are considered multiple requests.
This rule has caveats, because most administrators do not want all
physical disks constantly busy. Because disk activity often occurs in
bursts, this rule is more likely applied over shorter periods of peak
time. Requests are typically not uniformly spread among all hard
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 72

disks at the same time, so the administrator must consider

deviations between queuesespecially for workloads that contain
significant bursts. Conversely, a longer queue provides more
opportunity for disk request schedulers to reduce positioning delays
or to optimize for full stripe RAID 5 writes or mirrored read selection.
Because hardware has an increased capability to queue requests
either through multiple queuing agents along the path or through
agents with more queuing capabilityincreasing the multiplier
threshold might allow more concurrency within the hardware. This
creates a potential increase in response time variance, however.
Ideally, the additional queuing time is balanced by increased
concurrency and reduced mechanical positioning times.
Use the following queue length targets when few workload details
are available:

For a lightly loaded system, the average queue length should

be less than one per physical disk, with occasional spikes of
10 or less. If the workload is write heavy, the average queue
length above a mirrored array or virtual disk should be less
than 0.6 per physical disk and the average queue length
above a RAID 5 or RAID 6 array or a parity virtual disk should
be less than 0.3 per physical disk.

For a heavily loaded system that is not saturated, the

average queue length should be less than 2.5 per physical
disk, with infrequent spikes up to 20. If the workload is write
heavy, the average queue length above a mirrored array or
virtual disk should be less than 1.5 per physical disk, and the
average queue length above a RAID 5 array or parity virtual
disk should be less than 1.0 per physical disk.

For workloads of sequential requests, larger queue lengths

can be tolerated because services times, and therefore
response times, are much shorter than those for a random
workload.

For more information about storage performance in Windows

Server 2012, see Resources later in this guide.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 73

Performance Tuning for Web Servers

Selecting the Proper Hardware for Performance
It is important to select the proper hardware to satisfy the expected
web load, considering average load, peak load, capacity, growth
plans, and response times. Hardware bottlenecks limit the
effectiveness of software tuning.
Choosing and Tuning Server Hardware earlier in this guide provides
recommendations for hardware to avoid the following performance
constraints:

Slow CPUs offer limited processing power for ASP, ASP.NET,

and SSL scenarios.

A small L2 processor cache might adversely affect

performance.

A limited amount of memory affects the number of sites that

can be hosted, how many dynamic content scripts (such as
ASP.NET) can be stored, and the number of application pools
or worker processes.

Networking becomes a bottleneck because of an inefficient

network adapter.

The file system becomes a bottleneck because of an

inefficient disk subsystem or storage adapter.

Operating System Practices

If possible, perform a clean installation of the operating system
software. Upgrading the software can leave outdated, unwanted, or
suboptimal registry settings and previously installed services and
applications that consume resources if they are started
automatically. If another operating system is installed and you must
keep it, you should install the new operating system on a different
partition. Otherwise, the new installation overwrites the settings
under Program Files\Common Files.
To reduce disk access interference, place the system page file,
operating system, web data, ASP template cache, and the Internet
Information Services (IIS) log on separate physical disks if possible.
To reduce contention for system resources, install SQL Server and IIS
on different servers if possible.
Avoid installing nonessential services and applications. In some
cases, it might be worthwhile to disable services that are not
required on a system.
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 74

Tuning IIS 8.0

Internet Information Services (IIS) 8.0 is the version that ships as
part of Windows Server 2012 . It uses a process model similar to that
of IIS 6.0. A kernel-mode web driver (http.sys) receives and routes
HTTP requests, and it can satisfy requests from its response cache.
Worker processes register for URL subspaces, and http.sys routes the
request to the appropriate process (or set of processes for
application pools).
The IIS 8.0 process relies on the kernel-mode web driver, http.sys.
Http.sys is responsible for connection management and request
handling. The request can be served from the http.sys cache or
passed to a worker process for further handling (see Figure 11).
Multiple worker processes can be configured, which provides
isolation at a reduced cost.
Http.sys includes a response cache. When a request matches an
entry in the response cache, http.sys sends the cache response
directly from kernel mode. Figure 11 shows the request flow from the
network through http.sys and potentially up to a worker process.
Some web application platforms, such as ASP.NET, provide
mechanisms to enable any dynamic content to be cached in the
kernel-mode cache. The static file handler in IIS 8.0 automatically
caches frequently requested files in http.sys.

Figure 11. Request handling in IIS 8.0

Because a web server has kernel-mode and user-mode components,

both components must be tuned for optimal performance. Therefore,
tuning IIS 8.0 for a specific workload includes configuring the
following:

Http.sys (the kernel-mode web driver) and the associated

kernel-mode cache

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 75

Worker processes and user-mode IIS, including the application

pool configuration

Certain tuning parameters that affect performance

The following sections discuss how to configure the kernel-mode and

user-mode aspects of IIS 8.0.

Kernel-Mode Tunings
Performance-related http.sys settings fall into two broad categories:
cache management and connection and request management. All
registry settings are stored under the following registry entry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Http\Parameters

Note If the HTTP service is already running, you must restart it for
the changes to take effect.

Cache Management Settings

One benefit that http.sys provides is a kernel-mode cache. If the
response is in the kernel-mode cache, you can satisfy an HTTP
request entirely from the kernel mode, which significantly lowers the
CPU cost of handling the request. However, the kernel-mode cache
of IIS 8.0 is based on physical memory, and the cost of an entry is
the memory that it occupies.
An entry in the cache is helpful only when it is used. However, the
entry always consumes physical memory, whether or not the entry is
being used. You must evaluate the usefulness of an item in the cache
(the savings from being able to serve it from the cache) and its cost
(the physical memory occupied) over the lifetime of the entry by
considering the available resources (CPU and physical memory) and
the workload requirements. http.sys tries to keep only useful,
actively accessed items in the cache, but you can increase the
performance of the web server by tuning the http.sys cache for
particular workloads.
The following are some useful settings for the http.sys kernel-mode
cache:

UriEnableCache. Default value: 1.

A nonzero value enables the kernel-mode response and fragment

caching. For most workloads, the cache should remain enabled.
Consider disabling the cache if you expect a very low response
and fragment caching.

UriMaxCacheMegabyteCount. Default value: 0.

A nonzero value specifies the maximum memory that is available

to the kernel-mode cache. The default value, 0, enables the
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 76

system to automatically adjust how much memory is available to

the cache.
Note Specifying the size sets only the maximum, and the
system might not let the cache grow to the specified size.

UriMaxUriBytes. Default value: 262144 bytes (256 KB).

This is the maximum size of an entry in the kernel-mode cache.

Responses or fragments larger than this are not cached. If you
have enough memory, consider increasing the limit. If memory is
limited and large entries are crowding out smaller ones, it might
be helpful to lower the limit.

UriScavengerPeriod. Default value: 120 seconds.

The http.sys cache is periodically scanned by a scavenger, and

entries that are not accessed between scavenger scans are
removed. Setting the scavenger period to a high value reduces
the number of scavenger scans. However, the cache memory
usage might increase because older, less frequently accessed
entries can remain in the cache. Setting the period too low
causes more frequent scavenger scans, and it can result in too
many flushes and cache churn.

Request and Connection Management Settings

In Windows Server 2012, http.sys manages connections
automatically. The following registry keys that were used in earlier
releases are considered deprecated and are not necessary in
Windows Server 2012:

MaxConnections

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Http\
Parameters\MaxConnections

IdleConnectionsHighMark

IdleConnectionsLowMark

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Http\
Parameters\IdleConnectionsHighMark

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Http\
Parameters\IdleConnectionsLowMark

IdleListTrimmerPeriod

RequestBufferLookasideDepth

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Http\
Parameters\IdleListTrimmerPeriod

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Http\
Parameters\RequestBufferLookasideDepth

InternalRequestLookasideDepth

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Http\
Parameters\InternalRequestLookasideDepth
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 77

User-Mode Settings
The settings in this section affect the IIS 8.0 worker process behavior.
Most of these settings can be found in the following XML
configuration file:
%SystemRoot
%\system32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config
Use Appcmd.exe or the IIS 8.0 Management Console to change
them. Most settings are automatically detected, and they do not
require a restart of the IIS 8.0 worker processes or web application
server.

User-Mode Cache Behavior Settings

This section describes the settings that affect caching behavior in
IIS 8.0. The user-mode cache is implemented as a module that
listens to the global caching events that are raised by the integrated
pipeline. To completely disable the user-mode cache, remove the
FileCacheModule (cachfile.dll) module from the list of installed
modules in the system.webServer/globalModules configuration
section in applicationHost.config.
system.webServer/caching
Attribute

Description

Enabled

Disables the user-mode IIS cache when set to

False. When the cache hit rate is very small, you
can disable the cache completely to avoid the
overhead that is associated with the cache code
path. Disabling the user-mode cache does not
disable the kernel-mode cache.
Disables the kernel-mode cache when set to
False.
Limits the IIS user-mode cache size to the
specified size in megabytes. IIS adjusts the
default depending on available memory. Choose
the value carefully based on the size of the set
of frequently accessed files versus the amount
of RAM or the IIS process address space, which is
limited to 2 GB on 32-bit systems.
Caches files up to the specified size. The actual
value depends on the number and size of the
largest files in the data set versus the available
RAM. Caching large, frequently requested files
can reduce CPU usage, disk access, and
associated latencies. The default value
is 256 KB.

enableKernelCa
che
maxCacheSize

maxResponseSi
ze

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Defa
ult
True

True
0

2621
44

Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 78

Compression Behavior Settings

In Windows Server 2012, IIS 8.0 compresses static content by
default. Also, compression of dynamic content is enabled by default
when the DynamicCompressionModule is installed. Compression
reduces bandwidth usage but increases CPU usage. Compressed
content is cached in the kernel-mode cache if possible. IIS 8.0 lets
compression be controlled independently for static and dynamic
content. Static content typically refers to content that does not
change, such as GIF or HTM files. Dynamic content is typically
generated by scripts or code on the server, that is, ASP.NET pages.
You can customize the classification of any particular extension as
static or dynamic.
To completely disable compression, remove
StaticCompressionModule and DynamicCompressionModule from the
list of modules in the system.webServer/globalModules section in
applicationHost.config.
system.webServer/httpCompression
Attribute
staticCompressio
nEnableCpuUsage,
staticCompressio
nDisableCpuUsage,
dynamicCompres
sionEnableCpuUsage,
dynamicCompres
sionDisableCpuUsage
directory

doDiskSpaceLimiti
ng

Description
Enables or disables compression if the
current percentage CPU usage goes above
or below specified limits.
IIS 8.0 automatically disables compression
if steady-state CPU increases above the
Disable threshold. Compression is enabled
if CPU drops below the Enable threshold.

Default
50,
100, 50,
and 90
respectiv
ely

Specifies the directory in which

compressed versions of static files are
temporarily stored and cached. Consider
moving this directory off the system drive
if it is accessed frequently.
The default value is %SystemDrive
%\inetpub\temp
\IIS Temporary Compressed Files.
Specifies whether a limit exists for how
much disk space all compressed files can
occupy. Compressed files are stored in the
compression directory that is specified by
the directory attribute.

See
Descripti
on
column

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True

Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 79

Attribute
maxDiskSpaceUsa
ge

Description
Specifies the number of bytes of disk
space that compressed files can occupy in
the compression directory.
This setting might need to be increased if
the total size of all compressed content is
too large.

Default
100 MB

system.webServer/urlCompression
Attribute
doStaticCompression
doDynamicCompressi
on

Description
Specifies whether static content is
compressed.
Specifies whether dynamic content is
compressed.

Default
True
True

Note For IIS 8.0 servers that have low average CPU usage, consider
enabling compression for dynamic content, especially if responses
are large. This should first be done in a test environment to assess
the effect on the CPU usage from the baseline.

Tuning the Default Document List

The default document module handles HTTP requests for the root of
a directory and translates them into requests for a specific file, such
as Default.htm or Index.htm. On average, around 25 percent of all
requests on the Internet go through the default document path. This
varies significantly for individual sites. When an HTTP request does
not specify a file name, the default document module searches the
list of allowed default documents for each name in the file system.
This can adversely affect performance, especially if reaching the
content requires making a network round trip or touching a disk.
You can avoid the overhead by selectively disabling default
documents and by reducing or ordering the list of documents. For
websites that use a default document, you should reduce the list to
only the default document types that are used. Additionally, order
the list so that it begins with the most frequently accessed default
document file name.
You can selectively set the default document behavior on particular
URLs by customizing the configuration inside a location tag in
applicationHost.config or by inserting a web.config file directly in the
content directory. This allows a hybrid approach, which enables
default documents only where they are necessary and sets the list to
the correct file name for each URL.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 80

To disable default documents completely, remove

DefaultDocumentModule from the list of modules in the
system.webServer/globalModules section in applicationHost.config.
system.webServer/defaultDocument
Attribute
Description

Default

enabled

True

<files>
element

Specifies that default documents are

enabled.
Specifies the file names that are configured
as default documents.
The default list is Default.htm, Default.asp,
Index.htm, Index.html, Iisstart.htm, and
Default.aspx.

See
Descript
ion
column

Central Binary Logging

Binary IIS logging reduces CPU usage, disk I/O, and disk space usage.
Central binary logging is directed to a single file in binary format,
regardless of the number of hosted sites. Parsing binary-format logs
requires a post-processing tool.
You can enable central binary logging by setting the
centralLogFileMode attribute to CentralBinary and setting the
enabled attribute to True. Consider moving the location of the central
log file off the system partition and onto a dedicated logging
partition to avoid contention between system activities and logging
activities.
system.applicationHost/log
Attribute
centralLogFileM
ode

Description
Specifies the logging mode for a server.
Change this value to CentralBinary to enable
central binary logging.

Default
Site

system.applicationHost/log/centralBinaryLogFile
Attribute
enabled
directory

Description
Specifies whether central binary logging is
enabled.
Specifies the directory where log entries are
written.
The default directory is: %SystemDrive
%\inetpub\logs\LogFiles

Default
False
See Description
column

Application and Site Tunings

The following settings relate to application pool and site tunings.
system.applicationHost/applicationPools/applicationPoolDefaults
Attribute
Description
Default

queueLength

Indicates to the kernel-mode web

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1000

Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 81

enable32BitAppOn
Win64

driver, http.sys, how many requests

are queued for an application pool
before future requests are rejected.
When the value for this property is
exceeded, IIS rejects subsequent
requests with a 503 error.
Consider increasing this for
applications that communicate with
high-latency back-end data stores
if 503 errors are observed.
When True, enables a 32-bit
application to run on a computer
that has a 64-bit processor.
Consider enabling 32-bit mode if
memory consumption is a concern.
Because pointer sizes and instruction
sizes are smaller, 32-bit applications
use less memory than 64-bit
applications. The drawback to
running 32-bit applications on a 64bit computer is that user-mode
address space is limited to 4 GB.

False

system.applicationHost/sites/VirtualDirectoryDefault
Attribute
allowSubDirConfig

Description
Specifies whether IIS looks for web.config
files in content directories lower than the
current level (True) or does not look for
web.config files in content directories
lower than the current level (False).
By imposing a simple limitation, which
allows configuration only in virtual
directories, IIS 8.0 can know that unless
/<name>.htm is a virtual directory it
should not look for a configuration file.
Skipping the additional file operations
can significantly improve performance of
websites that have a very large set of
randomly accessed static content.

Default
True

Managing IIS 8.0 Modules

IIS 8.0 has been factored into multiple, user-extensible modules to
support a modular structure. This factorization has a small cost. For
each module the integrated pipeline must call the module for every
event that is relevant to the module. This happens regardless of
whether the module must do any work. You can conserve CPU cycles
and memory by removing all modules that are not relevant to a
particular website.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 82

A web server that is tuned for simple static files might include only
the following five modules: UriCacheModule, HttpCacheModule,
StaticFileModule, AnonymousAuthenticationModule, and
HttpLoggingModule.
To remove modules from applicationHost.config, remove all
references to the module from the system.webServer/handlers and
system.webServer/modules sections in addition to the module
declaration in system.webServer/globalModules.

Classic ASP Settings

The following settings apply only to classic ASP pages and do not
affect ASP.NET settings. For performance recommendations for
ASP.NET, see 10 Tips for Writing High-Performance Web Applications.
system.webServer/asp/cache
Attribute
Description

diskTemplateCacheDi
rectory

Contains the name of the directory

that ASP uses to store compiled
templates when the in-memory
cache overflows.
Recommendation: If possible, set to
a directory that is not heavily used,
for example, a drive that is not
shared with the operating system,
IIS log, or other frequently accessed
content.

maxDiskTemplateCac
heFiles

The default directory is:

%SystemDrive%\inetpub\temp
\ASP Compiled Templates
Specifies the maximum number of
compiled ASP templates that can
be stored.
Recommendation: Set to the
maximum value of 0x7FFFFFFF.
This attribute specifies the number
of precompiled script files to cache.

scriptFileCacheSize

scriptEngineCacheMa
x

Recommendation: Set to as many

ASP templates as memory limits
allow.
Specifies the maximum number of
scripting engines that ASP pages
will keep cached in memory.
Recommendation: Set to as many
script engines as the memory limit

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Defaul
t

See
Descriptio
n
column

2000

500

250

Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 83

allows.
system.webServer/asp/limits
Attribute
processorThreadMax

Description
Specifies the maximum number of
worker threads per processor that ASP
can create. Increase if the current
setting is insufficient to handle the
load, which can cause errors when it is
serving requests or cause under-usage
of CPU resources.

Default
25

system.webServer/asp/comPlus
Attribute

Description

executeInMta

Set to True if errors or failures are

detected while IIS is serving ASP
content. This can occur, for example,
when hosting multiple isolated sites in
which each site runs under its own
worker process. Errors are typically
reported from COM+ in the Event
Viewer. This setting enables the
multithreaded apartment model in ASP.

Defaul
t
False

ASP.NET Concurrency Setting

By default, ASP.NET limits request concurrency to reduce steadystate memory consumption on the server. High concurrency
applications might need to adjust some settings to improve overall
performance. These settings are stored under the following registry
entry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\ASP.NET\4.0.30319.0\Parameters

The following setting is useful to fully use resources on a system:

MaxConcurrentRequestPerCpu. Default value: 5000.

This setting limits the maximum number of concurrently

executing ASP.NET requests on a system. The default value is
conservative to reduce memory consumption of ASP.NET
applications. Consider increasing this limit on systems that run
applications that perform long, synchronous I/O operations.
Otherwise, users can experience high latency because of queuing
or request failures due to exceeding queue limits under a high
load when the default setting is used.

Worker Process and Recycling Options

In the IIS Administrator user interface, the options for recycling IIS
worker processes provide practical solutions to acute situations or
events without requiring intervention or resetting a service or
computer. Such situations and events include memory leaks,
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 84

increasing memory load, or unresponsive or idle worker processes.

Under ordinary conditions, recycling options might not be needed
and recycling can be turned off or the system can be configured to
recycle very infrequently.
You can enable process recycling for a particular application by
adding attributes to the recycling/periodicRestart element. The
recycle event can be triggered by several events including memory
usage, a fixed number of requests, and a fixed time period. When a
worker process is recycled, the queued and executing requests are
drained, and a new process is simultaneously started to service new
requests. The recycling/periodicRestart element is perapplication, which means that each attribute in the following table is
partitioned on a per-application basis.
system.applicationHost/applicationPools/ApplicationPoolDefaults/recy
cling/periodicRestart
Attribute

Description

memory

Enable process recycling if virtual memory

consumption exceeds the specified limit in
kilobytes. This is a useful setting for 32-bit
computers that have a small, 2 GB address space.
It can help avoid failed requests due to out-ofmemory errors.
Enable process recycling if private memory
allocations exceed a specified limit in kilobytes.
Enable process recycling after a certain number
of requests.
Enable process recycling after a specified time
period.

privateMem
ory
requests
time

Defaul
t
0

0
0
29:00:
00

Secure Sockets Layer Tuning Parameters

The use of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) imposes additional CPU cost.
The most expensive component of SSL is the session establishment
cost (which involves a full handshake). Reconnection, encryption,
and decryption also add to the cost. For better SSL performance, do
the following:

Enable HTTP keep-alives for SSL sessions. This eliminates the

session establishment costs.

Reuse sessions when appropriate, especially with non-keepalive traffic.

Notes

Larger keys provide more security, but they also use more
CPU time.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 85

All components might not need to be encrypted. However,

mixing plain HTTP and HTTPS might result in a pop-up
warning that not all content on the page is secure.

ISAPI
No special tuning parameters are needed for the Internet Server
Application Programming Interface (ISAPI) applications. If you write a
private ISAPI extension, make sure that you code it efficiently for
performance and resource use. For more information, see Other
Issues that Affect IIS Performance later in this guide.

Managed Code Tuning Guidelines

The integrated pipeline model in IIS 8.0 enables a high degree of
flexibility and extensibility. Custom modules that are implemented in
native or managed code can be inserted into the pipeline, or they
can replace existing modules. Although this extensibility model
offers convenience and simplicity, you should be careful before you
insert new managed modules that hook into global events. Adding a
global managed module means that all requests, including static file
requests, must touch managed code. Custom modules are
susceptible to events such as garbage collection. In addition, custom
modules add significant CPU cost due to marshaling data between
native and managed code. If possible, you should implement global
modules in native (C/C++) code.
Before you deploy an ASP.NET website, make sure that you compile
all scripts. You can do this by calling one .NET script in each
directory. Reset IIS after the compilation is complete. Recompile the
scripts after you make changes to machine.config, web.config, or
any .aspx scripts.
If session state is not needed, make sure that you turn it off for each
page.
When you run multiple hosts that contain ASP.NET scripts in isolated
mode (one application pool per site), monitor the memory usage.
Make sure that the server has enough RAM for the expected number
of concurrently running application pools. Consider using multiple
application domains instead of multiple isolated processes.
For performance recommendations on ASP.NET, see 10 Tips for
Writing High-Performance Web Applications.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 86

Other Issues that Affect IIS Performance

The following issues affect IIS performance:

Installation of filters that are not cache-aware

The installation of a filter that is not HTTP-cache-aware causes IIS

to completely disable caching, which results in poor performance.
ISAPI filters that were written before IIS 6.0 can cause this
behavior.

Common Gateway Interface (CGI) requests

For performance reasons, the use of CGI applications to serve

requests is not recommended with IIS. Frequently creating and
deleting CGI processes involves significant overhead. Better
alternatives include using ISAPI application scripts and ASP or
ASP.NET scripts. Isolation is available for each of these options.

NTFS File System Setting

The system-global switch NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate
(REG_DWORD) 1 is located under
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\.
This switch reduces disk I/O load and latencies by disabling date and
time stamp updating for the last file or directory access. This key is
set to 1 by default. Clean installations of Windows Server 2012,
Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008 set this key by
default, and you do not need to adjust it. Earlier versions of Windows
operating systems did not set this key. If your server is running an
earlier version of Windows, or it was upgraded to Windows
Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2008, you
should set this key to 1.
Disabling the updates is effective when you are using large data sets
(or many hosts) that contain thousands of directories. We
recommend that you use IIS logging instead if you maintain this
information only for web administration.
Caution Some applications such as incremental backup utilities
rely on this update information, and they do not function correctly
without it.

Networking Subsystem Performance Settings for IIS

See Performance Tuning for Networking Subsystem earlier in this
guide.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 87

Performance Tuning for File Servers

Selecting the Proper Hardware for Performance
You should select the proper hardware to satisfy the expected file
server load, considering average load, peak load, capacity, growth
plans, and response times. Hardware bottlenecks limit the
effectiveness of software tuning. Choosing and Tuning Server
Hardware earlier in this guide provides hardware recommendations.
The sections on networking and storage subsystems also apply to
file servers.

Server Message Block Model

This section provides information about the Server Message Block
(SMB) model for client-server communication, including the SMB 1.0,
SMB 2.0 and SMB 3.0 protocols.

SMB Model Overview

The SMB model consists of two entities: the client and the server.
On the client, applications perform system calls by requesting
operations on remote files. These requests are handled by the
redirector subsystem (Rdbss.sys) and the SMB miniredirector
(Mrxsmb.sys), which translate them into SMB protocol sessions and
requests over TCP/IP. In Windows 8, the SMB 3.0 protocol is
supported. The Mrxsmb10.sys driver handles legacy SMB traffic, and
the Mrxsmb20.sys driver handles SMB 2.0 and SMB 3.0 traffic.
On the server, SMB connections are accepted and SMB requests are
processed as local file system operations through the NT file system
(NTFS), Resilient File System (ReFS) or the Cluster Shared Volume file
system (CSVFS) and the local storage stack. The Srv.sys driver
handles legacy SMB traffic, and the Srv2.sys driver handles SMB 2.0
and SMB 3.0 traffic. The Srvnet.sys component implements the
interface between networking and the file server for both SMB
protocols. File system metadata and content can be cached in
memory through the system cache in the kernel (Ntoskrnl.exe) if the
file is not opened with the write-through flag set.
Figure 12 summarizes the layers that a user request on a client
computer must pass through to perform file operations over the
network on a remote SMB file server.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 88

File Client

SM
B File
Server
SMB
File Server

SMB

Application

SR
V.SYS or
or SRV2.SYS
SRV2.SYS
SRV.SYS

RDBSS.SYS
MRXSMB.SYS
MRXSMB10.SYS
or

MRXSMB20.SYS
Network Stack

SR
VNET.S
SRVNET.S
YS
YS

System
System
Cache
Cache

Netw
ork
Network
Stack
Stack

NTFS.SYS
NTFS.SYS
Storage
Storage
Stack
Stack

Figure 12. Layers on a remote SMB File Server

SMB Configuration Considerations

Do not enable any services or features that your file server and file
clients do not require. These might include SMB signing, client-side
caching, file system minifilters, search service, scheduled tasks,
NTFS encryption, NTFS compression, IPSEC, firewall filters, Teredo,
SMB encryption, and antivirus features.
Ensure that the BIOS and operating system power management
modes are set as needed, which might include High Performance
mode. Ensure that the latest, most resilient, and fastest storage and
networking device drivers are installed.
Copying files is a common operations performed on a file server. The
Windows Server operating system has several built-in file copy
utilities that you can run in a command shell, including Xcopy and
Robocopy. When you use Xcopy, we recommend adding the /q and
/k options to your existing parameters, when applicable, to maximize
performance. The former option reduces CPU overhead by reducing
console output and the latter reduces network traffic. When using
Robocopy, the /mt option (in Windows Server 2012 and Windows
Server 2008 R2) can significantly improve speed on remote file
transfers by using multiple threads when copying multiple small files.
We also recommend the /log option to reduce console output by
redirecting to NUL device or to a file.
Previous releases of the Windows Server operating system
sometimes benefitted from tools that limit the working-set size of the
Windows file cache. These tools are not necessary on most servers
running Windows 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012. You should
reevaluate your use of such tools.
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 89

Tuning Parameters for SMB File Servers

The following registry tuning parameters can affect the performance
of SMB file servers:

NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\REG_DWORD)

The default in Windows Server 2012 is 2, and in previous releases

it is 0. This parameter determines whether NTFS generates a
short name in the 8dot3 (MS-DOS) naming convention for long file
names and for file names that contain characters from the
extended character set. If the value of this entry is 0, files can
have two names: the name that the user specifies and the short
name that NTFS generates. If the user-specified name follows the
8dot3 naming convention, NTFS does not generate a short name.
A value of 2 means that this parameter can be configured per
volume.
Note The system volume will have 8dot3 enabled, whereas it is
disabled by default in other volumes in Windows Server 2012.
Changing this value does not change the contents of a file, but it
avoids the short-name attribute creation for the file, which also
changes how NTFS displays and manages the file. For most SMB
file servers, the recommended setting is 1 (disabled). For
example, you would want to disable the setting if you have a
clustered file server.
In Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2008 R2, you can
disable 8dot3name creation on a per-volume basis without using
the global NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation setting. You can do this
with the built-in fsutil tool. For example, to disable 8dot3 name
creation on the volume D, run fsutil 8dot3name set d: 1 from a
Command Prompt window. You can view Help text by using the
command fsutil 8dot3name. If you are disabling a new 8dot3
name creation on a volume that has existing data, consider
stripping existing 8dot3 names from the volume. This can also be
done with the fsutil tool. For example, to strip existing 8dot3
names on volume D and log the changes made, run fsutil
8dot3name strip /l 8dot3_removal_log.log /s d:\. You can
view Help text by typing the command fsutil 8dot3name strip.

TreatHostAsStableStorage
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer
\Parameters\(REG_DWORD)

The default is 0. This parameter disables processing write flush

commands from clients. If the value of this entry is 1, the server
performance and client latency for power-protected servers can
improve. Workloads that resemble the NetBench file server
benchmark benefit from this behavior.
Note If you have a clustered file server, it is possible that you
may experience data loss if the server fails with this setting
enabled. Therefore, evaluate it carefully prior to applying it.
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 90

AsynchronousCredits
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer
\Parameters\(REG_DWORD)

The default is 512. This parameter limits the number of

concurrent asynchronous SMB commands that are allowed on a
single connection. Some cases (such as when there is a front-end
server with a back-end IIS server) require a large amount of
concurrency (for file change notification requests, in particular).
The value of this entry can be increased to support these cases.

Smb2CreditsMin and Smb2CreditsMax

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer
\Parameters\(REG_DWORD)

The defaults are 512 and 8192, respectively. These parameters

allow the server to throttle client operation concurrency
dynamically within the specified boundaries. Some clients might
achieve increased throughput with higher concurrency limits, for
example, copying files over high-bandwidth, high-latency links.

AdditionalCriticalWorkerThreads
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Executive\
(REG_DWORD)

The default is 0, which means that no additional critical kernel

worker threads are added. This value affects the number of
threads that the file system cache uses for read-ahead and writebehind requests. Raising this value can allow for more queued I/O
in the storage subsystem, and it can improve I/O performance,
particularly on systems with many logical processors and
powerful storage hardware.

MaximumTunnelEntries
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\(REG_DWORD)

The default is 1024. Reduce this value to reduce the size of the
NTFS tunnel cache. This can significantly improve file deletion
performance for directories that contain a large number of files.
Note

Some applications depend on NTFS tunnel caching.

MaxThreadsPerQueue
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters\
(REG_DWORD)

The default is 20. Increasing this value raises the number of

threads that the file server can use to service concurrent
requests. When a large number of active connections need to be
serviced, and hardware resources (such as storage bandwidth)
are sufficient, increasing the value can improve server scalability,
performance, and response times.

RequireSecuritySignature
HKLM\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
\(REG_DWORD)

The default is 0. Changing this value to 1 prevents SMB

communication with computers where SMB signing is disabled. In
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 91

addition, a value of 1 causes SMB signing to be used for all SMB

communication. SMB signing can increase CPU cost and network
round trips. If SMB signing is not required, ensure that the registry
value is 0 on all clients and servers.

NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\(REG_DWORD)

The default is 1. In versions of Windows earlier than Windows

Vista and Windows Server 2008, the default is 0. A value of 0 can
reduce performance because the system performs additional
storage I/O when files and directories are accessed to update
date and time information.

MaxMpxCt (SMB 1 clients only)

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer
\Parameters\(REG_DWORD)

The default is 50. This parameter suggests a limit on the

maximum number of outstanding requests that an SMB 1 client
can send. Increasing the value can use more memory, but it can
improve performance for some client applications by enabling a
deeper request pipeline. Increasing the value in conjunction with
MaxCmds can also eliminate errors that are encountered due to
large numbers of outstanding long-term file requests, such as
FindFirstChangeNotification calls. This parameter does not affect
connections with SMB 2 clients.
The following parameters are not required in Windows Server 2012:

NoAliasingOnFileSystem

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer
\Parameters\(REG_DWORD)

PagedPoolSize

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager
\MemoryManagement\(REG_DWORD)

NumTcbTablePartitions

HKLM\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\(REG_DWORD)

TcpAckFrequency

HKLM\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces

SMB Server Tuning Example

The following settings can optimize a computer for file server
performance in many cases. The settings are not optimal or
appropriate on all computers. You should evaluate the impact of
individual settings before applying them.
Parameter

Value

NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation

Defaul
t
2

TreatHostAsStableStorage

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 92

AdditionalCriticalWorkerThreads

64

MaximumTunnelEntries

32

1024

MaxThreadsPerQueue

64

20

32768

50

RequireSecuritySignature
MaxMpxCt (only applicable to SMB 1 clients)

Services for NFS Model

The following sections provide information about the Microsoft
Services for Network File System (NFS) model for client-server
communication.

Services for NFS Model Overview

Microsoft Services for NFS provides a file-sharing solution for
enterprises that have a mixed Windows and UNIX environment. This
communication model consists of client computers and a server (see
Figure 13). Applications on the client request files that are located on
the server through the redirector (Rdbss.sys and NFS miniredirector
Nfsrdr.sys). The miniredirector uses the NFS protocol to send its
request through TCP/IP. The server receives multiple requests from
the clients through TCP/IP and routes the requests to the local file
system (Ntfs.sys), which accesses the storage stack.

Figure 13. Microsoft services for NFS model for client-server communication

Tuning Parameters for NFS File Servers

The following registry-tuning parameters can affect the performance
of NFS file servers:

OptimalReads

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NfsServer\Parameters\
(REG_DWORD)
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 93

Default is 0. Determines whether files are opened for

FILE_RANDOM_ACCESS or for FILE_SEQUENTIAL_ONLY, depending
on the workload I/O characteristics. Set this value to 1 to force
files to be opened for FILE_RANDOM_ACCESS.
FILE_RANDOM_ACCESS prevents the file system and cache
manager from prefetching.
For more information about File Access Services, see the File
Servers section under Resources later in this guide.

RdWrHandleLifeTime

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NfsServer\Parameters\
(REG_DWORD)

Default is 5. Controls the lifetime of an NFS cache entry in the file

handle cache. This parameter refers to cache entries that have an
associated open NTFS file handle. Actual lifetime is approximately
equal to RdWrHandleLifeTime multiplied by
RdWrThreadSleepTime. Minimum is 1 and maximum is 60.

RdWrNfsHandleLifeTime

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NfsServer\Parameters\
(REG_DWORD)

Default is 5. Controls the lifetime of an NFS cache entry in the file

handle cache. This parameter refers to cache entries that do not
have an associated open NTFS file handle. Services for NFS uses
these cache entries to store file attributes for a file without
keeping an open handle with the file system. Actual lifetime is
approximately equal to RdWrNfsHandleLifeTime multiplied by
RdWrThreadSleepTime. Minimum is 1 and maximum is 60.

RdWrNfsReadHandlesLifeTime

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NfsServer\Parameters\
(REG_DWORD)

Default is 5. Controls the lifetime of an NFS Read cache entry in

the file handle cache. Actual lifetime is approximately equal to
RdWrNfsReadHandlesLifeTime multiplied by
RdWrThreadSleepTime. Minimum is 1 and maximum is 60.

RdWrThreadSleepTime

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NfsServer\Parameters\
(REG_DWORD)

Default is 5. Controls the wait interval before running the cleanup

thread on the file handle cache. Value is in ticks, and it is nondeterministic. A tick is equivalent to approximately 100
nanoseconds. Minimum is 1 and maximum is 60.

FileHandleCacheSizeinMB

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NfsServer\Parameters\
(REG_DWORD)

Default is 4. Specifies the maximum memory to be consumed by

file handle cache entries. Minimum is 1 and maximum is
1*1024*1024*1024 (1073741824).

LockFileHandleCacheInMemory
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HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NfsServer\Parameters\
(REG_DWORD)

Default is 0. Specifies whether the physical pages that are

allocated for the cache size specified by
FileHandleCacheSizeInMB are locked in memory. Setting this
value to 1 enables this activity. Pages are locked in memory (that
is, they are not paged to disk), which improves the performance
of resolving file handles, but reduces the memory that is available
to applications.

MaxIcbNfsReadHandlesCacheSize

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NfsServer\Parameters\
(REG_DWORD)

Default is 64. Specifies the maximum number of handles per

volume for the Read data cache. Read cache entries are created
only on systems that have more than 1 GB of memory. Minimum
is 0 and maximum is 0xFFFFFFFF.

HandleSigningEnabled

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NfsServer\Parameters\
(REG_DWORD)

Default is 1. Controls whether handles that are given out by NFS

File Server are signed cryptographically. Setting it to the value 0
would cause handle signing to be disabled.

RdWrNfsDeferredWritesFlushDelay

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NfsServer\Parameters\
(REG_DWORD)

Default is 60. Soft timeout that controls the duration of NFS V3

UNSTABLE Write data caching. Minimum is 1, and maximum is
600. Actual lifetime is approximately equal to
RdWrNfsDeferredWritesFlushDelay multiplied by
RdWrThreadSleepTime.

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CacheAddFromCreateAndMkDir

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NfsServer\Parameters\
(REG_DWORD)

Default is 1 (enabled). Controls whether handles that are opened

during NFS V2 and V3 CREATE and MKDIR RPC procedure
handlers are retained in the file handle cache. Set this value to 0
to disable adding entries to the cache in CREATE and MKDIR code
paths.

AdditionalDelayedWorkerThreads

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Executive\
(REG_DWORD)

Increases the number of delayed worker threads that are created

for the specified work queue. Delayed worker threads process
work items that are not considered time-critical and that can
have their memory stack paged out while waiting for work items.
An insufficient number of threads reduces the rate at which work
items are serviced; a value that is too high consumes system
resources unnecessarily.

NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\ (REG_DWORD)

Default is 0. Determines whether NTFS generates a short name in

the 8dot3 (MS-DOS) naming convention for long file names and
for file names that contain characters from the extended
character set. If the value of this entry is 0, files can have two
names: the name that the user specifies and the short name that
NTFS generates. If the name that the user specifies follows the
8dot3 naming convention, NTFS does not generate a short name.
Changing this value does not change the contents of a file, but it
avoids the short-name attribute creation for the file, and it
changes how NTFS displays and manages the file. For most file
servers, the recommended setting is 1.

NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\(REG_DWORD)

Default is 1. This system-global switch reduces disk I/O load and

latencies by disabling the updating of the date and time stamp
for the last file or directory access.

MaxConcurrentConnectionsPerIp

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Rpcxdr\Paramet
ers (REG_DWORD)

The default value of the MaxConcurrentConnectionsPerIp

parameter is 16. You can increase this value up to a maximum of
8192 to increase the number of connections per IP address.

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General Tuning Parameters for Client Computers

The following registry-tuning parameters, a REG_DWORD under the
following path, can affect the performance of client computers that
interact with SMB or NFS file servers:
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 97

ConnectionCountPerNetworkInterface
Windows 8 only.
The default is 1, with a valid range from 1-16. The maximum
number of connections per interface to be established with a
server running Windows Server 2012 for non-RSS interfaces.

ConnectionCountPerRssNetworkInterface
Windows 8 only.
The default is 4, with a valid range from 1-16. The maximum
number of connections per interface to be established with a
server running Windows Server 2012 for RSS interfaces.

ConnectionCountPerRdmaNetworkInterface
Windows 8 only.
The default is 2, with a valid range from 1-16. The maximum
number of connections per interface to be established with server
running Windows Server 2012 for RDMA interfaces.

MaximumConnectionCountPerServer
Windows 8 only.
The default is 32, with a valid range from 1-64. The maximum
number of connections to be established with a single server
running Windows Server 2012 across all interfaces.

DormantDirectoryTimeout
Windows 8 only.
The default is 600 seconds. The maximum time server directory
handles held open with directory leases.

FileInfoCacheLifetime
Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 only.
The default is 10 seconds. The file information cache timeout
period.

DirectoryCacheLifetime
Windows Vista and Windows 7 only.
The default is 10 seconds. This is the directory cache timeout.
Note This parameter controls caching of directory metadata in
the absence of directory leases.

DirectoryCacheEntrySizeMax
Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 only.
The default is 64 KB. This is maximum size of directory cache
entries.

FileNotFoundCacheLifetime
Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 only.
The default is 5 seconds. The file not found cache timeout period.

CacheFileTimeout
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Windows 7 or Windows 8 only.

The default is 10 seconds. This setting controls the time (in
seconds) for which the redirector will hold on to cached data for a
file after the last handle to the file is closed by an application.

DisableBandwidthThrottling
Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 only.
The default is 0. By default, the SMB redirector throttles
throughput across high-latency network connections, in some
cases to avoid network-related timeouts. Setting this registry
value to 1 disables this throttling, enabling higher file transfer
throughput over high-latency network connections.

DisableLargeMtu
Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 only.
The default is 0 for Windows 8 only. In Windows 8, the SMB
redirector transfers payloads as large as 1 MB per request, which
can improve file transfer speed. Setting this registry value to 1
limits the request size to 64 KB. You should evaluate the impact
of this setting before applying it.

RequireSecuritySignature
Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 only.
The default is 0. Changing this value to 1 prevents SMB
communication with computers where SMB signing is disabled. In
addition, a value of 1 causes SMB signing to be used for all SMB
communication. SMB signing can increase CPU cost and network
round trips. If SMB signing is not required, ensure that this
registry value is 0 on all clients and servers.

FileInfoCacheEntriesMax
Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 only.
The default is 64, with a valid range of 1 to 65536. This value is
used to determine the amount of file metadata that can be
cached by the client. Increasing the value can reduce network
traffic and increase performance when a large number of files are
accessed.

DirectoryCacheEntriesMax
Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 only.
The default is 16, with a valid range of 1 to 4096. This value is
used to determine the amount of directory information that can
be cached by the client. Increasing the value can reduce network
traffic and increase performance when large directories are
accessed.

FileNotFoundCacheEntriesMax
Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 only.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 99

The default is 128, with a valid range of 1 to 65536. This value is

used to determine the amount of file name information that can
be cached by the client. Increasing the value can reduce network
traffic and increase performance when a large number of file
names are accessed.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 100

MaxCmds
Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 only.
The default is 15. This parameter limits the number of
outstanding requests on a session. Increasing the value can use
more memory, but it can improve performance by enabling a
deeper request pipeline. Increasing the value in conjunction with
MaxMpxCt can also eliminate errors that are encountered due to
large numbers of outstanding long-term file requests, such as
FindFirstChangeNotification calls. This parameter does not affect
connections with SMB 2 servers.

DormantFileLimit
Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 only.
The default is 1023. This parameter specifies the maximum
number of files that should be left open on a shared resource
after the application has closed the file.

ScavengerTimeLimit
Windows XP only.
The default is 10. This is the number of seconds that the
redirector waits before it starts scavenging dormant file handles
(cached file handles that are currently not used by any
application).

DisableByteRangeLockingOnReadOnlyFiles
Windows XP only.
The default is 0. Some distributed applications lock parts of a
Read-only file because synchronization across clients requires
that file-handle caching and collapsing behavior is turned off for
all Read-only files. This parameter can be set if such applications
will not run on the system and collapsing behavior can be
enabled on the client computer.

The following parameter is not required in Windows 8:

EnableWsd
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\(REG_DWORD)

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 101

File Client Tuning Example

The following settings for the parameters that are described in the
General Tuning Parameters for Client Computers section earlier can
optimize a computer for accessing remote file shares in many cases,
particularly over some high-latency networks (such as branch offices,
cross-datacenter communication, home offices, and mobile
broadband). The settings are not optimal or appropriate on all
computers. You should evaluate the impact of individual settings
before applying them.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 102

Parameter

Value

DisableBandwidthThrottling

Defaul
t
0

RequireSecuritySignature

32768

64

4096

16

FileNotFoundCacheEntriesMax

32768

128

MaxCmds

32768

15

DormantFileLimit [Windows XP only]

32768

1023

60

10

FileInfoCacheEntriesMax
DirectoryCacheEntriesMax

ScavengerTimeLimit [Windows XP only]

DisableByteRangeLockingOnReadOnlyFiles [Windows XP only]

In Windows 8, you can configure many of these File Server settings

with Windows PowerShell, for example, by using the GetSmbServerConfiguration and Set-SmbServerConfiguration
cmdlets.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 103

Performance Tuning for a File Server Workload (FSCT)

File Server Capacity Tool (FSCT) is a file server capacity planning tool
that measures how many users a file server can support. FSCT
creates many users that connect to the server and perform typical
operations such as downloading files, uploading files, browsing
directories, and opening files. FSCT gives a throughput score for each
user count and evaluates if the server is overloaded with that many
users. The highest user count without overload is the maximum
number of users that the server can support under this workload.

Registry Tuning Parameters for Servers

The following registry tuning parameters can affect the performance
of file servers:

NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\REG_DWORD)

The default in Windows Server 2012 is 2, and in previous releases

it is 0. This parameter determines whether NTFS generates a
short name in the 8dot3 (MS-DOS) naming convention for long file
names and for file names that contain characters from the
extended character set. If the value of this entry is 0, files can
have two names: the name that the user specifies and the short
name that NTFS generates. If the user-specified name follows the
8dot3 naming convention, NTFS does not generate a short name.
A value of 2 means that this parameter can be configured per
volume.
Note The system volume will have 8dot3 enabled, whereas
other volumes will have it disabled by default in Windows
Server 2012.
Changing this value does not change the contents of a file, but it
avoids the short-name attribute creation for the file, which also
changes how NTFS displays and manages the file. For most SMB
file servers, the recommended setting is 1 (disabled). For
example, you would want to disable the setting if you have a
clustered file server.
In Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2008 R2, you can
disable 8dot3 name creation on a per-volume basis without using
the global NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation setting. You can do this
with the built-in fsutil tool. For example, to disable 8dot3 name
creation on volume D, run fsutil 8dot3name set d: 1 from a
Command Prompt window. You can view Help text by using the
command fsutil 8dot3name. If you are disabling new 8dot3
name creation on a volume that has existing data, consider
stripping existing 8dot3 names from the volume. This can also be
done with the fsutil tool. For example, to strip existing 8dot3
names on volume D and log the changes made, run fsutil
8dot3name strip /l 8dot3_removal_log.log /s d:\. You can
view Help text by using the command fsutil 8dot3name strip.
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 104

TreatHostAsStableStorage
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer
\Parameters\(REG_DWORD)

The default is 0. This parameter disables the processing of write

flush commands from clients. If the value of this entry is 1, the
server performance and client latency for power-protected
servers can improve. Workloads that resemble the NetBench file
server benchmark benefit from this behavior.
Note If you have a clustered file server, it is possible that you
may experience data loss if the server fails with this setting
enabled. Therefore, evaluate it carefully prior to applying it.

Registry Tuning Parameters for Client Computers

The following registry tuning parameters can affect the performance
of client computers:

DormantFileLimit
HKLM\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation
\Parameters\(REG_DWORD)

Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 only.

The default is 1023. This parameter specifies the maximum
number of files that should be left open on a shared resource
after the application has closed the file.

ScavengerTimeLimit
HKLM\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation
\Parameters\(REG_DWORD)

Windows XP only.
The default is 10. This is the number of seconds that the
redirector waits before it starts scavenging dormant file handles
(cached file handles that are currently not used by any
application).

DisableByteRangeLockingOnReadOnlyFiles
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation
\Parameters\(REG_DWORD)

Windows XP only.
The default is 0. Some distributed applications lock parts of a
Read-only file because synchronization across clients requires
that file-handle caching and collapsing behavior is turned off for
all Read-only files. This parameter can be set if such applications
will not run on the system and collapsing behavior can be
enabled on the client computer.

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Performance Counters for SMB 3.0

The following SMB performance counters are new in Windows
Server 2012, and they are considered a base set of counters when
you monitor the resource usage of SMB. Log the performance
counters to a local, raw (.blg) performance counter log. It is less
expensive to collect all instances by using the wildcard character *,
and then extract particular instances while postprocessing by using
Relog.exe.

SMB Client Shares

This counter set displays information about file shares on the
server that are being accessed by a client that is using SMB
protocol version 2 or higher.

SMB Server Shares

This counter set displays information about the SMB2 file shares
on the server.

SMB Server Sessions

This counter set displays information about SMB server sessions
that are using SMB protocol version 2 or higher.

Resume Key Filter

Performance counters for the Resume Key Filter.

SMB Direct Connection

This performance counter set consists of counters that measure
aspects of connection activity. A computer can have multiple
SMB Direct connections. The SMB Direct Connection counter set
represents each connection as a pair of IP addresses and ports,
where the first IP address and port represent the connection's
local endpoint and the second IP address and port represent the
connection's remote endpoint.

CSV Cache
The following counters can be gathered to monitor aspects of the
CSV Cache:

I/O satisfied from cache

o

Cache IO Read-Bytes

Cache IO Read-Bytes/Sec

Cache Read

Cache Read/Sec

I/O satisfied from disk

o

Disk IO Read-Bytes

Disk IO Read-Bytes/Sec

Disk Read
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Disk Read/Sec

Total I/O
o

IO Read-Bytes

IO Read-Bytes/Sec

IO Read

IO Read/Sec

Performance Tuning for File Server Workload (SPECsfs2008)

SPECsfs2008 is a file server benchmark suite from Standard
Performance Evaluation Corporation that measures file server
throughput and response time, providing a standardized method for
comparing performance across different vendor platforms.
SPECsfs2008 results summarize the server's capabilities with respect
to the number of operations that can be handled per second, and the
overall latency of the operations.
To ensure accurate results, you should format the data volumes
between tests to flush and clean up the working set. For improved
performance and scalability, we recommend that you partition client
data over multiple data volumes. The networking, storage, and
interrupt affinity sections of this guide contain additional tuning
information that might apply to specific hardware.

Registry-Tuning Parameters for NFS File Servers

You can tune the following registry parameters previously described
in the Tuning Parameters for NFS File Servers section to enhance the
performance of NFS servers:
Parameter

Recommended Value

AdditionalDelayedWorkerThreads
NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation
NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate
OptimalReads
RdWrHandleLifeTime
RdWrNfsHandleLifeTime
RdWrNfsReadHandlesLifeTime
RdWrThreadSleepTime
FileHandleCacheSizeinMB

16
1
1
1
10
60
10
60
1*1024*1024*1024
(1073741824)
1
30000
0
60

LockFileHandleCacheInMemory
MaxIcbNfsReadHandlesCacheSize
HandleSigningEnabled
RdWrNfsDeferredWritesFlushDela
y
CacheAddFromCreateAndMkDir

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Performance Tuning for Active Directory Servers

You can improve the performance of Active Directory, especially in
large environments, by following these tuning steps:

Use an appropriate amount of RAM.

Active Directory uses RAM to cache as much of the directory

database as possible. This reduces disk access and improves
performance. The Active Directory database can grow, but the
amount of data that can be cached is limited by the virtual
address space and how much physical RAM is on the server.
To determine whether more RAM is needed for the server, monitor
the percentage of Active Directory operations that are being
satisfied from the cache by using the Reliability and Performance
Monitor. Examine the lsass.exe instance (for Active Directory
Domain Services) or the Directory instance (for Active Directory
Lightweight Directory Services) of the Database\Database Cache
% Hit performance counter. A low value indicates that many
operations are not being satisfied from the cache. Adding more
RAM might improve the cache hit rate and the performance of
Active Directory. You should examine the counter after Active
Directory has been running for several hours under a typical
workload. The cache starts out empty when the Active Directory
service is restarted or when the computer is rebooted, so the
initial hit rate is low.

Use a good disk I/O subsystem.

Ideally, the server is equipped with sufficient RAM to cache the

hot parts (that is, the most frequently parts) of the database
entirely in memory. However, the on-disk database must be
accessed to initially populate the memory cache, when it
accesses uncached parts of the database, and when it writes
updates to the directory. Therefore, an appropriate selection for
storage is important to Active Directory performance.
We recommend that the Active Directory database folder be
located on a physical volume that is separate from the Active
Directory log file folder. Both folders should be on a physical
volume that is separate from the operating system volume. The
use of drives that support command queuing, especially Serial
Attached SCSI or SCSI, might also improve performance.

Considerations for Read-Heavy Scenarios

The typical directory workload consists of more query operations
than update operations. Active Directory is optimized for such a
workload. To obtain the maximum benefit, the most important
performance tuning step is to make sure that the server has
sufficient RAM to cache the most frequently used part of the
database in memory. Query performance on a recently rebooted
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server, or after the Active Directory service is restarted, might

initially be low until the cache is populated. Active Directory
automatically populates the cache as queries search data in the
directory.

Considerations for Write-Heavy Scenarios

Write-heavy scenarios do not benefit as much from the Active
Directory cache. To guarantee the transactional durability of data
that is written to the directory, Active Directory does not perform
disk write caching It commits all write operations to the disk before it
returns a successful completion status for an operation, unless there
is an explicit request to not do this. Therefore, fast disk I/O is
important to the performance of write operations to Active Directory.
The following are hardware recommendations that might improve
performance for these scenarios:

Hardware RAID controllers

Low-latency/high-RPM disks

Battery-backed write caching on the controller

To determine whether disk I/O is a bottleneck, monitor the Physical

Disk\Average Disk Queue Length counter for the volumes on which
the Active Directory database and logs are located. A high queue
length indicates a large amount of concurrent disk I/O activity.
Choosing a storage system to improve write performance on those
volumes might improve Active Directory performance.

Using Indexing to Improve Query Performance

Indexing attributes is useful when you search for objects that have
the attribute name in a filter. Indexing can reduce the number of
objects that must be visited when you evaluate the filter. However,
this reduces the performance of write operations because the index
must be updated when the corresponding attribute is modified or
added. It also increases the size of your directory database. You can
use logging to find the expensive and inefficient queries, and then
consider indexing some attributes that are used in the corresponding
queries to improve the search performance. For more information
about Active Directory event logging on servers, see Resources later
in this guide.

Optimizing Trust Paths

Trusts are a way to enable users to authenticate across different
forests or domains. If the trust path between the resource and the
user is long, then the user might experience high latency because
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the authentication request must travel through the trust path and
return. For example, if a user from the grandchild of a domain tries
to sign in from a different grandchild domain in the same forest, the
authentication request must travel trust path from the grandchild to
the root domain and then take the path to the other grandchild
domain.
To avoid this, you can create a shortcut trust directly between the
two grandchild domains that avoids the long path. However, an
administrator must manage trusts. Therefore, you must consider
how frequently a given trust will be used before you create it. You
can also create an external trust or a forest trust to reduce the trust
path when authenticating between domains in different forests. For
more information about how to create trusts, see Administering
Domain and Forest Trusts.

Active Directory Performance Counters

You can use several resources to conduct a performance diagnosis
for a domain controller that is not performing as expected.
You can use the following Reliability and Performance Monitor
(Perfmon) counters to track and analyze a domain controllers
performance:

If you notice slow write or read operations, check the

following disk I/O counters under the Physical Disk category
to see if many queued disk operations exist:

Avg. Disk Queue Length

Avg. Disk Read Queue Length

Avg. Disk Write Queue Length

If lsass.exe uses excessive physical memory, check the

following Database counters under the Database category to
see how much memory is used to cache the database for
Active Directory Domain Services. These counters are located
under the lsass.exe instance, whereas for Active Directory
Lightweight Directory Services they are located under the
Directory instance:

Database Cache % Hit

Database Cache Size (MB)

If Isass.exe uses excessive CPU, check Directory Services\ATQ

Outstanding Queued Requests on the Directory Services tab
to see how many requests are queued at the domain
controller. A high level of queuing indicates that requests are
arriving at the domain controller faster than they can be

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processed. This can also lead to a high latency in responding

to requests.
You can also use the Data Collector Sets tool to see the activity
inside the domain controller. On a server that is running Active
Directory Domain Services or Active Directory Lightweight Directory
Services, you can find the collector template in
Reliability and Performance Monitor under Reliability and
Performance > Data Collector Sets > System > Active
Directory Diagnostics. To start it, click the Play icon.
The Reliability and Performance Monitor tool collects data for five
minutes and stores a report under Reliability and Performance >
Reports > System > Active Directory Diagnostics. This report
contains information about CPU usage by different processes,
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) operations, Directory
Services operations, Kerberos Key Distribution Center operations, NT
LAN Manager (NTLM) authentications, Local Security Authority (LSA)
and Security Account Manager (SAM) operations, and averages of all
the important performance counters.
This report identifies the workload that is being placed on the
domain controller, identifies the contribution of aspects of that
workload to the overall CPU usage, and locates the source of that
workload, such as an application that is sending a high rate of
requests to the domain controller. The CPU section of the report
indicates whether lsass.exe is the process that is taking the highest
CPU percentage. If any other process is taking more CPU on a
domain controller, you should investigate it.

Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Session Host

(Formerly Terminal Server)
This section discusses how to select Remote Desktop Session Host
(RD Session Host) hardware, tune the host, and tune applications.

Selecting the Proper Hardware for Performance

For an RD Session Host deployment, the choice of hardware is
governed by the application set and how the users exercise it. The
key factors that affect the number of users and their experience are
CPU, memory, disk, and graphics. Earlier in this guide, there was a
discussion about server hardware guidelines. Those guidelines apply
to Remote Desktop Services, and this section contains additional
guidelines that are specific to RD Session Host servers, and this

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information is mostly related to the multiuser environment of RD

Session Host servers.

CPU Configuration
CPU configuration is conceptually determined by multiplying the
required CPU to support a session by the number of sessions that the
system is expected to support, while maintaining a buffer zone to
handle temporary spikes. Multiple logical processors can help reduce
abnormal CPU congestion situations, which are usually caused by a
few overactive threads that are contained by a similar number of
logical processors.
Therefore, the more logical processors on a system, the lower the
cushion margin that must be built in to the CPU usage estimate,
which results in a larger percentage of active load per CPU. One
important factor to remember is that doubling the number of CPUs
does not double CPU capacity. For more considerations, see Choosing
and Tuning Server Hardware earlier in this guide.

Processor Architecture
The 64-bit processor architecture provides a significantly higher
kernel virtual address space, which makes it more suitable for
systems that need large amounts of memory. Specifically, the x64
version of the 64-bit architecture is a good option for RD Session
Host deployments because it provides small overhead when it runs
32-bit processes. The most significant performance drawback when
you migrate to 64-bit architecture is significantly greater memory
usage.

Memory Configuration
Memory configuration is dependent on the applications that users
employ; however, the required amount of memory can be estimated
by using the following formula:
TotalMem = OSMem + SessionMem * NS
OSMem is how much memory the operating system requires to run
(such as system binary images, data structures, and so on),
SessionMem is how much memory processes running in one session
require, and NS is the target number of active sessions. The amount
of required memory for a session is mostly determined by the private
memory reference set for applications and system processes that are
running inside the session. Shared code or data pages have little
effect because only one copy is present on the system.

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One interesting observation (assuming the disk system that is

backing up the page file does not change) is that the larger the
number of concurrent active sessions the system plans to support,
the bigger the per-session memory allocation must be. If the amount
of memory that is allocated per session is not increased, the number
of page faults that active sessions generate increases with the
number of sessions, and these faults eventually overwhelm the I/O
subsystem. By increasing the amount of memory that is allocated
per session, the probability of incurring page faults decreases, which
helps reduce the overall rate of page faults.

Disk
Storage is one of the most overlooked aspects when you configure
an RD Session Host system, and it can be the most common
limitation in systems that are deployed in the field.
The disk activity that is generated in a typical RD Session Host
system affects the following areas:

System files and application binaries

Page files

User profiles and user data

Ideally, these areas should be backed up by distinct storage devices.

Using striped RAID configurations or other types of high-performance
storage further improves performance. We highly recommend that
you use storage adapters with battery-backed write caching.
Controllers with disk write caching offer improved support for
synchronous write operations. Because all users have a separate
hive, synchronous write operations are significantly more common
on an RD Session Host system. Registry hives are periodically saved
to disk by using synchronous write operations. To enable these
optimizations, from the Disk Management console, open the
Properties dialog box for the destination disk and, on the Policies
tab, select the Enable write caching on the disk and Enable
advanced performance check boxes.
For more specific storage tunings, see the guidelines in Performance
Tuning for the Storage Subsystem earlier in this guide.

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Network
Network usage includes two main categories:

RD Session Host connections traffic in which usage is determined

almost exclusively by the drawing patterns that are exhibited by
the applications running inside the sessions and the redirected
devices I/O traffic.
For example, applications handling text processing and data input
consume bandwidth of approximately 10 to 100 kilobits per
second, whereas rich graphics and video playback cause
significant increases in bandwidth usage.

Back-end connections such as roaming profiles, application

access to file shares, database servers, e-mail servers, and HTTP
servers.
The volume and profile of network traffic is specific to each
deployment.

Tuning Applications for Remote Desktop Session Host

Most of the CPU usage on an RD Session Host system is driven by
applications. Desktop applications are usually optimized toward
responsiveness with the goal of minimizing how long it takes an
application to respond to a user request. However in a server
environment, it is equally important to minimize the total amount of
CPU usage that is needed to complete an action to avoid adversely
affecting other sessions.
Consider the following suggestions when you configure applications
that are to be used on an RD Session Host system:

Minimize background idle loop processing.

Typical examples are disabling background grammar and spell

check, data indexing for search, and background saves.

Minimize how often an application performs a state check or

update.

Disabling such behaviors or increasing the interval between

polling iterations and timer firing significantly benefits CPU usage
because the effect of such activities is quickly amplified for many
active sessions. Typical examples are connection status icons and
status bar information updates.

Minimize resource contention between applications by

reducing their synchronization frequency.

Examples of such resources include registry keys and

configuration files. Examples of application components and
features are status indicator (like shell notifications), background
indexing or change monitoring, and offline synchronization.

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Disable unnecessary processes that are registered to start

with user sign-in or a session startup.

These processes can significantly contribute to the cost of CPU

usage when creating a new user session, which generally is a
CPU-intensive process, and it can be very expensive in morning
scenarios. Use MsConfig.exe or MsInfo32.exe to obtain a list of
processes that are started at user sign-in.
For memory consumption, consider the following suggestions:

Verify that the DLLs that applications load are not relocated.

If DLLs are relocated, it is impossible to share their code across

sessions, which significantly increases the footprint of a session.
This is one of the most common memory-related performance
issues in RD Session Host.

For common language runtime (CLR) applications, use Native

Image Generator (Ngen.exe) to increase page sharing and
reduce CPU overhead.

When possible, apply similar techniques to other similar

execution engines.

Remote Desktop Session Host Tuning Parameters

Page file
Insufficient page file size can cause memory allocation failures in
applications or in system components. A general guideline is that the
combined size of the page files should be two to three times larger
than the physical memory size. You can use the memory-tocommitted bytes performance counter to monitor how much
committed virtual memory is on the system.
When the value of this counter reaches close to the total combined
size of physical memory and page files, memory allocation begins to
fail. Because of significant disk I/O activity that page file access
generates, consider using a dedicated storage device for the page
file, ideally a high-performance storage device such as a striped
RAID array.
For more specific storage tuning guidelines, see Performance Tuning
for the Storage Subsystem earlier in this guide.

Antivirus and Antispyware

Installing antivirus and antispyware software on an RD Session Host
server greatly affects overall system performance, especially CPU
usage. We highly recommend that you exclude from the active

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monitoring list all the folders that hold temporary files, especially
those that services and other system components generate.

Task Scheduler
Task Scheduler (which can be accessed under All Programs >
Accessories > System Tools) lets you examine the list of tasks
that are scheduled for different events. For RD Session Host, it is
useful to focus specifically on the tasks that are configured to run on
idle, at user sign-in, or on session connect and disconnect. Because
of the specifics of the deployment, many of these tasks might be
unnecessary.

Desktop Notification Icons

Notification icons on the desktop can have fairly expensive
refreshing mechanisms. You can use Customize Notifications
Icons to examine the list of notifications that are available in the
system. Generally, it is best to disable unnecessary notifications by
removing the component that registers them from the startup list or
by changing the configuration on applications and system
components to disable them.

RemoteFX data compression

RemoteFX compression can be configured under Remote Session
Environment > Configure compression for RemoteFX data.
Three values are possible:

Optimized to use less memory. Consumes the least

amount of memory per session but has the lowest
compression ratio and therefore the highest bandwidth
consumption.

Balances memory and network bandwidth. Reduced

bandwidth consumption while marginally increasing memory
consumption (approximately 200 KB per session).

Optimized to use less network bandwidth. Further

reduces network bandwidth usage at a cost of approximately
2 MB per session. If you want to use this setting, you should
assess the maximum number of sessions and test to that
level with this setting before you place the server in
production.

You can also choose to not use an RemoteFX compression

algorithm. Choosing to not use an RemoteFX compression
algorithm will use more network bandwidth, and it is only
recommended if you are using a hardware device that is designed
to optimize network traffic. Even if you choose to not use an
RemoteFX compression algorithm, some graphics data will be
compressed.
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Device redirection
Device redirection can be configured under Device and
Resource Redirection. Or, it can be configured through Server
Manager -> Remote Desktop Services -> Session
Collection Properties.
Generally, device redirection increases how much network
bandwidth RD Session Host connections use because data is
exchanged between devices on the client computers and
processes that are running in the server session. The extent of
the increase is a function of the frequency of operations that are
performed by the applications that are running on the server
against the redirected devices.
Printer redirection and Plug and Play device redirection also
increase CPU usage at sign-in. You can redirect printers in two
ways:

Matching printer driver-based redirection when a driver for

the printer must be installed on the server. Earlier releases of
Windows Server used this method.

Easy Print printer driver redirection (introduced in Windows

Server 2008) uses a common printer driver for all printers.

We recommend the Easy Print method because it causes less CPU

usage for printer installation at connection time. The matching
driver method causes increased CPU usage because it requires
the spooler service to load different drivers. For bandwidth usage,
the Easy Print method causes slightly increased network
bandwidth usage, but not significant enough to offset the other
performance, manageability, and reliability benefits.
Audio redirection, when used,causes a steady stream of network
traffic. Audio redirection also enables users to run multimedia
applications that typically have high CPU consumption.

Client Experience Settings

By default, Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) automatically chooses
the right experience setting based on the suitability of the network
connection between the server and client computers. We
recommend that the RDC configuration remain at Detect connection
quality automatically.
For advanced users, RDC provides control over a range of settings
that influence network bandwidth performance for the Remote
Desktop Services connection. You can access the following settings
through the RDC user interface on the Experience tab or as settings
in the RDP File:
Settings that apply when connecting to any computer:

Disable wallpaper (RDP file setting: Disable wallpaper:i:0):

Suppresses the display of desktop wallpaper on redirected
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connections. This setting can significantly reduce bandwidth

usage if desktop wallpaper consists of an image or other
content with significant costs for drawing.

Bitmap cache (RDP file setting:

Bitmapcachepersistenable:i:1): When this setting is enabled,
it creates a client-side cache of bitmaps that are rendered in
the session. It provides a significant improvement on
bandwidth usage, and it should always be enabled (unless
there are other security considerations).

Show contents of windows while dragging (RDP file

setting: Disable full window drag:i:1): When this setting is
disabled, it reduces bandwidth by displaying only the window
frame instead of all the content when the window is dragged.

Menu and window animation (represented by two RDP file

settings: Disable menu anims:i:1 and Disable cursor
setting:i:1): When this setting is disabled, it reduces
bandwidth by disabling animation on menus (such as fading)
and cursors.
Font smoothing (RDPfile setting: Allow font smoothing:i:0):
Controls ClearType font-rendering support. When connecting
to computers running Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012,
enabling or disabling this setting does not have a siginificant
impact on bandwidth usage. However, for computers running
versions earlier than Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2,
enabling this setting affects network bandwidth consumption
significantly.

Settings that apply only when connecting to computers running

Windows 7 and earlier operating system versions:

Desktop composition: This setting is supported only for a

remote session to a computer running Windows 7 or Windows
Server 2008 R2.

Visual styles (RDP file setting: disable themes:i:1): When

this setting is disabled, it reduces bandwidth by simplifying
theme drawings that use the classic theme.

By using the Experience tab within Remote Desktop Connection,

you can choose your connection speed to influence network
bandwidth performance. The following list indicates which options
are chosen if you change the connection speed within the
Experience tab of Remote Desktop Connection:
Detect connection quality automatically. When this
setting is enabled, Remote Desktop Connection automatically
chooses settings that will result in optimal user experience
based on connection quality. (This configuration is
recommended when connecting to computers running
Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012) .

Modem (56 Kbps): When this setting is selected, it allows

persistent bitmap caching.
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Low Speed Broadband (256 Kbps - 2 Mbps)

o

Cellular/Satellite (2Mbps - 16 Mbps)

o

Desktop composition; show contents of windows while

dragging; menu and window animation; persistent
bitmap caching; visual styles; desktop background

WAN (10 Mbps or higher with high latency)

o

Desktop composition; persistent bitmap caching; visual

styles; desktop background

High Speed Broadband (2 Mbps 10 Mbps )

o

Persistent bitmap caching, visual styles

Desktop composition; show contents of windows while

dragging; menu and window animation; persistent
bitmap caching; visual styles; desktop background (all)

LAN (10 Mbps or higher)

o

Desktop composition; show contents of windows while

dragging; menu and window animation; persistent
bitmap caching; themes; desktop background

When the RDP connection profile is saved, it creates an xxx.rdp file,

where xxx is the friendly name chosen by the user (the default name
is default.rdp). The speed optimization settings in the xxx.rdp
configuration file are attributed as follows:

Modem = 1

LowSpeedBroadband = 2

Cellular with latency = 3

HighSpeedBroadband = 4

WAN with latency = 5

LAN = 6

Detect connection quality automatically = 7

Desktop Size
Desktop size for remote sessions can be controlled through the RDC
client user interface (on the Display tab under the Remote
desktop size setting) or through the RDP file (desktopwidth:i:1152
and desktopheight:i:864). The larger the desktop size, the greater
the memory and bandwidth consumption that is associated with that
session. The current maximum desktop size that a server accepts is
4096 x 2048.

Windows System Resource Manager

Windows System Resource Manager (WSRM) is an optional
component that is available in Windows Server 2012. WSRM
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supports an equal per session built-in policy that keeps CPU usage
equally distributed among all active sessions on the system.
Although enabling WSRM adds some CPU usage overhead to the
system, we recommend that you enable it because it helps limit the
effect that high CPU usage in one session has on the other sessions
on the system. This helps improve the users experience, and it also
lets you run more users on the system because of a reduced need
for a large cushion in CPU capacity to accommodate random CPU
usage spikes.

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Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Virtualization Host

Remote Desktop Virtualization Host (RD Virtualization Host) is a role
service that supports Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) scenarios
and lets multiple concurrent users run Windows-based applications in
virtual machines that are hosted on a server running Windows Server
2012 and Hyper-V.
Windows Server 2012 supports two types of virtual desktops,
personal virtual desktops and pooled virtual desktops.

General Considerations
Storage
Storage is the most likely performance bottleneck, and it is
important to size your storage to properly handle the I/O load that is
generated by virtual machine state changes. If a pilot or simulation
is not feasible, a good guideline is to provision one disk spindle for
four active virtual machines. Use disk configurations that have good
write performance (such as RAID 1+0).
When appropriate, use SAN-based disk deduplication and caching to
reduce the disk read load and to enable your storage solution to
speed up performance by caching a significant portion of the image.

Memory
The server memory usage is driven by three main factors:

Operating system overhead

Hyper-V service overhead per virtual machine

Memory allocated to each virtual machine

For a typical knowledge worker workload, guest virtual machines

running Window 8 should be given ~512 MB of memory as the
baseline. However, dynamic Memory will likely increase the guest
virtual machines memory to about 800 MB, depending on the
workload.
Therefore, it is important to provide enough server memory to satisfy
the memory that is required by the expected number of guest virtual
machines, plus allow a sufficient amount of memory for the server.

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CPU
When you plan server capacity for an RD Virtualization Host, the
number of virtual machines per physical core will depend on the
nature of the workload. As a starting point, it is reasonable to plan 12
virtual machines per physical core, and then run the appropriate
scenarios to validate performance and density. Higher density may
be achievable depending on the specifics of the workload.
We recommend enabling hyperthreading, but be sure to calculate
the oversubscription ratio based on the number of physical cores and
not the number of logical processors. This ensures the expected level
of performance on a per CPU basis.
Note It is critical to use virtual machines that have Second Level
Address Translation (SLAT) support. Most servers running Windows
Server 2012 will have SLAT.

Virtual GPU
Microsoft RemoteFX for RD Virtualization Host delivers a rich
graphics experience for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) through
host-side remoting, a render-capture-encode pipeline, a highly
efficient GPU-based encode, throttling based on client activity, and a
DirectX-enabled virtual GPU. RemoteFX for RD Virtualization Host
upgrades the virtual GPU from DirectX9 to DirectX11. It also
improves the user experience by supporting more monitors at higher
resolutions.
The RemoteFX DirectX11 experience is available without a hardware
GPU, through a software-emulated driver. Although this software GPU
provides a good experience, the RemoteFX virtual graphics
processing unit (VGPU) adds a hardware accelerated experience to
virtual desktops.
To take advantage of the RemoteFX VGPU experience on a server
running Windows Server 2012, you need a GPU driver (such as
DirectX11.1 or WDDM 1.2) on the host server. For more information
about GPU offerings to use with RemoteFX for RD Virtualization Host,
please refer to your GPU provider.
If you use the RemoteFX VGPU in your VDI deployment, the
deployment capacity will vary based on usage scenarios and
hardware configuration. When you plan your deployment, consider
the following:

Number of GPUs on your system

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Video memory capacity on the GPUs

Processor and hardware resources on your system

RemoteFX Server System Memory

For every virtual desktop that is enabled with a VGPU, RemoteFX

uses system memory in the guest operating system and in the
RemoteFX server. The hypervisor guarantees the availability of
system memory for a guest operating system. On the server, each
VGPU-enabled virtual desktop needs to advertise its system memory
requirement to the hypervisor. When the VGPU-enabled virtual
desktop is starting, the hypervisor reserves additional system
memory in the RemoteFX server for the VGPU-enabled virtual
desktop.
The memory requirement for RemoteFX server is dynamic because
the amount of memory consumed on the RemoteFX server is
dependent on the number of monitors that are associated with the
VGPU-enabled virtual desktops and the maximum resolution for
those monitors.
RemoteFX Server GPU Video Memory

Every VGPU-enabled virtual desktop uses the video memory in the

GPU hardwareon the host server to render the desktop. In addition to
rendering, the video memory is used by a codec to compress the
rendered screen. The amount of memory needed is directly based on
the amount of monitors that are provisioned to the virtual machine.
The video memory that is reserved varies based on the number of
monitors and the system screen resolution. Some users may require
a higher screen resolution for specific tasks. There is greater
scalability with lower resolution settings if all other settings remain
constant.
RemoteFX Processor

The hypervisor schedules the RemoteFX server and the VGPUenabled virtual desktops on the CPU. Unlike the system memory,
there isnt information that is related to additional resources that
RemoteFX needs to share with the hypervisor. The additional CPU
overhead that RemoteFX brings into the VGPU-enabled virtual
desktop is related to running the VGPU driver and a user-mode
Remote Desktop Protocol stack.

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In the RemoteFX server, the overhead is increased, because the

system runs an additional process (rdvgm.exe) per VGPU-enabled
virtual desktop. This process uses the graphics device driver to run
commands on the GPU. The codec also uses the CPUs for
compressing the screen data that needs to be sent back to the
client.
More virtual processors mean a better user experience. We
recommend allocating at least two virtual CPUs per VGPU-enabled
virtual desktop. We also recommend using the x64 architecture for
VGPU-enabled virtual desktops because the performance on x64
virtual machines is better compared to x86 virtual machines.
RemoteFX GPU Processing Power

For every VGPU-enabled virtual desktop, there is a corresponding

DirectX process running on the RemoteFX server. This process
replays all the graphics commands that it receives from the
RemoteFX virtual desktop onto the physical GPU. For the physical
GPU, it is equivalent to simultaneously running multiple DirectX
applications.
Typically, graphics devices and drivers are tuned to run a few
applications on the desktop. RemoteFX stretches the GPUs to be
used in a unique manner. To measure how the GPU is performing on
a RemoteFX server, performance counters have been added to
measure the GPU response to RemoteFX requests.
Usually when a GPU resource is low on resources, Read and Write
operations to the GPU take a long time to complete. By using
performance counters, administrators can take preventative action,
eliminating the possibility of any downtime for their end users.
The following performance counters are available on the RemoteFX
server to measure the virtual GPU performance:
RemoteFX Graphics

Frames Skipped/Second - Insufficient Client Resources:

Number of frames skipped per second due to insufficient client
resources

Graphics Compression Ratio:

Ratio of the number of bytes encoded to the number of bytes
input

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RemoteFX Root GPU Management

Resources: TDRs in Server GPUs:

Total number of times that the TDR times out in the GPU on
the server

Resources: Virtual machines running RemoteFX:

Total number of virtual machines that have the RemoteFX 3D
Video Adapter installed

VRAM: Available MB per GPU:

Amount of dedicated video memory that is not being used

VRAM: Reserved % per GPU:

Percent of dedicated video memory that has been reserved for
RemoteFX

RemoteFX Software

Capture Rate for monitor [1-4]:

Displays the RemoteFX capture rate for monitors 1-4

Compression Ratio:
Deprecated in Windows 8 and replaced by Graphics
Compression Ratio.

Delayed Frames/sec:
Number of frames per second where graphics data was not
sent within a certain amount of time

GPU response time from Capture:

Latency measured within RemoteFX Capture (in microseconds)
for GPU operations to complete

GPU response time from Render:

Latency measured within RemoteFX Render (in microseconds)
for GPU operations to complete

Output Bytes:
Total number of RemoteFX output bytes

Waiting for client count/sec:

Deprecated in Windows 8 and replaced by Frames
Skipped/Second - Insufficient Client Resources

RemoteFX VGPU Management

Resources: TDRs local to virtual machines:

Total number of TDRs that have occurred in this virtual
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machine (TDRs that the server propagated to the virtual

machine are not included)

Resources: TDRs propagated by Server:

Total number of TDRs that occurred on the server and that
have been propagated to the virtual machine

The following performance counters are present on the virtual

desktop to measure the virtual GPU performance:
RemoteFX Virtual Machine VGPU Performance

Data: Invoked presents/sec:

Total number (in seconds) of present operations to be
rendered to the desktop of the virtual machine per second

Data: Outgoing presents/sec:

Total number of present operations sent by the virtual
machine to the server GPU per second

Data: Read bytes/sec:

Total number of read bytes from the RemoteFX server per
second

Data: Send bytes/sec:

Total number of bytes sent to the RemoteFX server GPU per
second

DMA: Communication buffers average latency (sec):

Average amount of time (in seconds) spent in the
communication buffers

DMA: DMA buffer latency (sec):

Amount of time (in seconds) from when the DMA is submitted
until completed

DMA: Queue length:

DMA Queue length for a RemoteFX 3D Video Adapter

Resources: TDR timeouts per GPU:

Count of TDR timeouts that have occurred per GPU on the
virtual machine

Resources: TDR timeouts per GPU engine:

Count of TDR timeouts that have occurred per GPU engine on
the virtual machine

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In addition to the RemoteFX VGPU performance counters, users can

measure the GPU utilization by using the new Process Explorer
feature, which shows video memory usage and the GPU utilization.

Performance Optimizations
Dynamic Memory
Dynamic Memory enables more efficiently utilization of the memory
resources of the server running Hyper-V by balancing how memory is
distributed between running virtual machines. Memory can be
dynamically reallocated between virtual machines in response to
their changing workloads.
Dynamic Memory enables you to increase virtual machine density
with the resources you already have without sacrificing performance
or scalability. The result is more efficient use of expensive server
hardware resources, which can translate into easier management
and lower costs.
On guest operating systems running Windows 8 with virtual
processors that span multiple logical processors, consider the
tradeoff between running with Dynamic Memory to help minimize
memory usage and disabling Dynamic Memory to improve the
performance of an application that is computer-topology aware. Such
an application can leverage the topology information to make
scheduling and memory allocation decisions.

Tiered Storage
RD Virtualization Host supports tiered storage for a pooled virtual
desktop collection. The physical computer that is shared by all
pooled virtual desktops within a collection can use a small-size, highperformance storage solution, such as a mirrored solid-state drive
(SSD). The pooled virtual desktops can be placed on less expensive,
traditional storage such as RAID 1+0.
The physical computer should be placed on a SSD is because most of
the read-I/Os from pooled virtual desktops go to the management
operating system. Therefore, the storage that is used by the physical
computer must sustain much higher read I/Os per second.
This deployment configuration assures cost effective performance
where performance is needed. The SSD provides higher performance
on a smaller size disk (~20 GB per collection, depending on the
configuration). Traditional storage for pooled virtual desktops (RAID
1+0) uses about 3 GB per virtual machine.
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CSV Cache
The Failover Clustering feature in Windows Server 2012 provides
caching on Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV). This is extremely
beneficial for pooled virtual desktop collections where the majority of
the read I/Os come from the management operating system. The
CSV cache provides higher performance by several orders of
magnitude because it caches blocks that are read more than once
and delivers them from system memory, which reduces the I/O.
For more information, see How to Enable CSV Cache.

Pooled Virtual Desktops

By default, pooled virtual desktops are rolled back to the pristine
state after a user signs out, so any changes made to the Windows
operating system since the last user sign-in are abandoned.
Although its possible to disable the rollback, it is still a temporary
condition because typically a pooled virtual desktop collection is recreated due to various updates to the virtual desktop template.
Hence, it makes sense to turn off Windows features and services that
depend on persistent state. Additionally, it makes sense to turn off
services that are primarily for non-enterprise scenarios.
Each specific service should be evaluated appropriately prior to any
broad deployment. The following is a starting list to consider.

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Service
Auto update
Offline files
Background defrag

Hibernate or sleep
Bug check memory dump

WLAN autoconfig
Windows Media Player network
sharing service
Home group provider
Internet connection sharing
Media Center extended services

Why?
Pool virtual machines are updated
by re-creating the virtual desktop
template.
VDI virtual machines are always
online and connected from a
networking point-of-view.
File-system changes are discarded
after a user signs off (due to a
rollback to the pristine state or recreating the virtual desktop
template, which results in recreating all pooled virtual
desktops).
No such concept for VDI
No such concept for pooled virtual
desktops. A bug-check pooled
virtual desktop will start from the
pristine state.
There is no WLAN device interface
for VDI
Consumer centric service
Consumer centric service
Consumer centric service
Consumer centric service

This list is not meant to be a complete list, because any changes will
affect the intended goals and scenarios.
Note SuperFetch in Windows 8 is enabled by default. It is VDI
aware, and it should not be disabled. SuperFetch can further reduce
memory consumption through memory page sharing, which is
beneficial for VDI.

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Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Gateway

Note In Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, RDGW supports TCP,
UDP, and the legacy RPC transports. Most of the following data is
regarding the legacy RPC transport. If the legacy RPC transport is not
being used, this section is not applicable.
This section describes the performance-related parameters that help
improve the performance of a customer deployment and the tunings
that rely on the customers network usage patterns.
At its core, the Remote Desktop Gateway (RD Gateway) performs
many packet forwarding operations between Remote Desktop
Connection instances and the RD Session Host server instances
within the customers network.
Internet Information Services (IIS) and RD Gateway export the
following registry parameters to help improve system performance in
the RD Gateway role service.
Note The following parameters apply to RPC transport only.

Thread tunings

MaxIoThreads

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Gateway\ (REG_DWORD)

This application-specific thread pool specifies the number of

threads that RD Gateway creates to handle incoming requests. If
the registry is present, it takes effect. The number of threads
equals the number of logical processes. If the number of logical
processors is less then 5, the default is 5 threads.

MaxPoolThreads

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\InetInfo\Parameters
\(REG_DWORD)

This parameter specifies the number of IIS pool threads to create

per logical processor. The IIS pool threads watch the network for
requests and process all incoming requests. The
MaxPoolThreads count does not include threads that
RD Gateway consumes. The default value is 4.

Remote procedure call tunings for RD Gateway

The following parameters can help tune the remote procedure calls
(RPC) that are received by RDC client and RD Gateway computers.
Changing the windows helps throttle how much data is flowing
through each connection and can improve performance for RPC over
HTTP v2 scenarios.

ServerReceiveWindow

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Rpc\ (REG_DWORD)

The default value is 64 KB. This value specifies the window that
the server uses for data that is received from the RPC proxy. The
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minimum value is set to 8 KB, and the maximum value is set at

1 GB. If a value is not present, the default value is used. When
changes are made to this value, IIS must be restarted for the
change to take effect.

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ClientReceiveWindow
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Rpc\ (REG_DWORD)

The default value is 64 KB. This value specifies the window that
the client uses for data that is received from the RPC proxy. The
minimum value is 8 KB, and the maximum value is 1 GB. If a value
is not present, the default value is used.

Monitoring and Data Collection

The following list of performance counters is considered a base set of
counters when you monitor the resource usage on the RD Gateway:
\Terminal Service Gateway\*
\RPC/HTTP Proxy\*
\RPC/HTTP Proxy Per Server\*
\Web Service\*
\W3SVC_W3WP\*
\IPv4\*
\Memory\*
\Network Interface(*)\*
\Process(*)\*
\Processor Information(*)\*
\Synchronization(*)\*
\System\*
\TCPv4\*
The following performance counters are applicable only for legacy
RPC transport:
\RPC/HTTP Proxy\* RPC
\RPC/HTTP Proxy Per Server\* RPC
\Web Service\* RPC
\W3SVC_W3WP\* RPC
Note If applicable, add the \IPv6\* and \TCPv6\* objects.

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Performance Tuning Remote Desktop Services Workload for

Knowledge Workers
Remote Desktop Services capacity planning tools in Windows
Server 2012 include automation framework and application scripting
support that enable the simulation of user interaction with Remote
Desktop Services. Be aware that the following tunings apply only to a
synthetic Remote Desktop Services workload for knowledge workers,
and they are not intended as turnings for a server that is not running
this workload. This workload is built with these tools to emulate
common usage patterns for knowledge workers.
The Remote Desktop Services workload for knowledge workers uses
Microsoft Office applications and Microsoft Internet Explorer. It
operates in an isolated local network that has the following
infrastructure:

Domain controller with Active Directory, Domain Name

System (DNS), and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
(DHCP)

Microsoft Exchange Server for hosting email

IIS for hosting web services

Load generator (a test controller) for creating a distributed

workload

A pool of Windows XPbased test systems to run the

distributed workload, with no more than 60 simulated users
for each physical test system

Remote Desktop Services installed on an application server

Microsoft Office

Note: The domain controller and the load generator could be

combined on one system without degrading performance.
Similarly, IIS and Exchange Server could be combined on another
computer system.
Table 13 provides guidelines for achieving the best performance for
the Remote Desktop Services workload, and it suggests where
bottlenecks might exist and how to avoid them.

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Table 13. Hardware Recommendations for Remote Desktop

Services Workload
Hardware Recommendation
limiting
factor

Processo Use 64-bit processors to expand the available virtual

r usage
address space.
Use multicore systems (at least two or four logical
processors and dual-core or quad-core 64-bit CPUs).
Physical Separate the operating system files, page file, and user
disks
profiles (user data) into individual physical partitions.
Choose the appropriate RAID configuration. (Refer to
Choosing the RAID Level earlier in this guide.)
If applicable, set the write-through cache policy to 50%
reads and 50% writes.
If applicable, select Enable write caching on the disk
through the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Disk
Management snap-in (Diskmgmt.msc).
If applicable, select Enable Advanced Performance
through the MMC Disk Management snap-in
(Diskmgmt.msc).
Memory The amount of RAM and physical memory access times
(RAM)
affect the response times for the user interactions. On
non-uniform memory access (NUMA) computer systems,
make sure that the hardware configuration uses the
NUMA, which is changed by using system BIOS or
hardware partitioning settings.
Network Allow enough bandwidth by using network adapters that
bandwid have high bandwidths, such as a 1 GB Ethernet.
th

Recommended Tunings on the Server

After you have installed the operating system and added the Remote
Desktop Services role service, apply the following changes.
Navigate to Control Panel > System > Advanced System
Settings > Advanced tab and set the following:

Navigate to Performance Settings > Advanced > Virtual

memory and set one or more fixed-size page files (Initial
Size equal to Maximum Size) with a total page file size at
least two to three times the physical RAM size to minimize
paging. For servers that have hundreds of gigabytes of
memory, the complete elimination of the page file is possible.
Otherwise, the page file might be limited because of
constraints in available disk space. There are no clear
benefits of a page file larger than 100 GB. Make sure that no
system-managed page files are in the Virtual memory on
the Application Server.
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Navigate to Performance Settings > Visual Effects and

select the Adjust for best performance check box.

Allow for the workload automation to run by opening the MMC

snap-in for Group Policy (Gpedit.msc) and making the following
changes to Local Computer Policy > User Configuration >
Administrative Templates:

Navigate to Control Panel > Display, and disable Screen

Saver and Password protected screen saver.

Under Start Menu and Taskbar, enable Force Windows

Classic Start Menu.

Navigate to Windows Components > Internet Explorer,

and enable Prevent Performance of First Run Customize
settings and select Go directly to home page.

Click Control Panel, and disable User Account Control (UAC)

by selecting Disable UAC, and then reboot the system.

Allow for the workload automation to run by opening the registry,

adding the ProtectedModeOffForAllZones key, and setting it to 1
under:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Low Rights\ (REG_DWORD)

Minimize the effect on CPU usage when you are running many
Remote Desktop Services sessions by opening the MMC snap-in
for Group Policy (Gpedit.msc) and making the following changes
under Local Computer Policy > User Configuration >
Administrative Templates:

Under Start Menu and Taskbar, enable

Do not keep history of recently opened documents.

Under Start Menu and Taskbar, enable

Remove Balloon Tips on Start Menu items.

Under Start Menu and Taskbar, enable

Remove frequent program list from Start Menu.

Minimize the effect on the memory footprint and reduce

background activity by disabling certain Microsoft Win32 services.
The following are examples from command-line scripts to do this:
Service name

Syntax to stop and

disable service

Desktop Window Manager

Session Manager

sc config UxSms start=

disabled
sc stop UxSms
sc config WerSvc start=
disabled
sc stop WerSvc
sc config wuauserv start=
disabled
sc stop wuauserv

Windows Error Reporting service

Windows Update

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Minimize background traffic by opting out of diagnostics feedback

programs. Under Start > All Programs >
Administrative Tools > Server Manager, go to
Resources and Support, and make the following changes:

Opt out of participating in the Customer Experience

Improvement Program (CEIP).

Opt out of participating in Windows Error Reporting

(WER).

Apply the following changes from the Remote Desktop Session

Host Configuration MMC snap-in (Tsconfig.msc):

Set the maximum color depth to 24 bits per pixel (bpp).

Disable all device redirections.

Navigate to Start > All Programs > Administrative Tools > Remote
Desktop Services > Remote Desktop Session Host Configuration
and change the Client Settings from the RDP-TCP properties as
follows:

Limit the Maximum Color Depth to 24 bpps.

Disable redirection for all available devices such as Drive,

Windows Printer, LPT Port, COM Port, Clipboard, Audio,
Supported Plug and Play Devices, and Default to main
client printer.

Monitoring and Data Collection

The following list of performance counters is considered a base set of
counters when you monitor the resource usage on the Remote
Desktop Services workload. Log the performance counters to a local
performance counter log (.blg). It is less expensive to collect all
instances by using the wild-card character *, and then extract
particular instances by using Relog.exe.
\Cache\*
\IPv4\*
\LogicalDisk(*)\*
\Memory\*
\Network Interface(*)\*
\Paging File(*)\*
\PhysicalDisk(*)\*
\Print Queue(*)\*
\Process(*)\*
\Processor Information(*)\*
\Synchronization(*)\*
\System\*
\TCPv4\*
Note If applicable, add the \IPv6\* and \TCPv6\* objects.

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Stop unnecessary Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) events by

running logman.exe stop -ets <provider name>.
To view providers on the system, run logman.exe query -ets.
Use Logman.exe to collect performance counter log data instead of
using Perfmon.exe, which enables logging providers and increases
CPU usage.

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Performance Tuning for Virtualization Servers

Hyper-V is the virtualization server role in Windows Server 2012.
Virtualization servers can host multiple virtual machines that are
isolated from each other but share the underlying hardware
resources by virtualizing the processors, memory, and I/O devices.
By consolidating servers onto a single machine, virtualization can
improve resource usage and energy efficiency and reduce the
operational and maintenance costs of servers. In addition, virtual
machines and the management APIs offer more flexibility for
managing resources, balancing load, and provisioning systems.
The following sections define the virtualization terminology that is
used in this guide and suggest best practices that yield increased
performance on servers running Hyper-V. Tuning guidance that can
yield increased performance on servers running Hyper-V, based on a
live system state, is also available in the Hyper-V Advisor Pack that is
distributed with the Server Performance Advisor tool described
earlier in this guide.
For additional information about the Server Performance Advisor tool
and the Hyper-V Advisor Pack, see Resources later in this guide.

Terminology
This section summarizes key terminology specific to virtual machine
technology that is used throughout this performance tuning guide:
child partition
Any virtual machine that is created by the root partition.
device virtualization
A mechanism that lets a hardware resource be abstracted and
shared among multiple consumers.
emulated device
A virtualized device that mimics an actual physical hardware
device so that guests can use the typical drivers for that
hardware device.
enlightenment
An optimization to a guest operating system to make it aware of
virtual machine environments and tune its behavior for virtual
machines.
guest
Software that is running in a partition. It can be a full-featured
operating system or a small, special-purpose kernel. The
hypervisor is guest-agnostic.

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hypervisor
A layer of software that sits above the hardware and below one or
more operating systems. Its primary job is to provide isolated
execution environments called partitions. Each partition has its
own set of hardware resources (central processing unit or CPU,
memory, and devices). The hypervisor is responsible for controls
and arbitrates access to the underlying hardware.
logical processor
A processing unit that handles one thread of execution
(instruction stream). There can be one or more logical processors
per core and one or more cores per processor socket.
passthrough disk access
A representation of an entire physical disk as a virtual disk within
the guest. The data and commands are passed through to the
physical disk (through the root partitions native storage stack)
with no intervening processing by the virtual stack.
root partition
A partition that is created first and owns all the resources that the
hypervisor does not, including most devices and system memory.
It hosts the virtualization stack and creates and manages the
child partitions.
Hyper-V-specific device
A virtualized device with no physical hardware analog, so guests
may need a driver (virtualization service client) to that Hyper-Vspecific device. The driver can use virtual machine bus (VMBus)
to communicate with the virtualized device software in the root
partition.
virtual machine
A virtual computer that was created by software emulation and
has the same characteristics as a real computer.
virtual processor
A virtual abstraction of a processor that is scheduled to run on a
logical processor. A virtual machine can have one or more virtual
processors.
virtualization service client
A software module that a guest loads to consume a resource or
service. For I/O devices, the virtualization service client can be a
device driver that the operating system kernel loads.
virtualization service provider
A provider exposed by the virtualization stack in the root partition
that provides resources or services such as I/O to a child partition.
virtualization stack
A collection of software components in the root partition that
work together to support virtual machines. The virtualization
stack works with and sits above the hypervisor. It also provides
management capabilities.

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Hyper-V Architecture
Hyper-V features the hypervisor-based architecture that is shown in
Figure 14. The hypervisor virtualizes processors and memory and
provides mechanisms for the virtualization stack in the root partition
to manage child partitions (virtual machines) and expose services
such as I/O devices to the virtual machines.
The root partition owns and has direct access to the physical I/O
devices. The virtualization stack in the root partition provides a
memory manager for virtual machines, management APIs, and
virtualized I/O devices. It also implements emulated devices such as
integrated device electronics (IDE) and PS/2, but it supports Hyper-Vspecific devices for increased performance and reduced overhead.

Root Partition

Child Partition

Child Partition

Server

Server

virtual service
VSPsproviders
I/O
Stack

I/O
Stack

Drivers

I/O
Stack
OS
Kernel Enlightenments (WS08+)

VSCs
VMBus

Shared Memory

VSCs
VMBus

VMBus

Hypervisor
Devices

Processors

Memory

Figure 14. Hyper-V hypervisor-based architecture

The Hyper-V-specific I/O architecture consists of virtual service

providers in the root partition and virtual service clients in the child
partition. Each service is exposed as a device over VMBus, which
acts as an I/O bus and enables high-performance communication
between virtual machines that use mechanisms such as shared
memory. Plug and Play enumerates these devices, including VMBus,
and loads the appropriate device drivers (virtual service clients).
Services other than I/O are also exposed through this architecture.
Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows
Server 2008 feature enlightenments to the operating system to
optimize its behavior when it is running in virtual machines. The
benefits include reducing the cost of memory virtualization,
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improving multicore scalability, and decreasing the background CPU

usage of the guest operating system.

Server Configuration
This section describes best practices for selecting hardware for
virtualization servers and installing and setting up Windows
Server 2012 for the Hyper-V server role.

Hardware Selection
The hardware considerations for servers running Hyper-V generally
resemble those of non-virtualized servers, but servers running HyperV can exhibit increased CPU usage, consume more memory, and
need larger I/O bandwidth because of server consolidation. For more
information, refer to Choosing and Tuning Server Hardware earlier in
this guide.

Processors

Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 presents the logical processors

as one or more virtual processors to each active virtual machine.
You can achieve additional run-time efficiency by using
processors that support Second Level Address Translation (SLAT)
technologies such as Extended Page Tables (EPT) or Nested Page
Tables (NPT).

Cache

Hyper-V can benefit from larger processor caches, especially for

loads that have a large working set in memory and in virtual
machine configurations in which the ratio of virtual processors to
logical processors is high.

Memory

The physical server requires sufficient memory for the root and
child partitions. Hyper-V first allocates the memory for child
partitions, which should be sized based on the needs of the
expected load for each virtual machine. Having additional
memory available allows the root to efficiently perform I/Os on
behalf of the virtual machines and operations such as a virtual
machine snapshot.

Networking

If the expected loads are network intensive, the virtualization

server can benefit from having multiple network adapters or
multiport network adapters. Each network adapter is assigned to
its own virtual switch, which enables each virtual switch to
service a subset of virtual machines. When you hostmultiple
virtual machines, using multiple network adapters enables
distribution of the network traffic among the adapters for better
overall performance.

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To reduce the CPU usage of network I/Os from virtual machines,

Hyper-V can use hardware offloads such as Large Send Offload
(LSOv1, LSOv2), TCP checksum offload (TCPv4, TCPv6), and
virtual machine queue (VMQ). No further configuration of the
guest virtual machine is required. The network adapter provides
coalesced packets to the host, and the host passes them along to
the destination virtual machine.
For details about network hardware considerations, see
Performance Tuning for the Networking Subsystem earlier in this
guide.

Storage

The storage hardware should have sufficient I/O bandwidth and

capacity to meet the current and future needs of the virtual
machines that the physical server hosts. Consider these
requirements when you select storage controllers and disks and
choose the RAID configuration. Placing virtual machines with
highly disk-intensive workloads on different physical disks will
likely improve overall performance. For example, if four virtual
machines share a single disk and actively use it, each virtual
machine can yield only 25 percent of the bandwidth of that disk.
For details about storage hardware considerations and discussion
on sizing and RAID selection, see Performance Tuning for the
Storage Subsystem earlier in this guide.

Server Core Installation Option

Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows
Server 2008 feature the Server Core installation option. Server Core
offers a minimal environment for hosting a select set of server roles
including Hyper-V. It features a smaller disk, memory profile, and
attack surface. Therefore, we highly recommend that Hyper-V
virtualization servers use the Server Core installation option.
A Server Core installation offers a console window only when the
user is logged on, but Hyper-V exposes management features
through WMI so administrators can manage it remotely. For more
information, see Resources later in this guide.

Dedicated Server Role

The root partition should be dedicated to the virtualization server
role. Additional server roles can adversely affect the performance of
the virtualization server, especially if they consume significant CPU,
memory, or I/O bandwidth. Minimizing the server roles in the root
partition has additional benefits such as reducing the attack surface
and the frequency of updates.

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System administrators should consider carefully what software is

installed in the root partition because some software can adversely
affect the overall performance of the virtualization server.

Guest Operating Systems

Hyper-V supports and has been tuned for a number of different guest
operating systems. The number of virtual processors that are
supported per guest depends on the guest operating system. For a
list of the supported guest operating systems, see Hyper-V Overview
in the Windows Server Technical Library or the documentation that is
provided with Hyper-V.

CPU Statistics
Hyper-V publishes performance counters to help characterize the
behavior of the virtualization server and report the resource usage.
The standard set of tools for viewing performance counters in
Windows includes Performance Monitor (Perfmon.exe) and
Logman.exe, which can display and log the Hyper-V performance
counters. The names of the relevant counter objects are prefixed
with Hyper-V.
You should always measure the CPU usage of the physical system by
using the Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processor performance
counters. The CPU utilization counters that Task Manager and
Performance Monitor report in the root and child partitions do not
accurately capture the CPU usage. Use the following performance
counters to monitor performance:

\Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processor (*) \% Total Run Time

The counter represents the total non-idle time of the logical

processor(s).

\Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processor (*) \% Guest Run Time

The counter represents the time spent running cycles within a

guest or within the host.

\Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processor (*) \% Hypervisor Run Time

The counter represents the time spent running within the

hypervisor.

\Hyper-V Hypervisor Root Virtual Processor (*) \ *

The counters measure the CPU usage of the root partition.

\Hyper-V Hypervisor Virtual Processor (*) \ *

The counters measure the CPU usage of guest partitions.

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Processor Performance
The hypervisor virtualizes cores by assigning time slots between the
virtual processors. To perform the required emulation, certain
instructions and operations require the hypervisor and virtualization
stack to run. Moving a workload into a virtual machine increases the
CPU usage, but this guide describes best practices for minimizing
that overhead.

Virtual Machine Integration Services

The virtual machine Integration Services include enlightened drivers
for the Hyper-V-specific I/O devices, which significantly reduces CPU
overhead for I/O compared to emulated devices. You should install
the latest version of the virtual machine Integration Services in every
supported guest. The services decrease the CPU usage of the guests,
from idle guests to heavily used guests, and improves the I/O
throughput. This is the first step in tuning performance in a server
running Hyper-V . For the list of supported guest operating systems,
see the documentation that is provided with the Hyper-V installation.

Enlightened Guests
The operating system kernels in Windows Server 2012, Windows
Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows 8, Windows 7, and
Windows Vista with SP1 feature enlightenments that optimize their
operation for virtual machines. For best performance, we
recommend that you use one of these Windows operating systems
as a guest operating system.
The enlightenments present in Windows Server 2012, Windows
Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008 decrease the CPU
overhead of the Windows operating system that is running in a
virtual machine. The Integration services provide additional
enlightenments for I/O. Depending on the server load, it can be
appropriate to host a server application in a Windows Server guest
for better performance.

Virtual Processors
Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 supports a maximum of 64 virtual
processors per virtual machine. Virtual machines that have loads
that are not CPU intensive should be configured to use one virtual
processor. This is because of the additional overhead that is
associated with multiple virtual processors, such as additional
synchronization costs in the guest operating system.

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Increase the number of virtual processors if the virtual machine

requires more than one CPU of processing under peak load. The
documentation that is provided with the Hyper-V installation lists the
supported guest operating systems. For more information, see see
Hyper-V Overview in the Windows Server Technical Library.
Windows Server 2012 features enlightenments to the core operating
system that improve scalability in multiprocessor virtual machines.
Workloads can benefit from the scalability improvements in Windows
Server 2012 if they run virtual machines with up to 64 virtual
processors.

Background Activity
Minimizing the background activity in idle virtual machines releases
CPU cycles that can be used elsewhere by other virtual machines or
saved to reduce energy consumption. Windows guests typically use
less than one percent of one CPU when they are idle. The following
are several best practices for minimizing the background CPU usage
of a virtual machine:

Install the latest version of the virtual machine Integration

Services.

Remove the emulated network adapter through the virtual

machine settings dialog box (use the Microsoft Hyper-Vspecific adapter).

Remove unused devices such as the CD-ROM and COM port,

or disconnect their media.

Keep the Windows guest on the sign-in screen when it is not

being used.

Use Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, or

Windows Server 2008 for the guest operating system.

Disable the screen saver.

Disable, throttle, or stagger periodic activity such as backup

and defragmentation.

Review the scheduled tasks and services that are enabled by

default.

Improve server applications to reduce periodic activity (such

as timers).

Use the default Balanced power plan instead of the High

Performance power plan.

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The following are additional best practices for configuring a client

version of Windows in a virtual machine to reduce the overall CPU
usage:

Disable background services such as SuperFetch and

Windows Search.

Disable scheduled tasks such as Scheduled Defrag.

Disable Aero glass and other user interface effects (through

the System application in Control Panel).

Weights and Reserves

Hyper-V supports setting the weight of a virtual processor to grant it
a larger or smaller share of CPU cycles than average and specifying
the reserve of a virtual processor to make sure that it gets a minimal
percentage of CPU cycles. The CPU that a virtual processor
consumes can also be limited by specifying usage limits. System
administrators can use these features to prioritize specific virtual
machines, but we recommend the default values unless you have a
compelling reason to alter them.
Weights and reserves prioritize or de-prioritize specific virtual
machines if CPU resources are overcommitted. This ensures that
those virtual machines receive a larger or smaller share of the CPU.
Highly intensive loads can benefit from adding more virtual
processors instead, especially when they are close to saturating an
entire core.

Tuning NUMA Node Preference

On Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) hardware, each virtual
machine has a default NUMA node preference. Hyper-V uses this
NUMA node preference when assigning physical memory to the
virtual machine and when scheduling the virtual machines virtual
processors. A virtual machine performs optimally when its virtual
processors and memory are on the same NUMA node.
By default, the system assigns the virtual machine to its preferred
NUMA node every time the virtual machine is run. An imbalance of
NUMA node assignments might occur depending on the memory
requirements of each virtual machine and the order in which each
virtual machine is started. This can lead to a disproportionate
number of virtual machines being assigned to a single NUMA node.
Use Perfmon to check the NUMA node preference setting for each
running virtual machine by examining the \Hyper-V VM Vid Partition
(*)\ NumaNodeIndex counter.
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You can change NUMA node preference assignments by using the

Hyper-V WMI API. To set the NUMA node preference for a virtual
machine, set the NumaNodeList property of the
Msvm_VirtualSystemSettingData class. For information about the
WMI calls that are available for Hyper-V and for a blog post about
NUMA node balancing, see Resources later in this guide.

Memory Performance
The hypervisor virtualizes the guest physical memory to isolate
virtual machines from each other and to provide a contiguous, zerobased memory space for each guest operating system. In general,
memory virtualization can increase the CPU cost of accessing
memory. On non-SLAT-based hardware, frequent modification of the
virtual address space in the guest operating system can significantly
increase the cost.

Enlightened Guests
Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows
Server 2008 include kernel enlightenments and optimizations to the
memory manager to reduce the CPU overhead from memory
virtualization in Hyper-V. Workloads that have a large working set in
memory can benefit from using Windows Server 2012, Windows
Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2008 as a guest. These
enlightenments reduce the CPU cost of context switching between
processes and accessing memory. Additionally, they improve the
multiprocessor scalability of Windows Server guests.

Correct Memory Sizing for Child Partitions

You should size virtual machine memory as you typically do for
server applications on a physical computer. You must size it to
reasonably handle the expected load at ordinary and peak times
because insufficient memory can significantly increase response
times and CPU or I/O usage.
You can enable Dynamic Memory to allow Windows to size virtual
machine memory dynamically. The recommended initial memory size
for Windows Server 2012 guests is at least 512 MB. With Dynamic
Memory, if applications in the virtual machine experience launching
problems, you can increase the page file size for the virtual machine.
To increase the virtual machine page file size, navigate to Control
Panel > System > Advanced System Settings > Advanced.
From this tab, navigate to Performance Settings > Advanced >
Virtual memory. For the Custom size selection, configure the
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Initial Size to the virtual machines Memory Demand when virtual

machine reaches its steady state, and set the Maximum Size to
three times the Initial Size.
For more information, see the Hyper-V Dynamic Memory
Configuration Guide.
When running Windows in the child partition, you can use the
following performance counters within a child partition to identify
whether the child partition is experiencing memory pressure and is
likely to perform better with a higher virtual machine memory size.
Performance counter

Suggested threshold value

Memory Standby
Cache Reserve Bytes

Sum of Standby Cache Reserve Bytes and

Free and Zero Page List Bytes should be 200
MB or more on systems with 1 GB, and 300
MB or more on systems with 2 GB or more of
visible RAM.
Sum of Standby Cache Reserve Bytes and
Free and Zero Page List Bytes should be 200
MB or more on systems with 1 GB, and 300
MB or more on systems with 2 GB or more of
visible RAM.
Average over a 1-hour period is less than 10.

Memory Free &

Zero Page List Bytes

Memory Pages
Input/Sec

Correct Memory Sizing for Root Partition

The root partition must have sufficient memory to provide services
such as I/O virtualization, virtual machine snapshot, and
management to support the child partitions. Hyper-V calculates an
amount of memory known as the root reserve, which is guaranteed
to be available to the root partition and never assigned to virtual
machines. It is calculated automatically, based on the hosts physical
memory and system architecture. This logic applies for supported
scenarios with no applications running in the root partition.

Storage I/O Performance

This section describes the different options and considerations for
tuning storage I/O performance in a virtual machine. The storage I/O
path extends from the guest storage stack, through the host
virtualization layer, to the host storage stack, and then to the
physical disk. Following are explanations about how optimizations
are possible at each of these stages.

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Virtual Controllers
Hyper-V offers three types of virtual controllers : IDE, SCSI, and
Virtual host bus adapters (HBAs).
IDE

IDE controllers expose IDE disks to the virtual machine. The IDE
controller is emulated, and it is the only controller that is available
when the Integration Services are not installed on the guest. Disk I/O
that is performed by using the IDE filter driver that is provided with
the Integration Services is significantly better than the disk I/O
performance that is provided with the emulated IDE controller. We
recommend that IDE disks be used only for the operating system
disks because they have performance limitations due to the
maximum I/O size that can be issued to these devices.
SCSI

SCSI controllers expose SCSI disks to the virtual machine, and each
virtual SCSI controller can support up to 64 devices. For optimal
performance, we recommend that you attach multiple disks to a
single virtual SCSI controller and create additional controllers only as
they are required to scale the number of disks connected to the
virtual machine.
Virtual HBAs

Virtual HBAs can be configured to allow direct access for virtual

machines to Fibre Channel and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)
LUNs. Virtual Fibre Channel disks bypass the NTFS file system in the
root partition, which reduces the CPU usage of storage I/O.
Large data drives and drives that are shared between multiple virtual
machines (for guest clustering scenarios) are prime candidates for
virtual Fibre Channel disks.
Virtual Fibre Channel disks require one or more Fibre Channel host
bus adapters (HBAs) to be installed on the host. Each host HBA is
required to use an HBA driver that supports the Windows Server
2012 Virtual Fibre Channel/NPIV capabilities. The SAN fabric should
support NPIV, and the HBA port(s) that are used for the virtual Fibre
Channel should be set up in a Fibre Channel topology that supports
NPIV.
To maximize throughput on hosts that are installed with more than
one HBA, we recommend that you configure multiple virtual HBAs
inside the Hyper-V virtual machine (up to four HBAs can be
configured for each virtual machine). Hyper-V will automatically
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make a best effort to balance virtual HBAs to host HBAs that access
the same virtual SAN.

Virtual Disks
Disks can be exposed to the virtual machines through the virtual
controllers. These disks could be virtual hard disks that are file
abstractions of a disk or a pass-through disk on the host.
Virtual Hard Disks

There are two virtual hard disk formats, VHD and VHDX. Each of
these formats supports three types of virtual hard disk files.
VHD Format

The VHD format was the only virtual hard disk format that was
supported by Hyper-V in past releases. In Windows Server 2012, the
VHD format has been modified to allow better alignment, which
results in significantly better performance on new large sector disks.
Any new VHD that is created on a Windows Server 2012 operating
system has the optimal 4 KB alignment. This aligned format is
completely compatible with previous Windows Server operating
systems. However, the alignment property will be broken for new
allocations from parsers that are not 4 KB alignment-aware (such as
a VHD parser from a previous version of Windows Server or a nonMicrosoft parser).
Any VHD that is moved from a previous release does not
automatically get converted to this new improved VHD format.
You can check the alignment property for all the VHDs on the
system, and it should be converted to the optimal 4 KB alignment.
You create a new VHD with the data from the original VHD by using
the Create-from-Source option.
VHDX Format

VHDX is a new virtual hard disk format introduced in Windows Server

2012, which allows you to create resilient high-performance virtual
disks up to 64 terabytes. Benefits of this format include:

Support for virtual hard disk storage capacity of up to 64

terabytes.

Protection against data corruption during power failures by

logging updates to the VHDX metadata structures.

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Ability to store custom metadata about a file, which a user

might want to record, such as operating system version or
patches applied.

The VHDX format also provides the following performance benefits

(each of these is detailed later in this guide):

Improved alignment of the virtual hard disk format to work

well on large sector disks.

Larger block sizes for dynamic and differential disks, which

allows these disks to attune to the needs of the workload.

4 KB logical sector virtual disk that allows for increased

performance when used by applications and workloads that
are designed for 4 KB sectors.

Efficiency in representing data, which results in smaller file

size and allows the underlying physical storage device to
reclaim unused space. (Trim requires pass-through or SCSI
disks and trim-compatible hardware.)

When you upgrade to Windows Server 2012, we recommend that

you convert all VHD files to the VHDX format due to these benefits.
The only scenario where it would make sense to keep the files in the
VHD format is when a virtual machine has the potential to be moved
to a previous release of the Windows Server operating system that
supports Hyper-V.
Types of Virtual Hard Disk Files

There are three types of VHD files. Following are the performance
characteristics and trade-offs between the three VHD types.
Fixed type

Space for the VHD is first allocated when the VHD file is created. This
type of VHD file is less apt to fragment, which reduces the I/O
throughput when a single I/O is split into multiple I/Os. It has the
lowest CPU overhead of the three VHD file types because Reads and
Writes do not need to look up the mapping of the block.
Dynamic type

Space for the VHD is allocated on demand. The blocks in the disk
start as zeroed blocks, but they are not backed by any actual space
in the file. Reads from such blocks return a block of zeros. When a
block is first written to, the virtualization stack must allocate space
within the VHD file for the block, and then update the metadata. This
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increases the number of necessary disk I/Os for the Write and
increases CPU usage. Reads and Writes to existing blocks incur disk
access and CPU overhead when looking up the blocks mapping in
the metadata.
Differencing type

The VHD points to a parent VHD file. Any Writes to blocks not written
to result in space being allocated in the VHD file, as with a
dynamically expanding VHD. Reads are serviced from the VHD file if
the block has been written to. Otherwise, they are serviced from the
parent VHD file. In both cases, the metadata is read to determine the
mapping of the block. Reads and Writes to this VHD can consume
more CPU and result in more I/Os than a fixed VHD file.
The following recommendations should be taken into consideration
with regards to selecting a VHD file type:

When using the VHD format, we recommend that you use the
fixed type because it has better resiliency and performance
characteristics compared to the other VHD file types.

When using the VHDX format, we recommend that you use

the dynamic type because it offers resiliency guarantees in
addition to space savings that are associated with allocating
space only when there is a need to do so.

The fixed type is also recommended, irrespective of the

format, when the storage on the hosting volume is not actively
monitored to ensure that sufficient disk space is present when
expanding the VHD file at run time.

Snapshots of a virtual machine create a differencing VHD to

store Writes to the disks. Having only a few snapshots can
elevate the CPU usage of storage I/Os, but might not
noticeably affect performance except in highly I/O-intensive
server workloads. However, having a large chain of snapshots
can noticeably affect performance because reading from the
VHD can require checking for the requested blocks in many
differencing VHDs. Keeping snapshot chains short is important
for maintaining good disk I/O performance.

Block Size Considerations

Block size can significantly impact performance. It is optimal to
match the block size to the allocation patterns of the workload that
is using the disk. If an application is allocating in chunks of, for
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example, 16 MB, it would be optimal to have a virtual hard disk block

size of 16 MB. A block size of >2 MB is possible only on virtual hard
disks with the VHDX format. Having a larger block size than the
allocation pattern for a random I/O workload will significantly
increase the space usage on the host.

Sector Size Implications

Most of the software industry has depended on disk sectors of 512
bytes, but the standard is moving to 4 KB disk sectors. To reduce
compatibility issues that might arise from a change in sector size,
hard drive vendors are introducing a transitional size referred to as
512 emulation drives (512e).
These emulation drives offer some of the advantages that are
offered by 4 KB disk sector native drives, such as improved format
efficiency and an improved scheme for error correction codes (ECC).
They come with fewer compatibility issues that would occur by
exposing a 4 KB sector size at the disk interface.
Support for 512e Disks

A 512e disk can perform a Write only in terms of a physical sector

that is, it cannot directly write a 512-byte sector that is issued to it.
The internal process in the disk that makes these Writes possible
follows these steps:

The disk reads the 4 KB physical sector to its internal cache,

which contains the 512-byte logical sector referred to in the
Write.

Data in the 4 KB buffer is modified to include the updated 512byte sector.

The disk performs a Write of the updated 4 KB buffer back to

its physical sector on the disk.

This process is called Read-Modify-Write or RMW. The overall

performance impact of the RMW process depends on the workloads.
The RMW process causes performance degradation in virtual hard
disks for the following reasons:

Dynamic and differencing virtual hard disks have a 512-byte

sector bitmap in front of their data payload. In addition, footer,
header, and parent locators align to a 512-byte sector. It is
common for the virtual hard disk driver to issue 512-byte

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Writes to update these structures, resulting in the RMW

process described earlier.

Applications commonly issue Reads and Writes in multiples of

4 KB sizes (the default cluster size of NTFS). Because there is
a 512-byte sector bitmap in front of the data payload block of
dynamic and differencing virtual hard disks, the 4 KB blocks
are not aligned to the physical 4 KB boundary. The following
figure shows a VHD 4 KB block (highlighted) that is not aligned
with physical 4 KB boundary.

Figure 15: VHD 4 KB block

Each 4 KB Write that is issued by the current parser to update the
payload data results in two Reads for two blocks on the disk, which
are then updated and subsequently written back to the two disk
blocks. Hyper-V in Windows Server2012 mitigates some of the
performance effects on 512e disks on the VHD stack by preparing
the previously mentioned structures for alignment to 4 KB
boundaries in the VHD format. This avoids the RMW effect when
accessing the data within the virtual hard disk file and when
updating the virtual hard disk metadata structures.
As mentioned earlier, VHDs that are copied from previous versions of
Windows Server will not automatically be aligned to 4 KB. You can
manually convert them to optimally align by using the Copy from
Source disk option that is available in the VHD interfaces.
By default, VHDs are exposed with a physical sector size of 512
bytes. This is done to ensure that physical sector size dependent
applications are not impacted when the application and VHDs are
moved from a previous version of Windows Server to Windows
Server 2012.
After you confirm that all VHDs on a host are not impacted by
changing the physical sector size to 4 KB, you can set the following
registry key to modify all the physical sector sizes of all the VHDs on
that host to 4 KB. This helps systems and applications that are 4 KBaware to issue 4 KB sized I/Os to the VHDs.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vhdmp\Parameters\
Vhd1PhysicalSectorSize4KB = (REG_DWORD)
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A non-zero value will change all VHDs to report 4k physical sector

size.
By default, disks with the VHDX format are created with the 4 KB
physical sector size to optimize their performance profile regular
disks and large sector disks.
Support for Native 4 K Disks

Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 makes it possible to store virtual

hard disks. This is done by implementing a software RMW algorithm
in the virtual storage stack layer that converts 512-byte access and
update requests to corresponding 4 KB accesses and updates.
Because VHD file can only expose themselves as 512-byte logical
sector size disks, it is very likely that there will be applications that
issue 512-byteI/O requests. In these cases, the RMW layer will satisfy
these requests and cause performance degradation. This is also true
for a disk that is formatted with VHDX that has a logical sector size
of 512 bytes.
It is possible to configure a VHDX file to be exposed as a 4 KB logical
sector size disk, and this would be an optimal configuration for
performance when the disk is hosted on a 4 KB native physical
device. Care should be taken to ensure that the guest and the
application that is using the virtual disk are backed by the 4 KB
logical sector size. The VHDX formatting will work correctly on a 4 KB
logical sector size device.

Block Fragmentation
Just as the allocations on a physical disk can be fragmented, the
allocation of the blocks on a virtual disk can be fragmented when
two virtually adjacent blocks are not allocated together on a virtual
disk file.
The fragmentation percentage is reported for disks. If a performance
issue noticed on a virtual disk, you should check the fragmentation
percentage. When applicable, defragment the virtual disk by
creating a new virtual disk with the data from the fragmented disk
by using the Create from Source option.

Pass-through Disks
The VHD in a virtual machine can be mapped directly to a physical
disk or logical unit number (LUN), instead of to a VHD file. The
benefit is that this configuration bypasses the NTFS file system in the
root partition, which reduces the CPU usage of storage I/O. The risk is
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that physical disks or LUNs can be more difficult to move between

machines than VHD files.
Large data drives can be prime candidates for pass-through disks,
especially if they are I/O intensive. Virtual machines that can be
migrated between virtualization servers (such as in a quick
migration) must also use drives that reside on a LUN of a shared
storage device.

Advanced Storage Features

I/O Balancer Controls

The virtualization stack balances storage I/O streams from different

virtual machines so that each virtual machine has similar I/O
response times when the systems I/O bandwidth is saturated. The
following registry keys can be used to adjust the balancing
algorithm, but the virtualization stack tries to fully use the I/O
devices throughput while providing reasonable balance. The first
path should be used for storage scenarios, and the second path
should be used for networking scenarios:
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\StorVsp\<Key> = (REG_DWORD)

Storage and networking have three registry keys at the StorVsp and
VmSwitch paths, respectively. Each value is a DWORD and operates
as explained in the following list.
Note We do not recommend this advanced tuning option unless
you have a specific reason to use it. These registry keys may be
removed in future releases.

IOBalance_Enabled

The balancer is enabled when it is set to a nonzero value, and it is

disabled when set to 0. The default is enabled for storage and
disabled for networking. Enabling the balancing for networking
can add significant CPU overhead in some scenarios.

IOBalance_KeepHwBusyLatencyTarget_Microseconds

This controls how much work, represented by a latency value, the

balancer allows to be issued to the hardware before throttling to
provide better balance. The default is 83 ms for storage and 2 ms
for networking. Lowering this value can improve balance, but it
will reduce some throughput. Lowering it too much significantly
affects overall throughput. Storage systems with high throughput
and high latencies can show added overall throughput with a
higher value for this parameter.

IOBalance_AllowedPercentOverheadDueToFlowSwitchi
ng
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This controls how much work the balancer issues from a virtual
machine before switching to another virtual machine. This setting
is primarily for storage where finely interleaving I/Os from
different virtual machines can increase the number of disk seeks.
The default is 8 percent for both storage and networking.

NUMA I/O
Windows Server 2012 supports large virtual machines, and any large
virtual machine configuration (for example, a configuration with SQL
Server running with 64 virtual processors) will also need scalability in
terms of I/O throughput.
The following key improvements in the Windows Server 2012 storage
stack and Hyper-V provide the I/O scalability needs of large virtual
machines:

An increase in the number of communication channels created

between the guest devices and host storage stack

A more efficient I/O completion mechanism involving interrupt

distribution amongst the virtual processors to avoid
interprocessor interruptions, which are expensive

There are a few registry keys that allow the number of channels to
be adjusted. They also align the virtual processors that handle the
I/O completions to the virtual CPUs that are assigned by the
application to be the I/O processors. The registry values are set on a
per-adapter basis on the devices hardware key. The following two
values are located in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum\VMBUS\
{device id}\{instance id}\Device Parameters\StorChannel

ChannelCount (DWORD): The total number of channels to

use, with a maximum of 16. It defaults to a ceiling, which is
the number of virtual processors/16.

ChannelMask (QWORD): The processor affinity for the

channels. If it is not set or is set to 0, it defaults to the existing
channel distribution algorithm that you use for normal storage
or for networking channels. This ensures that your storage
channels wont conflict with your network channels.

Offloaded Data Transfer Integration

Crucial maintenance tasks for VHDs, such as merge, move, and
compact, depend on copying large amounts of data. The current
method of copying data requires data to be read in and written to
different locations, which can be a time-consuming process. It also
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uses CPU and memory resources on the host, which could have been
used to service virtual machines.
Storage area network (SAN) vendors are working to provide nearinstantaneous copy operations of large amounts of data. This
storage is designed to allow the system above the disks to specify
the move of a specific data set from one location to another. This
hardware feature is known as an offloaded data transfer.
The storage stack for Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 supports
Offload Data Transfer (ODX) operations so that these operations can
be passed from the guest operating system to the host hardware.
This ensures that the workload can use ODX-enabled storage as it
would if it were running in a non-virtualized environment. The
Hyper-V storage stack also issues ODX operations during
maintenance operations for VHDs such as merging disks and storage
migration meta-operations where large amounts of data are moved.

Unmap Integration
Virtual hard disk files exist as files on a storage volume, and they
share available space with other files. Because the size of these files
tends to be large, the space that they consume can grow quickly.
Demand for more physical storage affects the IT hardware budget,
so its important to optimize the use of physical storage as much as
possible.
Currently, when applications delete content within a virtual hard
disk, which effectively abandons the contents storage space, the
Windows storage stack in the guest operating system and the HyperV host have limitations that prevent this information from being
communicated to the virtual hard disk and the physical storage
device. This prevents the Hyper-V storage stack from optimizing the
space usage by the VHDX-based virtual disk files. It also prevents the
underlying storage device from reclaiming the space that was
previously occupied by the deleted data.
In Windows Server 2012, Hyper-V supports unmap notifications,
which allow VHDX files to be more efficient in representing that data
within it. This results in smaller files size, and it allows the underlying
physical storage device to reclaim unused space.
Only Hyper-V-specific SCSI, Enlightened IDE and virtual Fibre Channel
controllers allow the unmap command from the guest to reach the
host virtual storage stack. Hyper-V-specific SCSI is also used for pass-

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through disks. On the virtual hard disks, only virtual disks formatted
as VHDX support unmap commands from the guest.
For these reasons, we recommend that you use VHDX files attached
to a SCSI controller when not using regular pass through or virtual
Fibre Channel disks.

Network I/O Performance

Hyper-V supports Hyper-V-specific and emulated network adapters in
the virtual machines, but the Hyper-V-specific devices offer
significantly better performance and reduced CPU overhead. Each of
these adapters is connected to a virtual network switch, which can
be connected to a physical network adapter if external network
connectivity is needed.
For how to tune the network adapter in the root partition, including
interrupt moderation, see Performance Tuning for the Networking
Subsystem earlier in this guide. The TCP tunings in that section
should be applied, if required, to the child partitions.

Hyper-V-specific Network Adapter

Hyper-V features a Hyper-V-specific network adapter that is designed
specifically for virtual machines to achieve significantly reduced CPU
overhead on network I/O when it is compared to the emulated
network adapter that mimics existing hardware. The Hyper-V-specific
network adapter communicates between the child and root partitions
over VMBus by using shared memory for more efficient data transfer.
The emulated network adapter should be removed through the
settings dialog box in the virtual machine and replaced with a HyperV-specific network adapter. The guest requires that the virtual
machine Integration Services be installed.
Perfmon counters that represent the network statistics for the
installed Hyper-V-specific network adapters are available under the
following counter set: \Hyper-V Virtual Network Adapter (*) \ *.

Install Multiple Hyper-V-specific Network Adapters on Multiprocessor

virtual machines
Virtual machines with more than one virtual processor might benefit
from having more than one Hyper-V-specific network adaptor
installed in the virtual machine. Workloads that are network
intensive, such as a web server, can make use of greater parallelism
in the virtual network stack if a second Hyper-V-specific network
adapter is installed in a virtual machine.
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Offload Hardware
As with the native scenario, offload capabilities in the physical
network adapter reduce the CPU usage of network I/Os in virtual
machine scenarios. Hyper-V currently supports LargeSend Offload
(LSOv1, LSOv2) and TCP checksum offload (TCPv4, TCPv6). The
offload capabilities must be enabled in the driver for the physical
network adapter in the root partition. For details about offload
capabilities in network adapters, refer to Choosing a Network
Adapter.
Drivers for certain network adapters disable LSOv1, and they enable
LSOv2 by default. System administrators must explicitly enable
LSOv1 by using the Properties dialog box for the driver in Device
Manager.

Network Switch Topology

Hyper-V supports creating multiple virtual network switches, each of
which can be attached to a physical network adapter if needed. Each
network adapter in a virtual machine can be connected to a virtual
network switch. If the physical server has multiple network adapters,
virtual machines with network-intensive loads can benefit from being
connected to different virtual switches to better use the physical
network adapters.
Perfmon counters that represent the network statistics for the
installed Hyper-V-specific switches are available under the following
counter set: \Hyper-V Virtual Switch (*) \ *.

VLAN Performance
The Hyper-V-specific network adapter supports VLAN tagging. It
provides significantly better network performance if the physical
network adapter supports
NDIS_ENCAPSULATION_IEEE_802_3_P_AND_Q_IN_OOB encapsulation
for Large Send Offload and checksum offload. Without this support,
Hyper-V cannot use hardware offload for packets that require VLAN
tagging, and network performance can be decreased.

Dynamic VMQ
Dynamic virtual machine queue (VMQ or dVMQ) is a performance
optimization of VMQ in Windows Server 2012 that automatically
scales the number of processors that are in use for VMQ, based on
the traffic volume. This section provides guidance about how to
configure the system to take full advantage of dVMQ.
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The configuration of dVMQ is controlled by the same settings as RSS.

It uses the following standard keywords in the registry for the base
CPU number and the maximum number of CPUs to use:
*RssBaseProcNumber and *MaxRssProcessors.
Some Intel multi-core processors may use Intel Hyper-Threading
Technology. When Hyper-Threading Technology is enabled, the actual
number of cores that are used by dVMQ should be half the total
number of logical processors that are available in the system. This is
because dVMQ spreads the processing across individual physical
cores only, and it will not use hyperthreaded sibling cores. As an
example, if the machine has an Intel processor with four physical
cores, and Hyper-Threading Technology is enabled, it will show a total
of eight logical processors. Only four logical processors are available
to VMQ. VMQ will use cores 0, 2, 4, and 6.
There may be situations where starting with logical processor 0
(which corresponds to core 0) as the *RssBaseProcNumber is
acceptable. However, general guidance is to avoid using core 0 as
the base CPU because it is generally used for default network queues
and workload processing in the root partition.
Based on the root virtual processor utilization, the RSS base and
maximum logical processors for a physical network adapter can be
configured to define the set of root virtual processors that are
available for VMQ processing. Selecting the set of VMQ processors
can better isolate latency-centric or cache-sensitive virtual machines
or workloads from root network processing. Use the Windows
PowerShell cmdlet, Set-NetAdapterVmq, to set the correct base
processor number and the maximum processor number.
There are limited hardware queues available, so you can use the
Hyper-V WMI API to ensure that the virtual machines using the
network bandwidth are assigned a hardware queue. To disable VMQ
for specific virtual network adapters, open Hyper-V Manager, and
then open the settings for a virtual machine. For the virtual network
adapter on which you want to disable VMQ, expand the port settings,
and in the Hardware Acceleration section, clear the Enable
Virtual Machine Queue check box.
When a host has multiple network adapters, each for a different
virtual switch instance, and it is using dVMQ, do not configure dVMQ
to use overlapping processor sets. Ensure that each network adapter
that is configured for dVMQ has its own set of cores. Otherwise
performance results may be impaired and unpredictable.
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There are two separate dVMQ configuration recommendations,

based on the type of network adapter teaming (also known as load
balancing and failover or LBFO) in Windows Server 2012 with HyperV. If the team is configured by using switch dependent-mode or
address hashing, each network adapter in the team should have
identical values for *RssBaseProcNumber and *MaxRssProcessors.
This mode is referred to as Min mode in the following table.
If the team is configured by using switch independent mode and
Hyper-V switch port addressing, each network adapter in the team
should be configured by using non-overlapped processor sets as
earlier described for multiple network adapters. This is referred to as
the Sum mode in the following table. For more information, see the
Windows Server 2012 NIC Teaming (LBFO) Deployment and
Management Guide.
Teaming Modes

Switch dependent mode

Switch independent
mode

Address hash (2-tuple,

4-tuple, or MAC)
Min
Min

Hyper-V switch port

Min
Sum

The following table has example comparisons of the dVMQ settings

(RssBaseProcNumber, MaxRssProcNumber) for two virtual machines
that use the Min and Sum configurations.
*RssBaseProcNumber,
*MaxRssProcessors
Min example
configuration
Sum example
configuration

8-core HT,
3 network adapters
Each NIC=2, 3

16-core HT,
4 network adapters
Each NIC=2,7

NIC1=2,1
NIC2=4,1
NIC3=6,1

NIC1=2,2
NIC2=6,2
NIC3=10,2
NIC4=14,1

The following formula can be used to compute even distribution of

cores among network adapters for a team. It is assumed that the
first core is skipped; that is, RssBaseProcNumber starts at 2.
The maximum number of cores per virtual machine that dVMQ will
use is 16.
Ct = total number of cores
Nt = total number of network adapters in the team
The general case assumes hyperthreading is in use on cores:
MaxRssProcessors = min((Ct-2)/2/Nt, 16)
In the event that hyperthreading is disabled or unavailable:
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MaxRssProcessors=min((Ct-1)/Nt, 16)

MAC Spoofing Guidance

By default each virtual machine has MAC address protection, so
traffic on a MAC address (other that the one assigned in the host) is
blocked. To allow a virtual machine to set its own MAC address, the
Enable MAC Spoofing check box must be selected with the
Windows PowerShell cmdlet Set-VMNetworkAdapter as follows:
PS C:> get-vm MyVM | set-vmNetworkAdapter
MacAddressSpoofing On
Note If MAC spoofing is enabled on a virtual machine that is
connected to an SR-IOV mode virtual switch, traffic will still be
blocked. MAC spoofing should only be enabled for a virtual machine
on a non-SR-IOV mode virtual switch. If Enable MAC Spoofing is
selected, the SR-IOV virtual function is removed and traffic is routed
through the virtual switch.

Single Root I/O Virtualization

Windows Server 8 introduces support for single root I/O virtualization
(SR-IOV), which allows the direct assignment of network resources
(virtual functions) to individual virtual machines when specialized
hardware is available. SR-IOV can be enabled for networking and CPU
intensive workloads to reduce virtualization overhead for networking
I/O.
The number of virtual functions available for assignment is defined
by the network adapter, and they can be queried with the Windows
Powershell cmdlet, Get-NetAdapterSriov. Other IOV operations
that are exposed through Windows Powershell include:

Enable-NetAdapterSriov: Enables IOV on the physical

network adapter

Disable-NetAdapterSriov: Disables IOV

New-VMSwitch: Use withthe EnableIov flag to create an

IOV switch

When networking virtual machine-to-virtual machine, the virtual

function bandwidth is limited by the bandwidth of the physical
adapter. In cases where the virtual function bandwidth is saturated,
switching to the Hyper-V-specific network adapter for inter-virtual
machine communication can improve throughput by decoupling
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 164

virtual machine-to-virtual machine network I/O traffic from the

physical adapter bandwidth.

Live Migration
Live migration enables you to transparently move running virtual
machines from one node of a failover cluster to another node in the
same cluster without a dropped network connection or perceived
downtime. In addition, failover clustering requires shared storage for
the cluster nodes.
The process of moving a running virtual machine can be divided into
two major phases. The first phase is the copying the memory
contents on the virtual machine from the current host to the new
host. The second phase is transfering the virtual machine state from
the current host to the new host. The durations of both phases is
greatly determined by the speed at which data can be transferred
from the current host to the new host.
Providing a dedicated network for live migration traffic helps
minimize the time that is required to complete a live migration, and
it ensures consistent migration times.

Figure 16. Example Hyper-V live migration configuration

In addition, increasing the number of receive and send buffers on

each network adapter that is involved in the migration can improve
migration performance. For more information, see Performance
Tuning for the Networking Subsystem earlier in this guide.

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Performance Tuning for SAP Sales and Distribution

SAP AG has developed several standard application benchmarks. The
Sales and Distribution workload represents one of the important
classes of workloads that are used to benchmark SAP enterprise
resource planning installations. The updates to SAP include added
requirements, such as subsecond response time and a Unicode code
page. For more information, see SAP with Microsoft SQL Server 2008
and SQL Server 2005: Best Practices for High Availability, Maximum
Performance, and Scalability.
You can perform multidimensional tuning of the operating system
level, application server, database server, network, and storage to
achieve optimal throughput and good response times as the number
of concurrent sales and distribution users increases before
performance levels off because of resource limitations.
The following sections provide guidelines that can benefit two and
three tier configurations for sales and distribution benchmarks for
SAP enterprise resource planning in Windows Server2012. Some of
these recommendations might not apply to the same degree for
production systems.

Operating System Tunings on the Server

Navigate to Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings >
Advanced tab and configure the following:

Navigate to Performance Settings > Advanced > Virtual

memory, and then set one or more fixed-size page files (set
the Initial Size equal to Maximum Size). The page file size
should meet the total virtual memory requirements of the
workload. Make sure that no system-managed page files are in
the virtual memory on the Application Server.

Navigate to Performance Settings > Visual Effects, and then

select the Adjust for best performance check box.

To enable SQL to use large pages, configure the Lock pages

in memory user right assignment for the account that will run
the SQL and SAP services.

From the Group Policy MMC snap-in (Gpedit.msc), navigate to

Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security
Settings > Local Policies > User Rights Assignment.

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Double-click Lock pages in memory and add the accounts

that have credentials to run Sqlservr.exe and SAP services.

Navigate to Start > All Programs > Administrative Tools

> System Configuration > Tools tab, select Disable UAC,
and then reboot the system.
Note The UAC setting can be used for benchmark
environments, but enabling UAC might be a security
compliance requirement in production environments.

For a virtualized configuration, these settings apply across the host

and virtual machine operating systems. For latency sensitive
virtualized configurations, to partition network I/O processing from
SAP computing resources, consider limiting the number of logical
processors that are available for the VMQ interrupt processing. This
can be accomplished by configuring the base and maximum RSS
logical processors.

Tunings on the Database Server

When the database server is running SQL Server, consider setting
the following SQL Server configuration options by using sp_configure.
For detailed information about the sp_configure stored procedure,
see Server Configuration Options.

Apply CPU affinity for the SQL Server process.

Set an affinity mask to partition the SQL Server process on
specific cores. If required, use the affinity64 mask server
configuration option to set the affinity on more than 32 cores.
In SQL Server 2012 and SQL Server 2008 R2, you can apply
equivalent settings for configuring CPU affinity on as many as
640 logical processors by using the ALTER SERVER
CONFIGURATION Transact-SQL statement because the
sp_configure affinity mask options are announced for
deprecation.
Note For the current two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution
benchmarks, it is typically sufficient to run SQL Server on oneeighth or fewer of the existing cores.

Set a fixed amount of memory that the SQL Server

process will use.
For example, set the max server memory and min server
memory equal and large enough to satisfy the workload
(2500 MB is a good starting value).
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On NUMA-class hardware, you can do the following:

For information about how to subdivide the CPUs in a hardware

NUMA node into more CPU nodes (known as Soft-NUMA), see
Configure SQL Server to Use Soft-NUMA.

To provide NUMA node locality for SQL Server, set preferred NUMA
node hints (applies to Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server
2008 R2). For the following commands, use the service name.
The [server] parameter is optional, the other parameters are
required:
Use the following command to set the preferred NUMA
node:
%windir%\system32\sc.exe [server] preferrednode <SQL Server
service name> <NUMA node number>

You need administrator permissions to set the preferred

node. Run %windir%\system32\sc.exe preferrednode
to display Help text.

Use the following command to query the setting:

%windir%\system32\sc.exe [server] qpreferrednode <SQL Server

service name>

This command fails if the service has no preferred node

settings. Run %windir%\system32\sc.exe
qpreferrednode to display Help text.

Use the following command to remove the setting:

%windir%\system32\sc.exe [server] preferrednode <SQL Server

service name> -1

On a two-tier native enterprise resource planning SAP setup,

consider enabling and using only the Named Pipes protocol and
disabling the rest of the available protocols from the SQL Server
Configuration Manager for the local SQL connections.
If SQL Server is running in a dedicated system or virtual machine,
the recommended protocol is TPC/IP.

Tunings on SAP Application Server

The ratio between the number of Dialog (D) processes versus

Update (U) processes in the SAP enterprise resource planning
installation might vary, but usually a ratio of 1D:1U or 2D:1U
per logical processor is a good start for the Sales and
Distribution workload. Ensure that in a SAP dialog instance,
the number of worker processes and users does not exceed
the capacity of the SAP dispatcher for that dialog instance
(the current maximum is approximately 2,000 users per
instance).
On NUMA-class hardware, consider installing one or more SAP
dialog instances per NUMA node (depending on the number
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 168

of logical processors per NUMA node that you want to use

with SAP worker processes). The D:U ratio, and the overall
number of SAP dialog instances per NUMA node or system,
might be improved based on the analysis of previous
experiments.
For large virtual machines that span multiple NUMA nodes,
virtual NUMA is available by default and can be used to
partition dialog instances. For more information, see
Virtualizing SAP Applications on Windows.

For smaller virtual machines without virtual NUMA, the

preferred NUMA node can be configured for each virtual
machine for better load balancing and performance.

To further partition computing resources within an SAP

instance, use the processor affinity capabilities in the SAP
instance profiles to partition each worker process to a subset
of the available logical processors. This provides better CPU
and memory locality. The affinity setting in the SAP instance
profiles is supported for 64 logical processors. The affinity
setting is not recommended when running SAP worker
processes inside a virtual machine because experiments have
shown that SAP latency can be improved by allowing the
guest and hypervisor schedulers to better allocate CPU
resources.

For large scale virtualized deployments, the selection of VMQ

processors can be altered to better partition SAP virtual
machines from root network I/O processing. Consider
restricting the VMQ processors to logical processors (and
NUMA nodes) on which contention with SAP virtual machines
is minimized. This may improve latency for heavily loaded
configurations.

Use the flat memory model that SAP AG released in

November 2006, with the SAP Note No. 1002587 (Flat
Memory Model on Windows) for SAP kernel 7.00 patch level
87.

In Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2008 R2, the

operating system supports more than 64 logical processors.
On such NUMA-class systems, consider setting preferred
NUMA nodes in addition to setting hard affinities by using the
following steps:
1. Set the preferred NUMA node for the SAP Win32 service
and SAP Dialog Instance services (processes instantiated
by Sapstartsrv.exe). When you enter commands on the
local system, you can omit the server parameter. For the
following commands, use the service short name.

Use the following command to set the preferred NUMA

node:
%windir%\system32\sc.exe [server] preferrednode <service
name> <NUMA node number>
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You need administrator permissions to set the

preferred node. Run %windir%\system32\sc.exe
preferrednode to display Help text.

Use the following command to query the setting:

%windir%\system32\sc.exe [server] qpreferrednode
<service name>

This command fails if the service has no preferred node

settings. Run %windir%\system32\sc.exe
qpreferrednode to display Help text.

Use the following command to remove the setting:

%windir%\system32\sc.exe [server] preferrednode <service
name> -1

2. To allow each SAP worker process in a dialog instance to

inherit the ideal NUMA node from its Win32 service, create
registry key entries under the following key for each of the
Sapstartsrv.exe, Msg_server.exe, Gwrd.exe, and
Disp+work.exe images, and then set the
"NodeOptions"=dword:00000100 value as follows:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File
Execution Options\ (IMAGE NAME)\ (REG_DWORD)

3. If the preferred NUMA node is used without hard affinity

settings for SAP worker processes, or if time measurement
issues are observed as described by SAP Note No. 532350
released in November 2004, apply the recommendation to
let SAP processes use the Query Performance Counter
(QPC) timer to stabilize the benchmark environment. Set
the following system environment variable:
%windir%\system32\setx.exe /M SAP_USE_WIN_TIMER YES

You can use the Coreinfo tool from Windows Sysinternals to

provide topology details about logical and physical processors,
processor sockets, NUMA nodes, and processor cache. For more
information, see Map TCP/IP Ports to NUMA Nodes.

Monitoring and Data Collection

The following list of performance counters is considered a base set of
counters when you monitor the resource usage of the Application
Server while you are running a non-virtualized SAP enterprise
resource planning Sales and Distribution workload. Log the
performance counters to a local (.blg) performance counter log. It is
less expensive to collect all instances by using the wildcard
character (*), and then extract particular instances while postprocessing by using Relog.exe as follows:
\Cache\*
\IPv4\*
\LogicalDisk(*)\*
\Memory\*
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\Network Interface(*)\*
\Paging File(*)\*
\PhysicalDisk(*)\*
\Process(*)\*
\Processor Information(*)\*
\Synchronization(*)\*
\System\*
\TCPv4\*
\SQLServer:Buffer Manager\Lazy writes/sec
Note If applicable, add the \IPv6\* and \TCPv6\* objects.
For virtualized configurations of the SAP enterprise resource planning
Sales and Distribution workload the following list of performance
counters can be collected for performance monitoring of the Hyper-V
host:
\Hyper-V Hypervisor Partition(*)\*
\Hyper-V Hypervisor Root Partition(*)\*
\Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processor(*)\*
\Hyper-V Hypervisor Root Virtual Processor(*)\*
\Hyper-V Hypervisor Virtual Processor(*)\*
\Hyper-V Dynamic Memory Balancer(*)\*
\Hyper-V Dynamic Memory VM(*)\*
\Hyper-V VM Vid Numa Node(*)\*
\Hyper-V VM Vid Partition(*)\*
\PhysicalDisk(*)\*
\Hyper-V Virtual Storage Device(*)\*
\Network Interface(*)\*
\Hyper-V Virtual Network Adapter(*)\*
\Hyper-V Virtual Switch(*)\*
\Hyper-V Virtual Switch Processor(*)\*

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Performance Tuning for OLTP Workloads

The TPC-E benchmark is one of the database workloads used to
evaluate online transaction processing (OLTP) performance in SQL
Server and Windows Server. TPC-E uses a central database that runs
transactions simulating the activities of a brokerage firm. The
primary metric for TPC-E is Trade-Result transactions per second
(tpsE).
A non-clustered TPC-E benchmark setup consists of two parts: a set
of client systems and the server under test. To achieve maximum
system utilization and throughput, you can tune the operating
system, SQL Server, storage, memory, processors, and network.
For more information about the TPC-E benchmark, see the
Transaction Processing Performance Council website.

Server Under Test Tunings

The following are general tunings that are applicable across native
and virtualized server root configurations for the database server:

Set the power scheme to High Performance.

To enable SQL Server to use large pages, enable the Lock

pages in memory user right assignment for the account
that will run the SQL Server:
o

From the Group Policy MMC snap-in (Gpedit.msc),

navigate to Computer Configuration > Windows
Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies >
User Rights Assignment. Double-click
Lock pages in memory and add the accounts that
have credentials to run SQL Server.

The following are settings that are recommended for the native,
non-virtualized configurations only:

Configure page files for best performance:

o

Navigate to Performance Settings > Advanced >

Virtual memory and configure one or more fixed-size
page files with Initial Size equal to Maximum Size. The
page file size should be equal to the total virtual
memory requirement of the workload. Make sure that
no system-managed page files are in the virtual
memory on the application server.

Navigate to Performance Settings > Visual Effects,

and then select Adjust for best performance.

Configure network devices:

For virtualized setups, consider utilizing VMQ and dynamic
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VMQ where applicable. The following tunings are applicable

for native TPC-E only.

The number of network devices is determined from

previous runs. Network device utilization should not be
higher than 65%-75% of total network adapter
bandwidth. Use 1 Gbps network adapters at minimum.

From the Device Manager MMC snap-in (Devmgmt.msc),

navigate to Network Adapters, and then determine
the network devices to be used. Disable devices that
are not being used.

For advanced network tuning information, see

Performance Tuning for the Networking Subsystem
earlier in this guide.

Configure storage devices as follows:

o

Disable low priority I/O. For each logical volume in

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\SCSI under
Device Parameters\ClassPnp, create the registry entry
IdlePrioritySupported (REG_DWORD) and set the value
to 0.

For advanced storage tuning information, see

Performance Tuning for the Storage Subsystem earlier
in this guide.

Configure disks for advanced performance as follows:

o

From the Disk Management MMC snap-in

(Diskmgmt.msc), select each disk in use, right-click
Properties, click Policies, and then select Advanced
Performance if it is enabled for the disk.

Note This setting is for native configurations only (for

direct attached storage). For virtualized setups, consider
the recommendations that are provided in the Storage I/O
Performance topic under Performance Tuning for
Virtualization Servers earlier in this guide.

SQL Server Tunings for OLTP Workloads

The following SQL Server tunings can improve performance and
scalability for workloads characterized by large memory usage, high
transaction rates, and high CPU utilization.
Important: The tunings in this section are specifically for OLTP
benchmarking and should not be perceived as general SQL tuning
guidance.

Use the -T834 start flag to enable SQL Server to use large
pages.

Start SQL Server as a process instead of a service and use

the -x flag for native operating system configurations to
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 173

disable SQL Server performance counters and avoid potential

overhead:
o

From the Services MMC snap-in (Services.msc), stop

and disable SQL Server services.

Run the following command from the SQL Server binn

directory:
sqlservr.exe c x T661 T834

For virtualized setups, leave SQL Server to run as a service with the
Manual startup type as follows:
net start MSSQLSERVER /x /T661 /T834
The purpose of each parameter is as follows:
-x : Disable SQL Server perfmon counters
-T661: Disable the ghost record removal process
-T834: Use Microsoft Windows large-page allocations for the
buffer pool
Note Other parameters that are sometimes used are:
-T652: Disable page prefetching scans
-T8744: Disallow prefetch for ranges

Enable the TCP/IP protocol to allow communication with client

systems:
Navigate to Start Menu > Programs > Microsoft SQL
Server 2012 > Configuration Tools > SQL Server
Configuration Manager. Then navigate to SQL Server
Network Configuration > Protocols for MSSQL Server,
right-click TCP/IP, and click Enable.

Configure SQL Server according to the guidance in the

following list. You can configure SQL Server by using the
sp_configure stored procedure. Set the Show advanced
options value to 1 to display more available configuration
options. For detailed information about the sp_configure
stored procedure, see Server Configuration Options in the
MSDN Library.

Set the SQL processor affinity mask option to isolate system

resources for the SQL Server instance from other SQL Server
instances or other applications running on the same system.
You can also set the SQL processor affinity mask option to not
use a set of logical processors that handle I/O interrupt traffic
for the network and the disk.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 174

You can set the SQL processor affinity mask option as follows,
depending on processor count:
o

Partition SQL process to run on specific cores, up to 32

logical processors.

To set affinity on more than 32 logical processors, but

fewer than 64, processors, use affinity64 mask.

In SQL Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2012, you can

apply equivalent settings to configure CPU affinity on as
many as 640 logical processors by using the ALTER
SERVER CONFIGURATION Transact-SQL statement
because the sp_configure affinity mask options are
announced for deprecation.

Use the alter server configuration set process affinity

cpu = command to set affinity to the desired range or
ranges of processors, separated by commas.

For more information about best practices for installations on

native operating system configurations with more than 64
logical processors, see ALTER SERVER CONFIGURATION
(Transact-SQL).
Note Windows Server 2012 supports guests with no more
than 64 virtual processors, thus any SQL affinity masks for a
virtualized SQL Server instance should be set accordingly.

Set a fixed amount of memory for the SQL Server process to

use. About 3% of the total available memory is used for the
system, and another 1% is used for memory management
structures. SQL Server can use the remaining available
memory, but not more.
Use the following equation to calculate the total memory to
be used by SQL Server:
TotalMemory (1%memory * (numa_nodes)) 3%memory
1GB memory

Leave the lightweight pooling value set to the default of 0.

This enables SQL Server to run in thread mode. Thread mode
performance is comparable to fiber mode.

Set the maximum worker threads value to approximately the

number of connected users if it appears that the default
settings do not allow sufficient concurrent transactions based
on a throughput value lower than expected for the system
and benchmark configuration. Monitor the
sys.dm_os_schedulers Dynamic Management Views to
determine whether you need to increase the number of
worker threads.

Set the priority boost value to 1.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 175

Consider partitioning the entire system so that dedicated

NUMA nodes perform storage and/or network I/O processings
and the remaining the NUMA nodes run SQL Server process
for the largest scale systems. (This is for native systems only,
and it does not apply in a virtualized environment.)
o

For network I/O, choose the number of network

adapters to use and number of RSS processors for
each network adapter. Find the smallest number of
NUMA nodes that can satisfy the RSS requirement.
Assign RSS processors to these nodes. For more
information, see Performance Tuning for the
Networking Subsystem earlier in this guide.

For storage I/O, choose the number of processors to

handle the interrupt for each storage host bus
adapters (HBA). Each storage HBA will have its own
dedicated interrupt target processor. Find the smallest
number of NUMA nodes that can act as the interrupt
targets for all storage HBAs. Assign the interrupt
affinity of each HBA to processors in the chosen NUMA
nodes.

For each network adapter or storage HBA, ideally, the

chosen NUMA node to handle its I/O processing is local
to the device.

For the rest of the NUMA node in the system, assign

the SQL affinity.

Disk Storage Tunings

Tune the disk storage as follows:

For disk storage redundancy, you can use RAID 1+0 if you
have enough storage capacity. If you do not have enough
capacity, you can use RAID 5 .

If you use rotational disks, configure logical drives so that all

spindles are used for database disks, if possible. Additional
spindles improve overall disk subsystem performance.

You can improve performance with proper write caching in

the case of battery-backed write caching, which is able to
avoid data loss in the case of power failure. Enable 100%
write caching for the log disk.

TPC-E Database Size and Layout

The database size and layout can also be tuned for performance as
follows:

You can perform the following fine tuning on the database

layout for rotational media:

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 176

Database tables that have higher access frequency

should be placed on the outer edge of the disk if
rotational disks are used.

The default TPC-E kit can be changed, and new file

groups can be created. That way, file groups can consist
of higher frequency access table(s), and they can be
placed on the outer edge of the disk for better
performance.

For solid-state drives, consider the following configuration:

For each logical disk use 80% of available disk space for
partitions and leave 20% unused.

Selecting a storage configuration for the virtualized TPC-E

environment can present trade-offs between performance and
factors such as portability or cost saving. Pass-through disks can be
considered as a high performance option for virtualized workloads
with high SQL I/O disk rates such as TPC-E.
When you consider VHD or VHDX disks, fixed VHDs can deliver better
throughtput over differencing or dynamic VHDs. Based on the TPC-E
database size, consider placing the entire TPC-E database in a single
VHDX (for small TPC-E DB) and store the VHDX on high-performance
storage such as solid-state drives.
Another option for larger TPC-E databases is to partition the TPC-E
database into more than one VHD or VHDX file placed in different
logical or physical storage units when high physical disk response
times are observed.

Client Systems Tunings

Tune the client systems as follows:

Configure client systems the same way that the server under
test is configured. See Server Under Test Tunings earlier in
this guide.

In addition to tuning the client systems, you should monitor

client performance and eliminate any bottlenecks. Follow
these client performance guidelines:
o

CPU utilization on clients should not be higher than 80%

to accommodate activity bursts.

If any of the logical processors has high CPU utilization,

consider using CPU affinity for benchmark processes to
even out CPU utilization. If CPU utilization is still high,
consider upgrading clients to the latest processors, or
add more clients.

Verify that the time is synchronized between the master

client and the server under test.
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 177

Monitoring and Data Collection

The following list of performance counters is considered a base set of
counters when you monitor the resource usage of the database
server for the TPC-E workload. Log the performance counters to a
local (.blg) performance counter log. It is less expensive to collect all
instances by using the wildcard character (*), and then extract
particular instances while post-processing by using Relog.exe or
Perfmon:
\IPv4\*
\Memory\*
\Network Interface(*)\*
\PhysicalDisk(*)\*
\Processor Information(*)\*
\Synchronization(*)\* for Windows Server 2012 and Windows
Server 2008 R2
\SynchronizationNUMA(*)\* for Windows Server 2012
\System\*
\TCPv4\*
\NUMA Node Memory(*)\* for Windows Server 2012
Note If applicable, add the \IPv6\* and \TCPv6\* objects. To monitor
overall performance, you can use the performance counter chart
that is displayed in Figure 17 and the throughput chart displayed in
Figure 18 to visualize run characteristics.
The first part of the run in Figure 17 represents the warm-up stage
where I/O consists of mostly reads. As the run progresses, the lazy
writer starts flushing caches to the disks and as write I/O increases,
read I/O decreases. The beginning of steady state for the run is when
the read I/O and write I/O curves seem to be parallel to each other.

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 178

Figure 17: TPC-E Perfmon counters chart

Figure 18. TPC-E throughput chart

You can use other tools such as Xperf to perform additional analysis.

Root Counters
The following list of performance counters is considered a base set of
counters when you monitor the resource usage from the root
operating system:
\Cache\*
\Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processor(*)\*
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 179

\Hyper-V Hypervisor Partition(*)\*

\Hyper-V Hypervisor Root Partition(*)\*
\Hyper-V Hypervisor Root Virtual Processor(*)\*
\Hyper-V Hypervisor Virtual Processor(*)\*
\Hyper-V Hypervisor\*
\Hyper-V Virtual IDE Controller (Emulated)(*)\*
\Hyper-V Virtual Machine Bus\*
\Hyper-V Virtual Storage Device(*)\*
\Hyper-V Virtual Switch Port(*)\*
\Hyper-V VM Vid Numa Node(*)\*
\Hyper-V VM Vid Partition(*)\*
\NUMA Node Memory(*)\*
\IPv4\*
\Memory\*
\Network Interface(*)\*
\Per Processor Network Activity Cycles(*)\*
\Per Processor Network Interface Card Activity(*)\*
\PhysicalDisk(*)\*
\Processor Information(*)\*
\SynchronizationNuma(*)\*
\System\*
\TCPv4\*
If needed, you can collect (from the context of a guest) information
such as:
SQL Server performance counters

Memory utilization

Physical disk size

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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 180

Resources
Websites
Windows Server 2012
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windowsserver/2012-default.aspx
Windows Server 2008 R2
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/R2.aspx
Windows Server Performance Team Blog
http://blogs.technet.com/winserverperformance/
Windows Server Catalog
http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/
SAP Global Benchmark: Sales and Distribution (SD)
http://www.sap.com/solutions/benchmark/sd.epx
Windows Sysinternals
http://technet.microsoft.com/sysinternals/default.aspx
Transaction Processing Performance Council
http://www.tpc.org/
Power Management
Power Policy Configuration and Deployment in Windows
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/hardware/gg463243.aspx
Using PowerCfg to Evaluate System Energy Efficiency
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/hardware/gg463250.aspx
Interrupt-Affinity Policy Tool
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/hardware/gg463378.aspx
Networking Subsystem
Scalable Networking: Eliminating the Receive Processing
BottleneckIntroducing RSS
http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/D/6/5D6EAF2B-7DDF476B-93DC-7CF0072878E6/NDIS_RSS.doc
Windows Filtering Platform
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/hardware/gg463267.aspx
Networking Deployment Guide: Deploying High-Speed
Networking Features
http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/E/D/8EDE21BC-0E3B4E14-AAEA-9E2B03917A09/HSN_Deployment_Guide.doc
NT Testing TCP Tool (NTTTCP) 3.0
http://msdn.microsoft.com/enus/windows/hardware/gg463264.aspx
Web Capacity Analysis Tool (WCAT)
http://www.iis.net/community/default.aspx?
tabid=34&g=6&i=1466
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 181

File Server Capacity Tool (FSCT)

http://www.microsoft.com/download/details.aspx?id=27284
Windows Server 2012 NIC Teaming (LBFO) Deployment and
Management
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=215654
Network Workload
Ttcp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ttcp
How to Use NTttcp to Test Network Performance
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/hardware/gg463264.aspx
Storage Subsystem
Disk Subsystem Performance Analysis for Windows
(Note: Parts of this document are out of date, but many of the
general observations and guidelines are still accurate.)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/hardware/gg463405.aspx
Web Servers
10 Tips for Writing High-Performance Web Applications
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=98290
File Servers
Performance Tuning Guidelines for Microsoft Services for
Network File System
http://technet.microsoft.com/library/bb463205.aspx
[MS-FSSO]: File Access Services System Overview
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ee392367(v=PROT.10).aspx
How to disable the TCP autotuning diagnostic tool
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967475
Active Directory Servers
Active Directory Performance for 64-bit Versions of
Windows Server 2003
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?
FamilyID=52e7c3bd-570a-475c-96e0-316dc821e3e7
How to configure Active Directory diagnostic event logging
in Windows Server 2003 and in Windows 2000 Server
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314980
Virtualization Servers
Hyper-V Dynamic Memory Configuration Guide
http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ff817651(WS.10).aspx
NUMA Node Balancing
http://blogs.technet.com/b/winserverperformance/archive/2009/1
2/10/numa-node-balancing.aspx
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Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 - 182

Hyper-V WMI Provider

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/cc136992(VS.85).aspx
Hyper-V WMI Classes
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/cc136986(VS.85).aspx
Whats New in Hyper-V
http://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh831410.aspx
About Virtual Machines and Guest Operating Systems
http://technet.microsoft.com/library/cc794868(v=ws.10)
Sales and Distribution Two-Tier Workload and TPC-E Workload
Setting Server Configuration Options
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=98291
How to: Configure SQL Server to Use Soft-NUMA
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=98292
How to: Map TCP/IP Ports to NUMA Nodes
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=98293
ALTER SERVER CONFIGURATION (Transact-SQL)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ee210585.aspx
SAP with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2005:
Best Practices for High Availability, Maximum Performance, and Scalability

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/sqlserver?
rid=/library/uuid/4ab89e84-0d01-0010-cda2-82ddc3548c65

Server Tuning Tools

Server Performance Advisor 3.0
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/hardware/hh367834.aspx

April 12, 2013

2012 Microsoft. All rights reserved.