[THIN] Re: OT?: HyperThreading (& per processor licensing)

  • From: "Brad Crooks" <tealblazer@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 08:47:15 -0400

Bernd has the right answer.

Everything before 2003/XP could not distinguish between logical and physical 
processors so you had to license to the higher number.

The real question is can you take advantage of Hyperthreading.    It is used 
for legacy apps that rely on threads.   The PIII had a 10 stage pipeline, 
but the P4 (xeon as well) has a 20 stage pipeline.   For a desktop PC this 
is great that you can load it up with more concurrent apps -for a server 
this sucks.

So to get the most out of HT,  you would want to use processor affinity to 
make sure that resources are used correctly.   For example,  you would not 
want to have 2 floating point processes on the same physical processor.

Brad



----Original Message Follows----
From: "Bernd Harzog" <Bernd.Harzog@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [THIN] Re: OT?:  HyperThreading (& per processor licensing)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 06:28:47 -0400

Hi Mark,

It depends upon whether or not the product you are licensing is smart
enough to query the chip itself, or if it relies upon the OS to tell it
how many CPU's are in the server, and which OS you are running. If you
turn Hyperthreading on with WNT or W2K, the OS thinks that a dual has
four CPU's, and if you use a software product that relies upon the OS,
you will have to buy licensing for a quad. This is fixed in Windows
Server 2003 (a dual with hyperthreading is reported as a dual not a
quad)

Since we license TScale by the CPU, we had to write our own code in
TScale 1.5 that queried the chip, since relying upon the OS was causing
us to give the wrong answer to the customer.

Cheers,

Bernd Harzog
CEO
RTO Software
678-455-5506 x701
bernd@xxxxxxxxxxx
www.rtosoft.com


  -----Original Message-----
From:   Mark Lee [mailto:marklee15@xxxxxxxxx]=20
Sent:   Wednesday, June 04, 2003 5:06 AM
To:     thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject:        [THIN] Re: OT?:  HyperThreading (& per processor
licensing)

True, but the OS reports 4 CPU's so will this fool SQL into thinking
it's got a 4way system ?
Ruben Spruijt <Ruben@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:Hi,

Physically you have two CPU's in this server so SQL licensing should be
for two CPU's

With regards,
Ruben Spruijt

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Mark Lee [mailto:marklee15@xxxxxxxxx]=3D20
Verzonden: woensdag 4 juni 2003 10:18
Aan: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Onderwerp: [THIN] Re: OT?: HyperThreading (& per processor licensing)

Just to add to the debate, we're planning to run a SQL box with
(HyperThreading enabled) so it's showing 4 CPU's when in reality there
are only 2 physical ones - so the question do we license SQL server for
2 or 4 processors ?????
=3D20

Tim Mangan wrote:
I interpreted that to mean server forms of 2000 also. From the testing I
have done I doubt that anything terribly wrong happens because of
HyperThreading -- it's just a question of what is more efficient for how
you
use the server. Here I am not talking about peak load, but about average
response time.

It's possible I might drop back to the 2000 server to run some tests
there -- I don't know yet.

tim

-----Original Message-----
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Brian Murphy
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 3:11 PM
To: 'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: [THIN] Re: OT?: HyperThreading


This article specifies "desktops". Did you find anything specific to
"server"?
Microsoft* Windows* Operating System Desktop Based PCs

I know the article references Windows 2000 (All Versions) but seems to
be
indicating P4 based desktop machines.

I would be interested to see if there are any known issues with the Xeon
processor based server models and Citrix Metaframe (Windows 2000
Server).

-Murphy


-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Mangan [mailto:tmangan@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 8:32 AM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: OT?: HyperThreading


Ron,

My bad - sorry. http://www.intel.com/support/platform/ht/os.htm

So far my testing indicates that lightly loaded servers perform better
with
it turned off, heavily loaded servers with it turned on. The OS gets
fooled
into loading up logical processors on the same physical processor
sometimes.
When I'm done I'll be getting this written up with the details.

If you have a handy link to the HP docs, please send. I'll search for it
if
you don't.

tim
-----Original Message-----
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Ron Oglesby
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 9:08 AM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: OT?: HyperThreading


Hey Tim, that link goes no where.

Ron Oglesby
Senior Technical Architect
=3D3D20
RapidApp
Office 312.372.7188
Mobile 815.325.7618
email roglesby@xxxxxxxxxxxx
=3D3D20

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Mangan [mailto:tmangan@xxxxxxxxxxxx]=3D3D20
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 5:54 AM
To: Thin@Freelists. Org
Subject: [THIN] OT?: HyperThreading

 > I know we had a discussion on this a while back. Someone indicated M$
 > folks were recommending disabling it in servers but didn't say why.
Ran
 > across this link over the weekend. Basically, Intel suggests
disabling
 > HyperThreading on all WIn2K, NT, and prior operating systems. =3D3D20 =
=3D
=3D3D20
 > http://www.intel.com/support/platform/ht.os.htm
 >=3D3D20
 > I'm running tests against Server 2003/TS now. I suspect you may want
to
 > disable it on 2003, depending on how you use the system. Nothing bad
 > happens, but performance will be better in some cases with it turned
off,
 > some cases with it on. Has anyone seen anything written up about
this?
 >=3D3D20
 > Timothy R. Mangan
 > Founder TMurgent Technologies
 > tmangan@xxxxxxxxxxxx
 > www.tmurgent.com
 > +1 781-492-0403
 >=3D3D20

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