Automated SQL Server Benchmarking with HammerDB and Docker: A Complete Testing Framework
I’m excited to announce the release of a new open-source project that fully automates HammerDB benchmarking for SQL Server using Docker. If you’ve ever needed to run TPC-C or TPC-H benchmarks multiple times, you know how time-consuming the manual setup can be. This project removes the hassle and gets you up and running a single command: ./loadtest.sh.
Updated for HammerDB 6.0
What’s new since I first wrote this:
- Every run writes a JSON report and HTML charts, not just console output.
- Response times are broken out per stored procedure, with p99 through p25.
- You can tag runs with a
PROFILE_IDand diff two configurations directly. loadtest.shruns through the whole lifecycle of a load test.
Why I Built This
In my work, I frequently benchmark SQL Server configurations, whether I’m comparing versions, testing new hardware, or validating performance tuning changes. Setting up HammerDB manually each time became a significant time bottleneck (see what I did there! ;). I needed an automated solution that would work consistently across different environments and reduce the time required to get test results.