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Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

jasoneckert.github.io

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Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#61

Post by stackskipton »

keithnz wrote: post #41
Alupis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people using MSSQL Server are people deep, deep in the Microsoft ecosystem. Think government work, and those unlucky enough to work at a pure Microsoft shop where every problem looks like a Microsoft or Azure solution. It's not a dominant database anywhere on the outside.

I think this is more your bias, it's also regional as different places in the world seem to use these things way more than other parts. Really quick search shows it's used a LOT outside of the areas you mentioned. The place it's not really used? startups... it's the #3 DB in the world.

Sure, it's #3 but whole point is new installs have mostly stalled and outside companies absolutely mainlining the .Net Framework Kool-Aid, no one is building greenfield on it. I've worked for several .Net Core companies, all of them have either converted or in process of converting away from MSSQL to MySQL flavor or PostGres.

Microsoft is heavily investing in Postgres in fact which is why they bought PostGres sharding company, Citus and looking at commit history on PostGres, they have several employees actively working on it. They also contributed DocumentDB which is Mongo over Postgres.

It will take a long time to die and Microsoft will still continue to do little work on the product and stack your money in their vault while giggling.

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#62

Post by stackskipton »

magicalhippo wrote: post #19
Alupis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people using MSSQL Server are people deep, deep in the Microsoft ecosystem. Think government work, and those unlucky enough to work at a pure Microsoft shop where every problem looks like a Microsoft or Azure solution. It's not a dominant database anywhere on the outside.

We're a B2B shop migrating to MSSQL, from SQL Anywhere. Managed MSSQL in Azure is fairly easy operationally, especially since we don't have a dedicated DBA and our support staff aren't SQL gurus. However since we now got the tools for running on both, and experience migrating, we might be moving to PostgreSQL at some point in not too distant future. Managed MSSQL in Azure is not cheap.

If you started on SQL Anywhere, SAP, you were pretty deep in Enterprise sauce so MSSQL make sense.

And "Holy crap, this is not cheap" is why I see plenty of companies transitioning off MSSQL.

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#63

Post by [deleted] »

whatever1 wrote: post #55

I mean we were suspecting for some time that smartphone processors have reached parity with laptop class ones. MacBook Neo proved it. Not clear how both Amd and Intel not only lost the smartphone fight but also lost in their own field (aka servers, laptops, desktops) 15 years ago if I told you that windows would be running better on ARM you would call me crazy.

[deleted]

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#64

Post by stackskipton »

trollbridge wrote: post #57
Loudergood wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's common as the backend to a lot of SMB scale ERP and CRM solutions. But almost all of those run on SQL Express.

Yep. Cabinet Vision as of 3 years ago required installing both SQL Server 2016 and 2019, plus 2010-vintage Microsoft Jet database, plus Powershell 2.0, plus .NET 3.5. It’s completely dominant in its industry and has no real competition. Pricing starts at $200 a month for the most basic, single user setup and goes up (way up) from there. And no, it doesn’t work on ARM, at all. I tried.

Yep, there is plenty of that type of software, industry niche software that doesn't have market cap to interest competitors, that will require MSSQL and Windows so Microsoft will continue to sell it/develop it.

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#65

Post by jasoneckert »

jiggawatts wrote: post #60
jasoneckert wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I intentionally left out screenshots of the output for a couple of reasons: 1) They’d distract from the main point (I wasn’t aiming to write a benchmarking post), and 2) They can be misleading, since results will vary across ARM hardware and even between Snapdragon X Elite variants. Instead, I included the PowerShell snippets so anyone interested can reproduce the results themselves. For a rough sense of the outcome:…

You likely tripped over a difference in power management profiles (and capabilities) between Intel and ARM. You're testing "variability" and latency, and you even mention that "modern Intel CPUs tend to ramp frequency..." but entirely neglect to mention which specific Windows Power Profile you were using. Fundamentally, you're benchmarking a server operating system on laptops and/or desktop-class hardware, and not th…

Both Windows 11 systems are configured with the “High performance” power plan, as are the two Windows Server VMs. In hindsight, I should have included this detail explicitly in the original post instead of only alluding to it.

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#66

Post by stackskipton »

acdha wrote: post #47
Alupis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people using MSSQL Server are people deep, deep in the Microsoft ecosystem. Think government work, and those unlucky enough to work at a pure Microsoft shop where every problem looks like a Microsoft or Azure solution. It's not a dominant database anywhere on the outside.

This is like saying nobody eats at McDonald’s because they have more competition now. It’s not wrong from a certain perspective but that’s still a huge number of customers.

Sure and likely Windows Server and MSSQL will still exist in 2056 because there will be enough money in it. Hell, AS/400 is still kicking but I'm not sure anyone would consider that anything but legacy.

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#67

Post by womod »

ssl-3 wrote: post #34
Loudergood wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's common as the backend to a lot of SMB scale ERP and CRM solutions. But almost all of those run on SQL Express.

I know of a couple of rather fancy, proprietary 2-way radio trunking systems products that use local MS SQL on the back end, to keep track of configs for individual subscriber radios and system configurations for the radio repeaters. (What's that? Well, if you ever walk into a place like a gigantic oil refinery, you'll see a bunch of people working there. If you look long enough, you'll notice that each of them have…

Yup, thanks big M for making things fun as usual. I deal with the same thing on the P25 side.

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#68

Post by magicalhippo »

stackskipton wrote: post #62
magicalhippo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're a B2B shop migrating to MSSQL, from SQL Anywhere. Managed MSSQL in Azure is fairly easy operationally, especially since we don't have a dedicated DBA and our support staff aren't SQL gurus. However since we now got the tools for running on both, and experience migrating, we might be moving to PostgreSQL at some point in not too distant future. Managed MSSQL in Azure is not cheap.

If you started on SQL Anywhere, SAP, you were pretty deep in Enterprise sauce so MSSQL make sense. And "Holy crap, this is not cheap" is why I see plenty of companies transitioning off MSSQL.

We started with SQL Anywhere way before it was SAP. SAP was the primary driver to move away, but it also fits nicely with our customers, some which want to run their own MSSQL instance.

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#69

Post by cloudbonsai »

Reading the article, it seems to boil down to the following two observations:

1. ARM64 is actually less "smart" than x64. While Intel's Core i9 tries to be clever by aggressive boosting and throttling, Snapdragon just delivers steady and consistent performance. This lack of variability makes it easier for the OS to schedule tasks.

2. It is possible that the ARM build is more efficient than the x64 build, because Windows has less historical clutter on ARM than x64.

So, has CPU throttling become too smart to the point it hurts?

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#70

Post by adzm »

kh9000 wrote: post #37

Windows developer here. After reading this post, my gut instinct is that this is due to something called 'segment heap'. A bit of backstory: there are two, totally independent implementations behind the Windows heap allocation APIs (i.e. the implementation code behind RtlHeapAlloc and RtlHeapFree, which are called by malloc/free). The older of the two, developed uring the Dave Cutler era, is known as the "NT heap". T…

For those interested, you can opt-in to this behavior via the application manifest for your own executables: set heapType to SegmentHeap https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/sbscs/applic...
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