This guide describes important tuning parameters and settings that you can adjust to improve the performance and energy efficiency of the Windows Server® 2008 R2 operating system. This guide describes each setting and its potential effect to help you make an informed decision about its relevance to your system, workload, and performance goals.
This paper is for information technology (IT) professionals and system administrators who need to tune the performance of a server that is running Windows Server 2008 R2.
This information applies to the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system.
References and resources discussed here are listed at the end of this guide.
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Introduction 4
In This Guide 4
Choosing and Tuning Server Hardware 5
Choosing Server Hardware: Performance Considerations 5
Choosing Server Hardware: Power Considerations 8
Power and Performance Tuning 9
Calculating Server Energy Efficiency 9
Measuring System Energy Consumption 10
Diagnosing Energy Efficiency Issues 11
Using Power Plans in Windows Server 11
Tuning Processor Power Management Parameters 12
Interrupt Affinity 14
Performance Tuning for the Networking Subsystem 15
Choosing a Network Adapter 17
Offload Capabilities 17
Receive-Side Scaling (RSS) 17
Message-Signaled Interrupts (MSI/MSI-X) 18
Network Adapter Resources 18
Interrupt Moderation 18
Suggested Network Adapter Features for Server Roles 19
Tuning the Network Adapter 19
Enabling Offload Features 19
Increasing Network Adapter Resources 20
Enabling Interrupt Moderation 20
Enabling RSS for Web Scenarios 20
Binding Each Adapter to a CPU 20
TCP Receive Window Auto-Tuning 21
TCP Parameters 21
Network-Related Performance Counters 22
Performance Tuning for the Storage Subsystem 23
Choosing Storage 24
Estimating the Amount of Data to Be Stored 25
Choosing a Storage Array 26
Hardware RAID Levels 26
Choosing the RAID Level 30
Selecting a Stripe Unit Size 35
Determining the Volume Layout 36
Storage-Related Parameters 36
I/O Priorities 37
Storage-Related Performance Counters 37
Logical Disk and Physical Disk 37
Processor Information 39
Power Protection and Advanced Performance Option 39
Block Alignment (DISKPART) 40
Solid-State and Hybrid Drives 41
Response Times 41
Queue Lengths 42
Performance Tuning for Web Servers 43
Selecting the Proper Hardware for Performance 43
Operating System Practices 44
Tuning IIS 7.5 44
Kernel-Mode Tunings 45
Cache Management Settings 45
Request and Connection Management Settings 46
User-Mode Settings 47
User-Mode Cache Behavior Settings 47
Compression Behavior Settings 48
Tuning the Default Document List 49
Central Binary Logging 50
Application and Site Tunings 50
Managing IIS 7.5 Modules 51
Classic ASP Settings 51
ASP.NET Concurrency Setting 53
Worker Process and Recycling Options 53
Secure Sockets Layer Tuning Parameters 54
ISAPI 54
Managed Code Tuning Guidelines 54
Other Issues that Affect IIS Performance 55
NTFS File System Setting 55
Networking Subsystem Performance Settings for IIS 55
Performance Tuning for File Servers 55
Selecting the Proper Hardware for Performance 55
Server Message Block Model 56
SMB Model Overview 56
SMB Configuration Considerations 56
Tuning Parameters for SMB File Servers 57
SMB Server Tuning Example 59
Services for NFS Model 60
Services for NFS Model Overview 60
Tuning Parameters for NFS Server 60
General Tuning Parameters for Client Computers 63
File Client Tuning Example 65
Performance Tuning for Active Directory Servers 66
Considerations for Read-Heavy Scenarios 67
Considerations for Write-Heavy Scenarios 67
Using Indexing to Improve Query Performance 68
Optimizing Trust Paths 68
Active Directory Performance Counters 68
Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Session Host (formerly Terminal Server) 69
Selecting the Proper Hardware for Performance 69
CPU Configuration 70
Processor Architecture 70
Memory Configuration 70
Disk 71
Network 71
Tuning Applications for Remote Desktop Session Host 72
Remote Desktop Session Host Tuning Parameters 73
Pagefile 73
Antivirus and Antispyware 73
Task Scheduler 73
Desktop Notification Icons 73
Client Experience Settings 75
Desktop Size 77
Windows System Resource Manager 77
Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Gateway 77
Monitoring and Data Collection 78
Performance Tuning for Virtualization Servers 78
Terminology 79
Hyper-V Architecture 80
Server Configuration 81
Hardware Selection 81
Server Core Installation Option 82
Dedicated Server Role 83
Guest Operating Systems 83
CPU Statistics 83
Processor Performance 84
VM Integration Services 84
Enlightened Guests 84
Virtual Processors 84
Background Activity 85
Weights and Reserves 85
Tuning NUMA Node Preference 86
Memory Performance 86
Enlightened Guests 86
Correct Memory Sizing for Child Partitions 86
Correct Memory Sizing for Root Partition 87
Storage I/O Performance 87
Synthetic SCSI Controller 87
Virtual Hard Disk Types 88
Passthrough Disks 88
Disabling File Last Access Time Check 89
Physical Disk Topology 89
I/O Balancer Controls 89
Network I/O Performance 90
Synthetic Network Adapter 90
Install Multiple Synthetic Network Adapters on Multiprocessor VMs 90
Offload Hardware 91
Network Switch Topology 91
Interrupt Affinity 91
VLAN Performance 91
VMQ 91
VM Chimney 92
Live Migration 92
Performance Tuning for File Server Workload (NetBench) 92
Registry Tuning Parameters for Servers 93
Registry Tuning Parameters for Client Computers 93
Performance Tuning for File Server Workload (SPECsfs2008) 94
Registry-Tuning Parameters for NFS Server 94
Performance Tuning for Network Workload (NTttcp) 95
Tuning for NTttcp 95
Network Adapter 95
TCP/IP Window Size 96
Receive-Side Scaling (RSS) 96
Tuning for IxChariot 96
Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Services Knowledge Worker Workload 96
Recommended Tunings on the Server 98
Monitoring and Data Collection 100
Performance Tuning for SAP Sales and Distribution Two-Tier Workload 100
Operating System Tunings on the Server 101
Tunings on the Database Server 102
Tunings on the SAP Application Server 103
Monitoring and Data Collection 104
Performance Tuning for TPC-E Workload 105
Server Under Test (SUT) Tunings 105
SQL Server Tunings 106
Disk Storage Tunings 108
TPC-E Database Size and Layout 108
Client Systems Tunings 108
Monitoring and Data Collection 109
Resources 111