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SQL Server 2014 - buffer pool extension

MatthiasS1
Discoverer
0 Kudos

Hello,

Is anybody here who uses the buffer pool extension for "clean pages" on SSDs in an productive environment?

Best regards

Matthias

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Former Member
0 Kudos

Can we try them on Non-SSD for test/dev ?

luisdarui
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Hi,

I believe this question is by far more related with SQL Server than SAP. There is no configuration on SAP NetWeaver for this, hence, it is transparent.

Have you gone through the following link already?

-> Buffer Pool Extension

Kind regards,

Luis Darui

Former Member
0 Kudos

According to the link we need to have SSD type Disk, but for Dev/Qas we dont have SSD's, so the testing results might be different.

luisdarui
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Hi Srikanth,

I've followed Microsoft documentation to perform some tests. I belive this might serve you for some purpose, but so far I don't recall any blog post on SAP on Microsoft Platform blog - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/saponsqlserver/ about the usage of Buffer Pool Extension. This blog is maintained by our Microsoft partners dedicated to SAP platform and if they're not suggesting the usage it would be wise to do not use them in SAP environment.

I also wouldn't recommend the usage of Buffer Pool Extension in a SAP NetWeaver productive environment even with SSD.

I have some test systems and I was also curious because some blogs tell that it doesn't work without SSD, so I have activated it to test.

1) Activate the BPE:

I changed my DB server memory from 32GB to 5GB and created a 20GB BPE file:


ALTER SERVER CONFIGURATION

SET BUFFER POOL EXTENSION ON

(FILENAME = 'C:\BPE\TEST.BPE', SIZE = 20 GB);

GO

2) After this I performed a query to check whether there were Extension pages being used:


SELECT *

FROM sys.sysperfinfo

WHERE 1=1

AND counter_name LIKE '%Extension%

At first there were no data there.

3) I tried SGEN to generate huge database activity and checked again:

From what I can see, the buffer pool extension is being used, despite of my BPE file not being stored in a SSD disk as suggested.

So I would say that if you want to test it, see how it works, benchmark it, go ahead, but I wouldn't suggest implementing this on Production without further advice/support from SAP and/or Microsoft.

Best Regards,

Luis Darui

Former Member
0 Kudos

Great thanks for your advise.

Answers (0)