BestPerf: Performance & Best Practices

TPC-C Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 with Oracle RAC World Record Database Result

Sun and Oracle demonstrate the World's fastest database performance. Sun Microsystems using 12 Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 servers, 60 Sun Storage F5100 Flash arrays and Oracle 11g Enterprise Edition with Real Application Clusters and Partitioning delivered a world-record TPC-C benchmark result.

• The 12-node Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server cluster result delivered a world record TPC-C benchmark result of 7,646,486.7 tpmC and $2.36 $/tpmC (USD) using Oracle 11g R1 on a configuration available 12/14/09.

• The 12-node Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server cluster beats the performance of the IBM Power 595 (5GHz) with IBM DB2 9.5 database by 26% and has 16% better price/performance on the TPC-C benchmark.
  

• The complete Oracle/Sun solution used 10.7x better computational density than the IBM configuration (computational density = performance/rack).

• The complete Oracle/Sun solution used 8 times fewer racks than the IBM configuration.

• The complete Oracle/Sun solution has 5.9x better power/performance than the IBM configuration.

• The 12-node Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server cluster beats the performance of the HP Superdome (1.6GHz Itanium2) by 87% and has 19% better price/performance on the TPC-C benchmark.

• The Oracle/Sun solution utilized Sun FlashFire technology to deliver this result. The Sun Storage F5100 flash array was used for database storage.

• Oracle 11g Enterprise Edition with Real Application Clusters and Partitioning scales and effectively uses all of the nodes in this configuration to produce the world record performance.

• This result showed Sun and Oracle's integrated hardware and software stacks provide industry-leading performance.

More information on this benchmark will be posted in the next several days.

Performance Landscape

TPC-C results (sorted by tpmC, bigger is better)

System	tpmC	Price/tpmC	Avail	Database	Cluster	Racks	w/KtpmC
12 x Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440	7,646,487	2.36 USD	12/14/09	Oracle 11g RAC	Y	9	9.6
IBM Power 595	6,085,166	2.81 USD	12/10/08	IBM DB2 9.5	N	76	56.4
HP Integrity Superdome	4,092,799	2.93 USD	08/06/07	Oracle 10g R2	N	46	to be added

Avail - Availability date
w/KtmpC - Watts per 1000 tpmC
Racks - clients, servers, storage, infrastructure

Sun and IBM TPC-C Response times

System	tpmC	Response Time New Order 90th%	Response Time New Order Average
12 x Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440	7,646,487	0.170	0.168
IBM Power 595	6,085,166	1.69	1.22
Response Time Ratio - Sun Better		9.9x	7.3x

Sun uses 7x comparison to highlight the differences in response times between Sun's solution and IBM.  Although notice that Sun is 10x faster on New Order transactions that finish in the 90% percentile.

It is also interesting to note that none of Sun's response times, avg or 90th percentile, for any transaction is over 0.25 seconds. While IBM does not have even one interactive transaction, not even the menu, below 0.50 seconds. Graphs of Sun's and IBM's response times for New-Order can be found in the full disclosure reports on TPC's website TPC-C Official Result Page.

Results and Configuration Summary

Hardware Configuration:

9 racks used to hold

Servers:

12 x Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440
4 x 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus
512 GB memory
10 GbE network for cluster

Storage:

60 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array
61 x Sun Fire X4275, Comstar SAS target emulation
24 x Sun StorageTek 6140 (16 x 300 GB SAS 15K RPM)
6 x Sun Storage J4400
3 x 80-port Brocade FC switches

Clients:

24 x Sun Fire X4170, each with
2 x 2.53 GHz X5540
48 GB memory

Software Configuration:

Solaris 10 10/09
OpenSolaris 6/09 (COMSTAR) for Sun Fire X4275
Oracle 11g Enterprise Edition with Real Application Clusters and Partitioning
Tuxedo CFS-R Tier 1
Sun Web Server 7.0 Update 5

Benchmark Description

TPC-C is an OLTP system benchmark. It simulates a complete environment where a population of terminal operators executes transactions against a database. The benchmark is centered around the principal activities (transactions) of an order-entry environment. These transactions include entering and delivering orders, recording payments, checking the status of orders, and monitoring the level of stock at the warehouses.

See Also

• TPC-C Official Result Page
  

• www.tpc.org Website

Disclosure Statement

TPC Benchmark C, tpmC, and TPC-C are trademarks of the Transaction Performance Processing Council (TPC). 12-node Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 Cluster (1.6GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus, 4 processor) with Oracle 11g Enterprise Edition with Real Application Clusters and Partitioning, 7,646,486.7 tpmC, $2.36/tpmC. Available 12/14/09. IBM Power 595 (5GHz Power6, 32 chips, 64 cores, 128 threads) with IBM DB2 9.5, 6,085,166 tpmC, $2.81/tpmC, available 12/10/08. HP Integrity Superdome(1.6GHz Itanium2, 64 processors, 128 cores, 256 threads) with Oracle 10g Enterprise Edition, 4,092,799 tpmC, $2.93/tpmC. Available 8/06/07. Source: www.tpc.org, results as of 11/5/09.

Significance of Results

Results on the Sun Storage 6780 Array with 8Gb connectivity are presented for the SPC-2 benchmark using RAID 5 and RAID 6.

• The Sun Storage 6780 array outperforms the IBM DS5300 by 51% in price performance for SPC-2 benchmark using RAID 5 data protection.

• The Sun Storage 6780 array outperforms the IBM DS5300 by 51% in price performance for SPC-2 benchmark using RAID 6 data protection.

• The Sun Storage 6780 Array has 62% better performance than the Fujitsu 800/1100 and delivers a price performance advantage of 5.6x as measured by the SPC-2 benchmark.

• The Sun Storage 6800 array with 8Gb connectivity improved performance by 36% over the 4GB connected solution as measured by the SPC-2 benchmark.

Performance Landscape

SPC-2 Performance Chart (in increasing price-performance order)

Sponsor	System	SPC-2 MBPS	$/SPC-2 MBPS	ASU Capacity (GB)	TSC Price	Data Protection Level	Date	Results Identifier
Sun	SS6780 (8Gb)	5,634.17	$44.88	16,383.186	$252,873	RAID 5	10/27/09	B00047
IBM	DS5300 (8Gb)	5,634.17	$67.75	16,383.186	$381,720	RAID 5	10/21/09	B00045
Sun	SS6780 (8Gb)	5,543.88	$45.61	14,042.731	$252,873	RAID 6	10/27/09	B00048
IBM	DS5300 (8Gb)	5,543.88	$68.85	14,042.731	$381,720	RAID 6	10/21/09	B00046
Sun	SS6780 (4Gb)	4,818.43	$53.61	16,383.186	$258,329	RAID 5	02/03/09	B00039
IBM	DS5300 (4Gb)	4,818.43	$93.80	16,383.186	$451,986	RAID 5	09/25/08	B00037
Sun	SS6780 (4Gb)	4,675.50	$55.25	14,042.731	$258,329	RAID 6	02/03/09	B00040
IBM	DS5300 (4Gb)	4,675.50	$96.67	14,042.731	$451,986	RAID 6	09/25/08	B00038
Fujitsu	800/1100	3,480.68	$238.93	4,569.845	$831,649	Mirroring	03/08/07	B00019

SPC-2 MBPS = the Performance Metric
$/SPC-2 MBPS = the Price/Performance Metric
ASU Capacity = the Capacity Metric
Data Protection = Data Protection Metric
TSC Price = Total Cost of Ownership Metric
Results Identifier = A unique identification of the result Metric

Complete SPC-2 benchmark results may be found at http://www.storageperformance.org.

Results and Configuration Summary

Storage Configuration:

8 x CM200 trays, each with 16 x 146GB 15K RPM drives
8 x Qlogic 8Gb HBA

Server Configuration:

4 x IBM x3650

2 x 2.93 GHz Intel X5570
5 GB memory

Software Configuration:

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition (32-bit) with SP2
SPC-2 benchmark kit

Benchmark Description

The SPC Benchmark-2™ (SPC-2) is a series of related benchmark performance tests that simulate the sequential component of demands placed upon on-line, non-volatile storage in server class computer systems. SPC-2 provides measurements in support of real world environments characterized by:

• Large numbers of concurrent sequential transfers.
• Demanding data rate requirements, including requirements for real time processing.
• Diverse application techniques for sequential processing.
• Substantial storage capacity requirements.
• Data persistence requirements to ensure preservation of data without corruption or loss.

Key Points and Best Practices

• This benchmark was performed using RAID 5 and RAID 6 protection.
• The controller stripe size was set to 512k.
• No volume manager was used.

See Also

• Sun Storage 6780 Array SPC-2 (RAID 5) Executive Summary (7 pages, acrobat pdf)
• Complete Sun Storage 6780 Array SPC-2 (RAID 5) Full Disclosure Report (acrobat pdf)
• Sun Storage 6780 Array SPC-2 (RAID 6) Executive Summary (7 pages, acrobat pdf)
• Complete Sun Storage 6780 Array SPC-2 (RAID 6) Full Disclosure Report (acrobat pdf)
• Storage Performance Council (SPC) Home Page
• Ideas International Benchmark Page
• Evaluator Group Page

Benchmark Tags

$/Perf, performance, bandwidth, OpenStorage, Storage

Disclosure Statement

SPC-2, SPC-2 MBPS, $/SPC-2 MBPS are regular trademarks of Storage Performance Council (SPC). More info www.storageperformance.org. Sun Storage 6780 Array 5,634.17 SPC-2 MBPS, $/SPC-2 MBPS $44.88, ASU Capacity 16,838.186GB, Protect RAID 5, Cost $252,873.00, Ident. B00047. Sun Storage 6780 Array 5,543.88 SPC-2 MBPS, $/SPC-2 MBPS $45.61, ASU Capacity 14,042.731 GB, Protect RAID 6, Cost $252,873.00, Ident. B00048.

Publication Rules

See here for publication rules.

Significance of Results

Results on the Sun Storage 6180 Array with 8Gb connectivity are presented for the SPC-2 benchmark using RAID 5 and RAID 6.

• The Sun Storage 6180 Array outperforms the IBM DS5020 by 77% in price performance for SPC-2 benchmark using RAID 5 data protection.

• The Sun Storage 6180 Array outperforms the IBM DS5020 by 91% in price performance for SPC-2 benchmark using RAID 6 data protection.

• The Sun Storage 6180 Array is 50% faster than the previous generation, the Sun Storage 6140 Array and IBM DS4700 on the SPC-2 benchmark using RAID 5 data protection.

Performance Landscape

SPC-2 Performance Chart (in increasing price-performance order)

Sponsor	System	SPC-2 MBPS	$/SPC-2 MBPS	ASU Capacity (GB)	TSC Price	Data Protection Level	Date	Results Identifier
Sun	SS6180	1,286.74	$45.47	3,504.693	$58,512	RAID 6	10/08/09	B00044
IBM	DS5020	1,286.74	$87.04	3,504.693	$112,002	RAID 6	10/08/09	B00042
Sun	SS6180	1,244.89	$42.53	3,504.693	$52,951	RAID 5	10/08/09	B00043
IBM	DS5020	1,244.89	$75.30	3,504.693	$93,742	RAID 5	10/08/09	B00041
Sun	J4400	887.44	$25.63	23,965.918	$22,742	unprotected	08/15/08	B00034
IBM	DS4700	823.62	$106.73	1,748.874	$87,903	RAID 5	04/01/08	B00028
Sun	ST6140	790.67	$67.82	1,675.037	$53,622	RAID 5	02/13/07	B00017
Sun	ST2540	735.62	$37.32	2,177.548	$27,451	RAID 5	04/10/07	B00021
IBM	DS3400	731.25	$34.36	1,165.933	$25,123	RAID 5	02/27/08	B00027
Sun	ST2530	672.05	$26.15	1,451.699	$17,572	RAID 5	08/16/07	B00026
Sun	J4200	548.80	$22.92	11,995.295	$12,580	Unprotected	07/10/08	B00033

SPC-2 MBPS = the Performance Metric
$/SPC-2 MBPS = the Price/Performance Metric
ASU Capacity = the Capacity Metric
Data Protection = Data Protection Metric
TSC Price = Total Cost of Ownership Metric
Results Identifier = A unique identification of the result Metric

Complete SPC-2 benchmark results may be found at http://www.storageperformance.org.

Results and Configuration Summary

Storage Configuration:

30 146.8GB 15K RPM drives (for RAID 5)
36 146.8GB 15K RPM drives (for RAID 6)
4 Qlogic HBA

Server Configuration:

IBM system x3850 M2

Software Configuration:

MS Win 2003 Server SP2
SPC-2 benchmark kit

Benchmark Description

The SPC Benchmark-2™ (SPC-2) is a series of related benchmark performance tests that simulate the sequential component of demands placed upon on-line, non-volatile storage in server class computer systems. SPC-2 provides measurements in support of real world environments characterized by:

• Large numbers of concurrent sequential transfers.
• Demanding data rate requirements, including requirements for real time processing.
• Diverse application techniques for sequential processing.
• Substantial storage capacity requirements.
• Data persistence requirements to ensure preservation of data without corruption or loss.

Key Points and Best Practices

• This benchmark was performed using RAID 5 and RAID 6 protection.
• The controller stripe size was set to 512k.
• No volume manager was used.

See Also

• Sun Storage 6180 Array (RAID-5) SPC-2 Executive Summary (6 pages, acrobat pdf)
• Complete Sun Storage 6180 Array (RAID-5) SPC-2 Full Disclosure Report (acrobat pdf)
• Sun Storage 6180 Array (RAID-6) SPC-2 Executive Summary (6 pages, acrobat pdf)
• Complete Sun Storage 6180 Array (RAID-6) SPC-2 Full Disclosure Report (acrobat pdf)
• Storage Performance Council (SPC) Home Page
• Ideas International Benchmark Page

Disclosure Statement

SPC-2, SPC-2 MBPS, $/SPC-2 MBPS are regular trademarks of Storage Performance Council (SPC). More info www.storageperformance.org. Sun Storage 6180 Array 1,286.74 SPC-2 MBPS, $/SPC-2 MBPS $45.47, ASU Capacity 3,504.693 GB, Protect RAID 6, Cost $58,512.00, Ident. B00044. Sun Storage 6180 Array 1,244.89 SPC-2 MBPS, $/SPC-2 MBPS $42.53, ASU Capacity 3,504.693 GB, Protect RAID 5, Cost $52,951.00, Ident. B00043.

Significance of Results

Results on the Sun Storage 6180 Array with 8Gb connectivity are presented for the SPC-1 benchmark.

• The Sun Storage 6180 Array outperforms the IBM DS5020 by 72% in price performance on the SPC-1 benchmark.

• The Sun Storage 6180 Array is 50% faster than the previous generation, Sun Storage 6140 Array and IBM DS4700 on the SPC-1 benchmark.

• The Sun Storage 6180 Array betters the HDS 2100 by 27% in price performance on the SPC-1 benchmark.

• The Sun Storage 6180 Array has 16% better IOPS/Drive performance than the HDS 2100 on the SPC-1 benchmark.

Performance Landscape

SPC-1 Performance Chart (in increasing price-performance order)

Sponsor	System	SPC-1 IOPS	$/SPC-1 IOPS	ASU Capacity (GB)	TSC Price	Data Protection Level	Date	Results Identifier
HDS	AMD 2300	42,502.61	$6.96	7,955.000	$295,740	Mirroring	3/24/09	A00077
HDS	AMD 2100	31,498.58	$5.85	3,967.500	$187,321	Mirroring	3/24/09	A00076
Sun	SS6180 (8Gb)	26,090.03	$4.70	5,145.060	$122,623	Mirroring	10/09/09	A00084
IBM	DS5020 (8Gb)	26,090.03	$8.08	5,145.060	$210,782	Mirroring	8/25/09	A00081
Fujitsu	DX80	19,492.86	$3.45	5,355.400	$67,296	Mirroring	9/14/09	A00082
Sun	STK6140 (4Gb)	17,395.53	$4.93	1,963.269	$85,823	Mirroring	10/16/06	A00048
IBM	DS4700 (4Gb)	17,195.84	$11.67	1,963.270	$200,666	Mirroring	8/21/06	A00046

SPC-1 IOPS = the Performance Metric
$/SPC-1 IOPS = the Price/Performance Metric
ASU Capacity = the Capacity Metric
Data Protection = Data Protection Metric
TSC Price = Total Cost of Ownership Metric
Results Identifier = A unique identification of the result Metric

Complete SPC-1 benchmark results may be found at http://www.storageperformance.org.

Results and Configuration Summary

Storage Configuration:

80 x 146.8GB 15K RPM drives
8 Qlogic HBA

Server Configuration:

IBM system x3850 M2

Software Configuration:

MS Windows 2003 Server SP2
SPC-1 benchmark kit

Benchmark Description

SPC Benchmark-1 (SPC-1): is the first industry standard storage benchmark and is the most comprehensive performance analysis environment ever constructed for storage subsystems. The I/O workload in SPC-1 is characterized by predominately random I/O operations as typified by multi-user OLTP, database, and email servers environments. SPC-1 uses a highly efficient multi-threaded workload generator to thoroughly analyze direct attach or network storage subsystems. The SPC-1 benchmark enables companies to rapidly produce valid performance and price/performance results using a variety of host platforms and storage network topologies.

SPC1 is built to:

• Provide a level playing field for test sponsors.
• Produce results that are powerful and yet simple to use.
• Provide value for engineers as well as IT consumers and solution integrators.
• Is easy to run, easy to audit/verify, and easy to use to report official results.

Key Points and Best Practices

See Also

• Sun Storage 6180 Array SPC-1 Executive Summary (6 pages, acrobat pdf)
• Complete Sun Storage 6180 Array SPC-1 Full Disclosure Report (acrobat pdf)
• Storage Performance Council (SPC) Home Page
• Ideas International Benchmark Page

Disclosure Statement

SPC-1, SPC-1 IOPS, $/SPC-1 IOPS reg tm of Storage Performance Council (SPC). More info www.storageperformance.org. Sun Storage 6180 Array 26,090.03 SPC-1 IOPS, ASU Capacity 5,145.060GB, $/SPC-1 IOPS $4.70, Data Protection Mirroring, Cost $122,623, Ident. A00084.

TPC-C Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 with Oracle RAC World Record Database Result

Sun and Oracle demonstrate the World's fastest database performance. Sun Microsystems using 12 Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 servers, 60 Sun Storage F5100 Flash arrays and Oracle 11g Enterprise Edition with Real Application Clusters and Partitioning delivered a world-record TPC-C benchmark result.

• The 12-node Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server cluster result delivered a world record TPC-C benchmark result of 7,646,486.7 tpmC and $2.36 $/tpmC (USD) using Oracle 11g R1 on a configuration available 12/14/09.

• The 12-node Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server cluster beats the performance of the IBM Power 595 (5GHz) with IBM DB2 9.5 database by 26% and has 16% better price/performance on the TPC-C benchmark.

• The complete Oracle/Sun solution used 10.7x better computational density than the IBM configuration (computational density = performance/rack).

• The complete Oracle/Sun solution used 8 times fewer racks than the IBM configuration.

• The complete Oracle/Sun solution has 5.9x better power/performance than the IBM configuration.

• The 12-node Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server cluster beats the performance of the HP Superdome (1.6GHz Itanium2) by 87% and has 19% better price/performance on the TPC-C benchmark.

• The Oracle/Sun solution utilized Sun FlashFire technology to deliver this result. The Sun Storage F5100 flash array was used for database storage.

• Oracle 11g Enterprise Edition with Real Application Clusters and Partitioning scales and effectively uses all of the nodes in this configuration to produce the world record performance.

• This result showed Sun and Oracle's integrated hardware and software stacks provide industry-leading performance.

More information on this benchmark will be posted in the next several days.

Performance Landscape

TPC-C results (sorted by tpmC, bigger is better)

System	tpmC	Price/tpmC	Avail	Database	Cluster	Racks	w/KtpmC
12 x Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440	7,646,487	2.36 USD	12/14/09	Oracle 11g RAC	Y	9	9.6
IBM Power 595	6,085,166	2.81 USD	12/10/08	IBM DB2 9.5	N	76	56.4
Bull Escala PL6460R	6,085,166	2.81 USD	12/15/08	IBM DB2 9.5	N	71	56.4
HP Integrity Superdome	4,092,799	2.93 USD	08/06/07	Oracle 10g R2	N	46	to be added

Avail - Availability date
w/KtmpC - Watts per 1000 tpmC
Racks - clients, servers, storage, infrastructure

Results and Configuration Summary

Hardware Configuration:

9 racks used to hold

Servers:

12 x Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440
4 x 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus
512 GB memory
10 GbE network for cluster

Storage:

60 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array
61 x Sun Fire X4275, Comstar SAS target emulation
24 x Sun StorageTek 6140 (16 x 300 GB SAS 15K RPM)
6 x Sun Storage J4400
3 x 80-port Brocade FC switches

Clients:

24 x Sun Fire X4170, each with
2 x 2.53 GHz X5540
48 GB memory

Software Configuration:

Solaris 10 10/09
OpenSolaris 6/09 (COMSTAR) for Sun Fire X4275
Oracle 11g Enterprise Edition with Real Application Clusters and Partitioning
Tuxedo CFS-R Tier 1
Sun Web Server 7.0 Update 5

Benchmark Description

TPC-C is an OLTP system benchmark. It simulates a complete environment where a population of terminal operators executes transactions against a database. The benchmark is centered around the principal activities (transactions) of an order-entry environment. These transactions include entering and delivering orders, recording payments, checking the status of orders, and monitoring the level of stock at the warehouses.

POSTSCRIPT: Here are some comments on IBM's grasping-at-straws-perf/core attacks on the TPC-C result:
c0t0d0s0 blog: "IBM's Reaction to Sun&Oracle TPC-C

See Also

• TPC-C Official Result Page
  

• www.tpc.org Website

Disclosure Statement

TPC Benchmark C, tpmC, and TPC-C are trademarks of the Transaction Performance Processing Council (TPC). 12-node Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 Cluster (1.6GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus, 4 processor) with Oracle 11g Enterprise Edition with Real Application Clusters and Partitioning, 7,646,486.7 tpmC, $2.36/tpmC. Available 12/14/09. IBM Power 595 (5GHz Power6, 32 chips, 64 cores, 128 threads) with IBM DB2 9.5, 6,085,166 tpmC, $2.81/tpmC, available 12/10/08. HP Integrity Superdome(1.6GHz Itanium2, 64 processors, 128 cores, 256 threads) with Oracle 10g Enterprise Edition, 4,092,799 tpmC, $2.93/tpmC. Available 8/06/07. Source: www.tpc.org, results as of 10/11/09.

Significance of Results

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server equipped with two UltraSPARC T2 processors running at 1.6 GHz delivered World Record ZXTM HTTPThroughput results.

• Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 (2 UltraSPARC T2 Plus 1.6GHz) delivers an HTTPThroughput of 13.4 Gbit/sec and a price-performance of 5.5K $/Gb/sec which is 34% better performance and 2.6x the price-performance than a f5 BIG-IP VIPRON (Chassis + 1 blade).

• Sun  SPARC Enterprise T5240 (2 UltraSPARC T2 Plus 1.6GHz) delivers an HTTPThroughput of 13.4 Gbit/sec and a price-performance of 5.5K $/Gb/sec which is 91% better performance and 2.7x the price-performance than a f5 BIG-IP 8800.

• Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 (2 UltraSPARC T2 Plus 1.6GHz) delivers an HTTPThroughput of 13.4 Gbit/sec and a price-performance of 5.5K $/Gb/sec which is 3.3x the price-performance than a Citrix 12000.

• Sun's UltraSPARC T2+ processor includes support for common bulk ciphers, secure hash operations and both prime and binary field Elliptic Cryptography.  The UltraSPARC T2 processor supports RC4, DES, 3DES, AES-128, AES-192,  AES-256, MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256.

Performance Landscape

Zeus ZXTM HTTPThroughput Chart (ordered by performance)

System	Gb/sec	$ (HW+SW)	$/perf ($/Gb/sec)
Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 (2x 1.6GHz US T2 Plus)	13.4	$74K	5.5K
f5 BIG-IP VIPRION	10.0	$141K	14.1K
Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 (2x 1.2GHz US T2 Plus)	9.1	$55K	6.1K
f5 BIG-IP 8800	7.0	$105K	15.1K
f5 BIG-IP 6900	6.0	$71K	11.8K
Citrix 12000	6.0	$110K	18.3K
Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 (1x 1.2GHz US T2)	5.9	$46K	7.8K
Citrix 10010	4.8	$85K	17.7K

Performance graph of f5, Citrix and previous Sun results at: http://www.zeus.com/news/press_articles/zeus-price-performance-press-release.html?gclid=CLn4jLuuk5cCFQsQagod7gTkJA.

Results and Configuration Summary

Hardware Configuration:

Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 with

• 2x 1.6GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus
  
• 16 GB memory
• 1 internal 146GB 10K SAS drive
• 2x Sun 10GbE Xaui Card - (SESX7XA1Z)
• 2 x Dual 10GbE SFP+ PCIe ( X1109a-z ) with 1 X1109a-z per card

Software Configuration:

Solaris
Zeus ZXTM version 5.1r1

Benchmark Description

The benchmark tests HTTP Throughput for Persistent HTTP connections.  Large files bandwidth (Gbit/s) is measured by fetching large files.  Load is applied by using ZeusBench, a benchmarking tool in ZXTM 5.1r1,  and is used for Zeus internal performance testing and as a load generation tool.   Multiple clients request 100MB files over http via the ZXTM load balancer.  

See Also

Performance on the Zeus Website

Disclosure Statement

Zeus is TM of Zeus Technology Limited. Results as of 7/21/2009 on http://www.zeus.com/news/press_articles/zeus-price-performance-press-release.html?gclid=CLn4jLuuk5cCFQsQagod7gTkJA.

Significance of Results

Sun and Microsoft combined to deliver World Record price performance for Windows based results on the TPC-H benchmark at the 300GB scale factor. Using Microsoft's SQL Server 2008 Enterprise database along with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 operating system on the Sun Fire X4600 M2 server, the result of 2.80 $/QphH@300GB (USD) was delivered.

• The Sun Fire X4600 M2 provides World Record price-performance of 2.80 $/QphH@300GB (USD) among Windows based TPC-H results at the 300GB scale factor. This result is 14% better price performance than the HP DL785 result.
• The Sun Fire X4600 M2 trails HP's World Record single system performance (HP: 57,684 QphH@300GB, Sun: 55,185 QphH@300GB) by less than 5%.
• The Sun/SQL Server solution used fewer disks for the database (168) than the other top performance leaders @300GB.
• IBM required 79% more disks (300 total) than Sun to get a result of 46,034 QphH@300GB which is 20% below Sun's QphH.
• HP required 21% more disks (204 total) than Sun to achieve a result of 3.24 $/QphH@300GB (USD) which is 16% worse than Sun's price performance.

This is Sun's first published TPC-H SQL Server benchmark.

Performance Landscape

ch/co/th = chips, cores, threads
$/QphH = TPC-H Price/Performance metric (smaller is better)

System	ch/co/th	Processor	Database	QphH	$/QphH	Price	Disks	Available
Sun Fire X4600 M2	8/32/32	2.7 Opteron 8384	SQL Server 2008	55,158	2.80	$154,284	168	07/06/09
HP DL785	8/32/32	2.7 Opteron 8384	SQL Server 2008	57,684	3.24	$186,700	204	11/17/08
IBM x3950 M2	8/32/32	2.93 Intel X7350	SQL Server 2005	46,034	5.40	$248,635	300	03/07/08

Complete benchmark results may be found at the TPC benchmark website http://www.tpc.org.

Results and Configuration Summary

Server:

Sun Fire X4600 M2 with:

8 x AMD Opteron 8384, 2.7 GHz QC processors
256 GB memory
3 x 73GB (15K RPM) internal SAS disks

Storage:

14 x Sun Storage J4200 each consisting of 12 x 146GB 15,000 RPM SAS disks

Software:

Operating System: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise x64 Edition SP1
Database Manager: SQL Server 2008 Enterprise x64 Edition SP1

Audited Results:

Database Size:	300GB (Scale Factor)
TPC-H Composite:	55,157.5 QphH@300GB
Price/performance:	$2.80 / QphH@300GB (USD)
Available:	July 6, 2009
Total 3 Year Cost:	$154,284.19 (USD)
TPC-H Power:	67,095.6
TPC-H Throughput:	45,343.5
Database Load Time:	17 hours 29 minutes
Storage Ratio:	76.82

Benchmark Description

The TPC-H benchmark is a performance benchmark established by the Transaction Processing Council (TPC) to demonstrate Data Warehousing/Decision Support Systems (DSS). TPC-H measurements are produced for customers to evaluate the performance of various DSS systems. These queries and updates are executed against a standard database under controlled conditions. Performance projections and comparisons between different TPC-H Database sizes (100GB, 300GB, 1000GB, 3000GB and 10000GB) are not allowed by the TPC.

TPC-H is a data warehousing-oriented, non-industry-specific benchmark that consists of a large number of complex queries typical of decision support applications. It also includes some insert and delete activity that is intended to simulate loading and purging data from a warehouse. TPC-H measures the combined performance of a particular database manager on a specific computer system.

The main performance metric reported by TPC-H is called the TPC-H Composite Query-per-Hour Performance Metric (QphH@SF, where SF is the number of GB of raw data, referred to as the scale factor). QphH@SF is intended to summarize the ability of the system to process queries in both single and multi user modes. The benchmark requires reporting of price/performance, which is the ratio of QphH to total HW/SW cost plus 3 years maintenance. A secondary metric is the storage efficiency, which is the ratio of total configured disk space in GB to the scale factor.

Key Points and Best Practices

SQL Server 2008 is able to take advantage of the lower latency local memory access provides on the Sun Fire 4600 M2 server. This was achieved by setting the NUMA initialization parameter to enable all NUMA optimizations.

Enabling the Windows large-page feature provided a significant performance improvement. Because SQL Server 2008 manages its own memory buffer, the use of large-pages resulted in significant performance increase. Note that to use large-pages, an application must be part of the large-page group of the OS (Windows).

The 64-bit Windows OS and 64-bit SQL Server software were able to utilize the 256GB of memory available on the Sun Fire 4600 M2 server.

See Also

• Sun Fire X4600 M2 TPC-H Executive Summary Report Acrobat PDF (562K)
• Complete Sun Fire X4600 M2 TPC-H Full Disclosure Report Acrobat PDF (2347K)
• Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) Home Page
• Ideas International Benchmark page

Disclosure Statement

TPC-H@300GB: Sun Fire X4600 M2 55,158 QphH@300GB, $2.80/QphH@300GB, availability 7/6/09; HP DL785, 57,684 QphH@300GB, $3.24/QphH@300GB, availability 11/17/08; IBM x3950 M2, 46,034 QphH@300GB, $5.40/QphH@300GB, availability 03/07/08; TPC-H, QphH, $/QphH tm of Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC). More info www.tpc.org.

A new and exceptional TPC-H result submitted today has been obtained on a cluster of 43 Sun Fire X4540 servers, each equipped  with two AMD Opteron 2356 2.3 GHz processors, running ParAccel Analytic Database on Sun OpenSolaris 2009.06. The Sun/ParAccel Cluster achieved a result of 1,050,556.20 QphH @30000GB with a price performance of $2.86/QphH @30000GB.

This is an incredible World Record for both performance and price-performance at the largest TPC-H Scale Factor (30TB) to date.

As of today, the only other 30TB result posted is on a single HP Superdome, powered by 64 x 1.6 GHz Itanium2 Dual Core processors running Oracle 10gR2. The HP result is 150,960 QphH @30000GB with a price-performance of $46.69/QphH @30000GB.

This result establishes the overall leadership of the Sun/ParAccel/OpenSolaris cluster solution in Decision Support Systems (DSS) and Data Warehousing.

• The Sun Fire X4540 / ParAccel Cluster was over seven time (7x) faster than the HP Superdome and had sixteen times (16x) better price-performance. In addition, the total cost of the Sun/ParAccel configuration (H/W + S/W + 3 years maintenance) is less than half of the total cost of the HP/Oracle configuration.

• The Sun Fire X4540 cluster storage consisted entirely of fully mirrored internal drives. There were almost 1000 fewer disk spindles than the HP Superdome solution (2064 vs. 3072 disks), resulting in an enormous reduction of hardware logistics, at a fraction of the floor space (172 RU vs 1120 RU).

• This solution is one of the TPC-H new-generation DSS DBMS (column based, shared nothing, data compression, etc.) results. It is noteworthy that all of the other new generation TPC-H submissions (at 100GB up to 3000GB) ran queries entirely from memory. This new result is disk based and thus establishes the leadership and viability of the Sun/ParAccel/OpenSolaris solution on shared nothing clusters for very large disk based databases -- much larger than memory sizes realistically available even in extremely large database installations.

• There are a number of new generation DBMS designed for Decision Support such as ParAccel, either currently for sale or still under development, all implemented on Linux. This result is the first public proof point of a new generation data warehousing product running on Solaris, more specifically OpenSolaris.

• The load time of the 30TB database on the Sun/ParAccel cluster was 4 times faster than the HP Superdome solution. For large DSS databases, load time is a very important factor.

Performance Landscape

ch/co/th = chips, cores, threads
$/QphH = TPC-H Price/Performance metric (smaller is better)
QphH = TPC-H Composite Metric (bigger is better)

System	ch/co/th	Database	QphH	$/QphH	Price	# Disks	Available
43 x Sun Fire X4275	86/344/344	PADB	1,050,566	2.86	$3,006,861	2064	06/21/09
1 x HP Superdome	64/128/128	Oracle	150,960	46.69	$7,048,342	3072	06/18/07

Complete benchmark results may be found at the TPC benchmark website http://www.tpc.org.

Results and Configuration Summary

Servers:

43 X Sun Fire X4540 each with:

2 x AMD Opteron 2356, 2.3 GHz QC processors
64 GB memory
48 x 500GB (7,200 RPM) internal SATA disks
86 total processors
344 total processor cores
344 total processor threads

Storage:

No external storage

Switches:

3 x 48 port Cisco 3750 + 4 x Cisco 3750 24 port 1Gb Ethernet Switches

Software:

Operating System: OpenSolaris 2009.06
Database Manager: ParAccel PADB

Audited Results:

Database Size:	30,000 GB (Scale Factor)
TPC-H Composite:	1,050,566.20 QphH@30000GB
Price/performance:	$2.86 / QphH@30000GB
Available:	June 21, 2009
Total 3 Year Cost:	$3,006,861
TPC-H Power:	1,326,910.40
TPC-H Throughput:	831,758.00
Database Load Time:	~3 Hours 29 minutes
Storage Ratio:	32.04

Benchmark Description

The TPC-H benchmark is a performance benchmark established by the Transaction Processing Council (TPC) to demonstrate Data Warehousing/Decision Support Systems (DSS). TPC-H measurements are produced for customers to evaluate the performance of various DSS systems. These queries and updates are executed against a standard database under controlled conditions. Performance projections and comparisons between different TPC-H Database sizes (100GB, 300GB, 1000GB, 3000GB and 10000GB) are not allowed by the TPC.

TPC-H is a data warehousing-oriented, non-industry-specific benchmark that consists of a large number of complex queries typical of decision support applications. It also includes some insert and delete activity that is intended to simulate loading and purging data from a warehouse. TPC-H measures the combined performance of a particular database manager on a specific computer system.

The main performance metric reported by TPC-H is called the TPC-H Composite Query-per-Hour Performance Metric (QphH@SF, where SF is the number of GB of raw data, referred to as the scale factor). QphH@SF is intended to summarize the ability of the system to process queries in both single and multi user modes. The benchmark requires reporting of price/performance, which is the ratio of QphH to total HW/SW cost plus 3 years maintenance. A secondary metric is the storage efficiency, which is the ratio of total configured disk space in GB to the scale factor.

Key Technical Points

ParAccel PADB is one of a new generation of DBMS designed specifically for Decision Support and Data Warehousing applications.The Sun Fire X4540 and OpenSolaris2009.06 are a perfect match for the PADB solution. The Sun Fire X4540 with its large amount of internal storage in a compact form factor and OpenSolaris with ISM shared memory management, network performance and powerful Dtrace performance analysis tools.
Below are the main architectural features of the ParAccel product:

Shared Nothing Architecture

Shared nothing is the most optimal hardware architecture for highly parallel database operations in DSS environments. The inherent divide and conquer approach of distributing data over many nodes proportionally reduces the amount of work each node must do and thus has the potential for near linear scalability.

Column Based Physical Storage

Relational tables can be physically stored on disk in a row oriented fashion, or in a column oriented fashion. In the row oriented option, all columns of each row are stored contiguously on disk. By contrast, the column oriented option stores all the values of each column contiguously on disk. The choice of row store vs. column store may at first glance seem arbitrary, but in fact has profound consequences on the amount of I/O bandwidth, memory bandwidth and CPU requirements necessary for processing various types of queries.

Aggressive Data Compression

There are dozens of known techniques for storing data in a manner requiring fewer bytes than the original plain form of the data. The techniques are referred to as data compression algorithms. ParAccel uses several very effective data compression techniques. Compression is beneficial for query processing in that it reduces the amount of data that needs to be read from disk, and the amount of main memory space needed for processing the data. Both of these characteristics lead to query processing efficiencies and cost efficiencies.

Low Cost Servers and Interconnects

The ParAccel software does not require expensive proprietary hardware. Shared nothing clusters of small and low cost systems can provide adequate memory for aggressively compressed database engines to achieve performance levels far above the levels achievable by conventional database engines. In addition, the software does not require expensive special networking infrastructure but instead provides excellent performance just running on standard GbE equipment.

See Also

• Sun Fire X4540 TPC-H Executive Summary Report Acrobat PDF (402K)

• Complete Sun Fire X4540 TPC-H Full Disclosure Report Acrobat PDF (819K)

• Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) Home Page

• Ideas International Benchmark page

Disclosure Statement

TPC-H@30000GB Sun Fire X4540 1,050,566 QphH@30000GB, $2.86/QphH@30000GB, availability 6/21/09. TPC-H, HP Integrity Superdome, 150,960 QphH @30000GB, $46.69 / QphH @30000GB, availability 06/18/07, QphH, $/QphH tm of Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC). More info www.tpc.org.

Welcome to BestPerf group blog!  This blog will contain many different performance results and the best practices learned from doing a wide variety of performance work on the broad range of Sun's products.

Over the coming days, you will see many engineers in the Strategic Applications Engineering group posting a wide variety topics and providing useful information to the users of Sun's technologies. Some of the areas explored will be:

world-record, performance, $/Perf, watts, watt/perf, scalability, bandwidth, RAS, virtualization, security, cluster, latency, HPC, Web, Application, Database