SQL Server 2008 (Katmai) Reporting Services Performance: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back? : Page 2

Test 1: Cold Server Spool Up
In the Cold Server Spool Up test, each VHD was restarted and booted into an administrative screen. The ASP test harness accessed the VHD, simulating a first web service request to a freshly booted Reporting Services (RS) Server.

Perhaps due in part to the omission of IIS reliance in Katmai, SQL Server 2008 wins this test hands down. The average web service test in SQL Server 2008 took a little over 36 seconds, while web service access to a SQL Server 2005 machine took about 66 seconds, or an improvement of about 45 percent (see Table 1 and Figure 1)!

Cold Server Spool Up Test SQL 2005 SQL 2008 Trial 1 63.19s 33.48s Trial 2 67.20s 43.80s Trial 3 68.15s 32.57s Avg 65.52 36.62s Table 1. Cold Server Spool Up: This table shows the Cold Server Spool Up test results.

Figure 1. Cold Start Test: The winner of the Cold Server Spool Up Test is the SQL Server 2008 (Katmai).

Test 2: Warm Refresh
Each Warm Refresh test made an additional call to the RS Web Service within a few moments of the initial test call to simulate another user accessing a report prior to a reboot or any service/application pool refresh.

After several attempts the SQL 2005 results were fairly predictable at under 0.3 seconds; however, the Katmai machine exhibited a strange anomaly: response time was either well under 0.1 seconds (twice the speed of 2005) or as high as 2.9 seconds. This was reproduced several times: two trials at 0.15 seconds, the next at 2.8, another trial at 0.1, and the next two at 2.9 and 3.0. This could have been simply the result of the VHD test environment (antivirus, etc.), but because this behavior was not observed with SQL 2005, one of the high values from the Katmai test were left in the test results (see Table 2 and Figure 2).

Warm Refresh SQL 2005 SQL 2008 Trial 1 0.27s 0.1s Trial 2 0.22s 43.80s Trial 3 0.11s 0.02s Avg 0.2s 1.026667s Table 2. Warm Refresh: This table shows the results of the Warm Refresh tests.

Figure 2. Warm Refresh Winner: The SQL Server 2005 wins the Warm Refresh Test?

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