Performance Report for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Active Directory on HP ProLiant Server Blades

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Active Directory (AD) Domain Services scalability often plays a key role in the scalability of applications that require domain authentication and are dependent upon it. AD is no longer bound by the 4GB memory addressability limitations plaguing 32-bit applications, with the arrival of x64 editions of Windows Server 2008. Consequently, HP designed the tests described in this paper to determine if AD functions could leverage the processing power and additional physical and virtual memory addressability of Quad-Core Intel Xeon- and Dual-Core AMD Opteron-based HP ProLiant server blades. This paper analyzes the performance behavior of the HP ProLiant BL460c and the HP ProLiant BL685c servers while conducting an AD Domain Services performance test.