Quick tips #8 - Server settings for best performance

[Jens_Argentzell]

This page describes the settings for best performance for servers running the Qlik Associative Engine.
Latest update: May 2022

Windows 2022 has improved performance for servers with many physical cores. This table shows the definition used in the below document.

	Older Windows versions	Windows 2022
Server with normal core count	≤64 physical cores	≤90 physical cores
Server with large core count	>64 physical cores	>90 physical cores

BIOS settings

Setting	Value
Hyper-threading	Applies to QlikView and Qlik Sense servers: Server with normal core count: Enabled Server with large core count: Disabled There are use cases that even on servers with huge #cores enabling hyper-threading is beneficial. Therefore, it is best to test these settings for your application.
Power Management (System Profile Settings)	Applies to QlikView and Qlik Sense servers: Custom with Max performance and C states enabled Another setting that can be used is the full performance setting. But this settings makes the server run constantly at the maximum clock speed for all cores, which has the following drawbacks: The server uses more power. The CPUs do not use clock speeds higher than the speed of the all-core boost clock, which usually is lower than the maximum boost clock speed of the CPUs. A solution to this is to use a custom system profile in the server BIOS that allows the CPUs to use their C states while all other components are set to full performance. The custom system profile should be set up similar to the following: CPU power management: Max performance Turbo boost: Enabled Energy efficient turbo: Disabled C states: Autonomous (if available, otherwise Enabled) C1E state: Enabled Uncore frequency: Max Memory frequency: Max Energy efficiency policy: Performance Determinism slider: Power determinism
NUMA	QlikView servers (Intel): Disabled* Qlik Sense servers (Intel): Server with normal core count: Disabled* Server with large core count: Enabled *On servers with Intel CPUs, NUMA is disabled by enabling Node Interleaving. QlikView  and Qlik Sense servers (AMD EPYC): NUMA mode should be set to Automatic and 1 node per socket. (L3 Cache NUMA Nodes disabled.)
Memory configuration	QlikView and Qlik Sense servers: Configured for best performance (the DIMM slots for every CPU should be populated in accordance to the server manufacturer's specification for best performance)
Hardware/Software Prefetcher	QlikView and Qlik Sense servers: Enabled

The names of the settings and how to tune them may differ depending on the server manufacturer and model. Refer to the documentation for your server to find the equivalents of the settings listed above.

Operating system settings

Microsoft Windows

Setting	Value
Power plan	QlikView and Qlik Sense servers: High Performance
Registry update	Qlik Sense servers only: For servers with a large core count, there is a registry change, applicable to both Intel and AMD CPUs, that improves the responsiveness when the Qlik Sense Repository Service (QRS) is under heavy load (for example, when many users open the hub at the same time). Two registry updates are needed: Add the Thread_NormalizeSpinWait key as a DWORD value to the following subkey: HKEY\LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework Value name: Thread_NormalizeSpinWait Value data: 1 Add the Switch.System.Threading.UseNetCoreTimer key as a String value to the following subkey: HKEY\LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework\AppContext Value name: Switch.System.Threading.UseNetCoreTimer Value data: true The fix is described in full here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-za/help/4527212/long-spin-wait-loops-in-net-framework-on-intel-skyl...

/ Cheers from the Scalability Center team

[parkera]

All,

We are not finding that hyper-threading should be switched either on or off but needs to be tested on a case by case basis. (we appreciate that this may not be entirely logical - but is evidenced by consequential performance)

If off is the advice perhaps there is a second setting that drives hyper-threading behaviour that affects CPU utilisation and performance that we are not aware of?

Kind regards,

Adrian

Adrian Parker

Differentia Consulting | Solutions | Resourcing | Support ™

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[#3]

found this document http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/performance/performance-xeon-e7-qliktech-delivering-advanced-...

which leads me to think that hyperthreading should be enabled on intel E7-series processors.  Have some clients with this processors and have enabled it, but cant really tell if it makes any difference pro or con.

will keep testing...

[Miguel_Angel_Baeyens]

Certainly a much valued information from the Scalability Center and the product itself. Large enterprise deployments are based on these settings to make the difference from a just acceptable performance to a goo to optimal performance.

[rbecher]

I think at least Hyper-threading=Disabled needs some explanations. I mean is this related to NUMA or AMD? I guess Hyper-threading should be enabled on Intel servers..

[#6]

Ralf, from what I know HT should be off for the QVS service. Last time I heard from on of us, HT should be on for the QDS ...

I advice Intel CPU.

http://frankdenneman.nl/2010/12/node-interleaving-enable-or-disable/

[#7]

I did some load testing with Hyperthreading settings and the results were very interesting.

I scheduled 40 concurrent QVW reloads in the QDS (the QVW's generated data, wrote QVDs, read QVDs, and then logged stats).

The test hardware was a HP DL580 G7 with 4 X Intel Xeon Processor E7-4870 (4 CPU X 10 cores) and 256GB RAM.  By disabling hyperthreading, the average document refresh time went from 02:53 to 01:50.

[Ricardo_Gerhard]

HT is one of configurations that you need to change. If you make all config, this statistics will be decreased more.

Look at antivirus to disable scan in the Qlikview files and directories too and try it again.

[#9]

We have on access scanning disabled on the QV servers (only scheduled scans run periodically).

Cheers,

Graeme

[#10]

Hi Graeme,

Did you only disabled HT? or together with NUMA = DISABLED?