The DVD Store Version 2 (DS2) is a complete online e-commerce test application, with a backend database component, a web application layer, and driver programs.  The goal in designing the database component as well as the midtier application was to utilize many advanced database features (transactions, stored procedures, triggers, referential integity) while keeping the database easy to install and understand. The DS2 workload may be used to test databases or as a stress tool for any purpose.

The distribution includes code for SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL and PostgreSQL.Included in the release are data generation programs, shell scripts to build data for 10MB, 1GB and 100 GB versions of the DVD Store, database build scripts and stored procedure, PHP web pages, and a C# driver program.

http://linux.dell.com/dvdstore

In a nutshell, relational databases weren’t built for the cloud. With vFabric Postgres, VMware customers can get a proven, enterprise database integrated with VMware virtualization and ready for cloud computing.

As announced earlier this week, vFabric Postgres (vPostgres) is now available within vFabric Suite 5.1 Advanced. With vPostgres, the well-respected, open-source database gains built in best practices, optimized configuration, and cloud-ready features.  While vFabric Postgres is synced up to PostgreSQL 9.1.3 minor release and includes all the new features of this version of the database (see PostgreSQL wiki for more), vFabric adds many features and considerable improvements in three categories:

1. Development and deployment become simpler, smarter, and cloud ready
2. Performance improvements with elastic memory and more
3. Monitoring and administration get an upgrade
4. Lower TCO and increase staff efficiency

Development and Deployment with vFabric Postgres

First, vPostgres is available in two form factors:

• vPostgres Virtual Appliance
• vPostgres RPMs for 64-bit Linux Servers (RHEL 6, Suse 11 sp1+)

The virtual appliance is easy to deploy because it is designed for the vSphere 5.0 platform.  vPostgres RPMs are also available for custom installations requiring co-locations with other applications in a VM or having special deployment needs (including hot-standby setup). The RPMs can be accessed from repo.vmware.com and also from the VMware download website. The vPostgres virtual appliance can be used for development and test on VMware Player, Workstation, and Fusion products.  Since vPostgres is free for developers and works on various platforms (including mobile development), developers will have a less cumbersome time moving their work to a cloud platform or virtualized environment.

In addition, the virtual appliance is ready to handle changing resource needs by adapting CPU, memory, disk size, and more without needing any other changes inside the appliance. The vPostgres smart tuning and management capabilities require less in-depth knowledge about the inner workings of the database. With these features, developers, architects, and administrators can 1) spend less time on manual resets of configuration parameters for the core engine and 2) gain cloud scale.

vFabric Postgres Performance Improvements

There are several elements that bring cloud scale to vPostgres:

• vPostgres can be highly available. Using vSphere HA and vMotion technologies, “database aware high availability” and automatic failover are available with simple point and click setup using the vSphere client.
• Many companies face scenarios where databases requests spike – where memory consumption is tight and lowering.  With Elastic Database Memory working directly within the vSphere hypervisor, The Kernal Balloon driver, vPostgres Database Balloon driver, and buffer pool dynamically allocate memory to and from the hypervisor during times of need to help avoid inconsistent performance. This reduces performance variances drastically when facing changing memory pressures seen in server consolidation scenarios.   

• Many critical settings have higher default values than standard PostgreSQL. This improves out-of-the-box performance with a slight trade-off in disk space and memory usage.
• Checksums are performed on each write to tables and indexes to help ensure data is clean. For example, in scenarios where SANs fail, the checksums help prevent silent bit corruption.
• Lastly, checkpoint trade-offs between recovery time and performance are more complicated in the virtual world.  vPostgres allows for SLA configuration. With this capability, checkpoint parameters are tuned dynamically for recovery time and performance as the system monitors itself.

Monitoring and Administration with vFabric Postgres

 vPostgres supports core admin tools and adds enhancements.

• vPostgres native clients are available for Linux, Windows and Mac. JDBC and ODBC clients are also available. Community PostgreSQL 9.1 clients and management tools work with vPostgres including pgadmin.

• vPostgres includes an enhanced version of pg_top which gives database transactions per second, bufferpool hits, cpu, memory, disk ios and top database connections in a single dashboard view for easier understanding of the state of the database. 

• vPostgres is integrated with VMware vFabric License server for license management. The license keys can be used locally or using VMware vFabric License server. (There is a default 60-day trial license also available.)

Lower TCO and increase staff efficiency

• Financially, license costs are more attractive compared to other “commercial” databases. 
• The database is packaged to work with vSphere infrastructure where virtualizing supports considerable cost-savings.
• The virtual appliance saves a significant amount of installation time – no need to size hardware, install the OS, install the RDBMS, set-up the database server, and tune, With VMware vSphere 5.0+, the appliance can be set up in 15 minutes and supports real-world workload.
• A built-in watchdog process enables quick HA configuration, and vSphere-based High Availability can be set-up in one click.
• Smart tuning, configuration, and management reduce overall management time.
• The advanced version of pg_top helps to quickly narrow the focus on problematic areas saving DBAs time who do not have indepth Postgres knowledge.

Learning More

To try out vFabric Postgres, you can download a 60 day free trial, as part of vFabric Suite Advanced, at www.vfabric.co/try.

About the Author: Jignesh Shah is the Product Manager for vFabric Postgres. He also has interests in database performance  and have been working with Postgres Community for many years. He was also a key member to deliver the first published benchmark with Postgres.

On May 15th NVIDIA unveiled the NVIDIA® VGX™ platform that will be available later this year through NVIDIA’s hardware OEM and VDI partners.

This new platform promises to deliver a desktop experience  comparable to a local PC, up to 100 VDI users for each single server equipped with a VGX board.

NVIDIA VGX represents a new era in desktop virtualization. It delivers an experience nearly indistinguishable from a full desktop while substantially lowering the cost of a virtualized PC.

said Jeff Brown, general manager of the Professional Solutions Group at NVIDIA.

This product is intended for those kind of users who work with 3D design softwares and simulation tools and is designed to be integrated into enterprise IT departments providing an integration layer for commercial hypervisors (the news only talks about Citrix XenServer) and a level of manageability that allows to configure the graphics capabilities delivered to individual users in the network, based on their demands.

NVIDIA describes as follows the three key technologies of this solution:

NVIDIA VGX Boards
NVIDIA VGX boards are the world’s first GPU boards designed for data centers. The initial NVIDIA VGX board features four GPUs, each with 192 NVIDIA CUDA® architecture cores and 4 GB of frame buffer. Designed to be passively cooled, the board fits within existing server-based platforms.

The boards benefit from a range of advancements, including hardware virtualization, which enables many users who are running hosted virtual desktops to share a single GPU and enjoy a rich, interactive graphics experience; support for low-latency remote display, which greatly reduces the lag currently experienced by users; and, redesigned shader technology to deliver higher power efficiency.

NVIDIA VGX GPU Hypervisor
The NVIDIA VGX GPU Hypervisor is a software layer that integrates into a commercial hypervisor, enabling access to virtualized GPU resources. This allows multiple users to share common hardware and ensure virtual machines running on a single server have protected access to critical resources. As a result, a single server can now economically support a higher density of users, while providing native graphics and GPU computing performance.

This new technology is being integrated by leading virtualization companies, such as Citrix, to add full hardware graphics acceleration to their full range of VDI products.

NVIDIA User Selectable Machines
NVIDIA USMs allow the NVIDIA VGX platform to deliver the advanced experience of professional GPUs to those requiring them across an enterprise. This enables IT departments to easily support multiple types of users from a single server.

USMs allow better utilization of hardware resources, with the flexibility to configure and deploy new users’ desktops based on changing enterprise needs. This is particularly valuable for companies providing infrastructure as a service, as they can repurpose GPU-accelerated servers to meet changing demand throughout the day, week or season.

Listed in the ThinApp User Guide, you can find an explanation of the different macro folders available in ThinApp projects. However, the published locations provide typical locations for Windows XP based systems. Here are their equivalents in Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.