BestPerf: Performance & Best Practices

A fantastic source of technical Best Practices is at
http://wikis.sun.com/display/Performance/Home

This wiki hosts the combined wisdom of many performance engineers from across Sun. It has information about Hardware, Software, ZFS, Oracle and other various performance topics.  This wiki attempts to categorize and present information so it is easy to find and use. It is getting started, but please let us know if there are any topics which would be useful.

Here is a BestPerf blog index to a variety of benchmarks announced at Oracle Open World and others talked about at the conference.

Colors used:

ORACLEOPENWORLD

CMT Servers

Oct 11, 2009 * TPC-C World Record Sun - Oracle *
Oct 13, 2009 Sun T5440 Oracle BI EE Sun T5440 World Record
Oct 13, 2009 SPECweb200 Sun T5440 World Record, Solaris Containers and Sun Storage F5100
Sep 01, 2009 String Searching - Sun T5240 & T5440 Outperform IBM Cell Broadband Engine
Aug 27, 2009 Sun T5240 Beats 4-Chip IBM Power 570 POWER6 System on SPECjbb2005
Aug 26, 2009 Sun T5220 Sets Single Chip World Record on SPECjbb2005
Aug 12, 2009 SPECmail2009 on Sun T5240 and Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.3
Jul 23, 2009 World Record Performance of Sun CMT Servers
Jul 22, 2009 Why does 1.6 beat 4.7?
Jul 21, 2009 Zeus ZXTM Traffic Manager World Record on Sun T5240
Jul 21, 2009 Sun T5440 World Record SAP-SD 4-Processor Two-tier SAP ERP 6.0 EP4 (Unicode)

SPARC64 Servers

Oct 13, 2009 SAP 2-tier SD Benchmark on Sun M9000/32 SPARC64 VII
Oct 13, 2009 Oracle PeopleSoft Payroll Sun M4000 and Sun Storage F5100 World Record Performance
Oct 12, 2009 Best Practices: M4000 Sun Storage F5100 is a good option for Peoplesoft Payroll
Oct 13, 2009 Oracle Hyperion Sun M5000 and Sun Storage 7410
Oct 13, 2009 SPECcpu2006 Results On MSeries Servers, New SPARC64 VII

X86 Servers

Oct 13, 2009 SAP 2-tier SD-Parallel on Sun Blade X6270 1-node, 2-node and 4-node
Aug 28, 2009 Sun X4270 World Record SAP-SD 2-Processor Two-tier SAP ERP 6.0 EP 4 (Unicode)
Oct 02, 2009 Sun X4270 VMware VMmark benchmark achieves excellent result
Sep 22, 2009 Sun X4270 Virtualized for Two-tier SAP ERP 6.0 EP4 (Unicode) Standard Sales and Distribution Benchmark

HPC Benchmarks

Oct 13, 2009 Halliburton ProMAX Oil & Gas Appl on Sun 6048/X6275 Cluster and Oracle Database
Oct 13, 2009 MCAE ABAQUS faster on Sun F5100 and Sun X4270 - Single Node World Record
Oct 12, 2009 MCAE ANSYS faster on Sun F5100 and Sun X4270
Oct 12, 2009 MCAE MCS/NASTRAN faster on Sun F5100 and Fire X4270
Oct 13, 2009 CP2K Life Sciences, Ab-initio Chem - Sun C48 with Sun Blade X6275 - QDR InfiniBand
Oct 09, 2009 X6275 Cluster Demonstrates Performance and Scalability on WRF 2.5km CONUS Dataset

Specific Storage Benchmarks

Oct 12, 2009 SPC-2 Sun Storage 6180 RAID 5 & RAID 6 Over 70% Better $/Performance than IBM
Oct 12, 2009 SPC-1 Sun Storage 6180 Over 70% Better $/Performance than IBM
Oct 12, 2009 1.6 Million 4K IOPS in 1RU on Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array

Additional CMT Server Benchmarks

Jul 21, 2009 1.6 GHz SPEC CPU2006 - Rate Benchmarks
Jul 21, 2009 Sun Blade T6320 World Record SPECjbb2005 performance
Jul 21, 2009 Sun T5440 SPECjbb2005 Beats IBM POWER6 Chip-to-Chip

One Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server with four UltraSPARC T2 Plus processors at 1.6GHz delivered a single-system World Record result of 7661.16 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard using Oracle WebLogic Server, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, together with Oracle Database 11g.

• This benchmark used the Oracle WebLogic 10.3.1 Application Server and Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition. This benchmark result proves that the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server using the UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor performs as an outstanding J2EE application server as well as an Oracle 11g OLTP database server.
• The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server (four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus chips) running as the application server delivered 6.4X better performance than the best published single application server result from the IBM p 570 system based on the 4.7 GHz POWER6 processor.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server (four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus chips) demonstrated 73% better performance than the HP DL580 G5 result of 4410.07 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard, which used four 2.66 GHz Intel 6-core Xeon processors.
• The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server (four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus chips) demonstrated 2.3X better performance than the HP DL580 G5 result of 3339.94 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard, which used four 2.93 GHz Intel 4-core Xeon processors.
• One Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server (four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus chips) demonstrated 1.9X better performance than the Dell PowerEdge R610 result of 3975.13 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard, which used two 2.93 GHz Intel 4-core Xeon processors.
• One Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server (four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus chips) demonstrated 5% better performance than the Dell PowerEdge R610 result of 7311.50 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard, which used two Dell R610 systems each with two 2.93 GHz Intel 4-core Xeon processors.
• These results were obtained using Sun Java SE 6 Update 14 Performance Release on the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server and running the Solaris 10 5/09 Operating Environment.
• The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server used Solaris Containers technology to consolidate 7 Oracle Weblogic application server instances to achieve this result.
• Oracle Fusion Middleware provides a family of complete, integrated, hot pluggable and best-of-breed products known for enabling enterprise customers to create and run agile and intelligent business applications. Oracle WebLogic Server’s on-going, record-setting Java application server performance demonstrates why so many customers rely on Oracle Fusion Middleware as their foundation for innovation.

Performance Landscape

SPECjAppServer2004 Performance Chart as of 7/20/2009. Complete benchmark results may be found at the SPEC benchmark website http://www.spec.org. SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard (bigger is better)

Vendor	SPECjApp-Server2004 JOPS@Standard	J2EE Server	DB Server
Sun	7661.16	1x Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 32 cores, 4 chips, 1.6 GHz US-T2 Plus Oracle WebLogic 10.3.1	1x Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 32 cores, 4 chips, 1.4 GHz US-T2 Plus Oracle 11g DB 11.1.0.7
Dell	7311.50	2x PowerEdge R610 16 cores, 4 chips, 2.93 Xeon X5570 Oracle WebLogic 10.3	1x PowerEdge R900 24 cores, 4 chips @ 2.66 Xeon X7460 Oracle 11g DB 11.1.0.7
Sun	6334.86	1x Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 32 cores, 4 chips, 1.4 GHz US-T2 Plus Oracle WebLogic 10.3	1x Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 32 cores, 4 chips, 1.4 GHz US-T2 Plus Oracle 11g DB 11.1.0.7
Dell	4794.33	2x PowerEdge 2950 16 cores, 4 chips, 3.3 Xeon X5470 Oracle WebLogic 10.3	1x PowerEdge R900 24 cores, 4 chips, 2.66 Xeon X7460 Oracle 11g DB 11.1.0.6
HP	4410.07	1x ProLiant DL580 G5 24 cores, 4 chips, 2.66 GHz Xeon X7460 Oracle WebLogic 10.3	1x ProLiant DL580 G5 24 cores, 4 chips, 2.66 GHz Xeon X7460 Oracle 11g DB 11.1.0.6
HP	3975.13	1x Dell PowerEdge R610 8 cores, 2 chips, 2.93 GHz Xeon X5570 Oracle WebLogic 10.3	1x PowerEdge R900 24 cores, 4 chips, 2.66 GHz Xeon X7460 Oracle 11g DB 11.1.0.7
IBM	1197.51	1x IBM System p 570 4 cores, 2 chips, 4.7 GHz POWER6 WebSphere Application Server V6.1	1x IBM p5 550 4 cores, 2 chips, 2.1 GHz POWER5+ IBM DB2 Universal Database 9.1

Results and Configuration Summary

Application Server:

Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440

4 x 1.6 GHz 8-core UltraSPARC T2 Plus
256 GB memory
2 x 10GbE XAUI NIC
2 x 32GB SATA SSD
Solaris 10 5/09
Solaris Containers
Oracle WebLogic 10.3.1 Application Server - Standard Edition
JDK 1.6.0_14 Performance Release

Database Server:

Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440

4 x 1.4 GHz 8-core UltraSPARC T2 Plus
256 GB memory
6 x Sun StorageTek 2540 FC Array
4 x Sun StorageTek 2501 FC Expansion Array
Solaris 10 5/09
Oracle Database Enterprise Edition Release 11.1.0.7

Benchmark Description

SPECjAppServer2004 (Java Application Server) is a multi-tier benchmark for measuring the performance of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) technology-based application servers. SPECjAppServer2004 is an end-to-end application which exercises all major J2EE technologies implemented by compliant application servers as follows:

• The web container, including servlets and JSPs
• The EJB container
• EJB2.0 Container Managed Persistence
• JMS and Message Driven Beans
• Transaction management
• Database connectivity

Moreover, SPECjAppServer2004 also heavily exercises all parts of the underlying infrastructure that make up the application environment, including hardware, JVM software, database software, JDBC drivers, and the system network. The primary metric of the SPECjAppServer2004 benchmark is jAppServer Operations Per Second (JOPS) which is calculated by adding the metrics of the Dealership Management Application in the Dealer Domain and the Manufacturing Application in the Manufacturing Domain. There is NO price/performance metric in this benchmark.

Key Points and Best Practices

• 7 Oracle WebLogic server instances on the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server were hosted in separate Solaris Containers to demonstrate consolidation of multiple application servers.
• Each appserver container was bound to a separate processor set each containing 4 cores. This was done to improve performance by reducing memory access latency using the physical memory closest to the processors. The default set was used for network & disk interrupt handling.
• The Oracle WebLogic application servers were executed in the FX scheduling class to improve performance by reducing the frequency of context switches.
• The Oracle database processes were run in 4 processor sets using the psrset utility and executed in the FX scheduling class. This was done to improve perfomance by reducing memory access latency and reducing conext switches.
• Oracle Log Writer process run in a separate processor set containing 1 core and run in the RT scheduling class. This was done to insure that the Log Writer had the most efficient use of cpu resources.
• Enhancements to the JVM had a major impact on performance.
• The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 used 2x 10GbE NICs for network traffic from the driver systems.

See Also

• SPECjAppServer2004 Results Page

Disclosure Statement

SPECjAppServer2004, Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 (4 chips, 32 cores) 7661.16 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard; HP DL580 G5 (4 chips, 24 cores) 4410.07 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard; HP DL580 G5 (4 chips, 16 cores) 3339.94 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard; Two Dell PowerEdge 2950 (4 chips, 16 cores) 4794.33 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard; Dell PowerEdge R610 (2 chips, 8 cores) 3975.13 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard; Two Dell PowerEdge R610 (4 chips, 16 cores) 7311.50 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard; IBM p570 (2 chips, 4 cores) 1197.51 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard; SPEC, SPECjAppServer reg tm of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Results from http://www.spec.org as of 7/20/09

Significance of Results

A Sun Constellation system, composed of 48 Sun Blade X6440 server modules in a Sun Blade 6048 chassis, running OpenSolaris 2008.11 and using the Sun Studio 12 Update 1 compiler delivered World Record SPEC CPU2006 rate results.

On the SPECint_rate_base2006 benchmark, Sun delivered 4.7 times more performance than the IBM power 595 (5GHz POWER6); this IBM system requires a slightly larger cabinet than the Sun Blade 6048 chassis (details below). 

On the SPECfp_rate_base2006 benchmark Sun delivered 3.9 times more performance than the largest IBM power 595 (5GHz POWER6); this IBM system requires a slightly larger cabinet than the Sun Blade 6048 chassis (details below).

• The Sun Constellation System equipped with AMD Opteron QC 8384 2.7 GHz processors, running OpenSolaris 2008.11 and using the Sun Studio 12 update 1 compiler, delivered the World Record SPECint_rate_base2006 score of 8840.
• This SPECint_rate_base2006 score beat the previous record holding score by over three times.
• The Sun Constellation System equipped with AMD Opteron QC 8384 2.7 GHz processors, running OpenSolaris 2008.11 and using the Sun Studio 12 update 1 compiler, delivered the fastest x86 SPECfp_rate_base2006 score of 6500.
• This SPECfp_rate_base2006 score beat the previous x86 record holding score by nine times.

Performance Landscape

SPEC CPU2006 Performance Charts - bigger is better, selected results, please see www.spec.org for complete results.

SPECint_rate2006

System	Processors				Performance Results		Notes (1)
	Type	GHz	Chips	Cores	Peak	Base
Sun Blade 6048	Opteron 8384	2.7	192	768		8840	New Record
SGI Altix 4700 Density System	Itanium 9150M	1.66	128	256	3354	2893	Previous Best
SGI Altix 4700 Bandwidth System	Itanium2 9040	1.6	128	256	2971	2715
Fujitsu/Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000	SPARC64 VII	2.52	64	256	2290	2090
IBM Power 595	POWER6	5.0	32	64	2160	1870	Best POWER6

(1) Results as of 23 June 2009 from www.spec.org.

SPECfp_rate2006

System	Processors				Performance Results		Notes (2)
	Type	GHz	Chips	Cores	Peak	Base
SGI Altix 4700 Density System	Itanium 9140M	1.66	512	1024		10580
Sun Blade 6048	Opteron 8384	2.7	192	768		6500	New x86 Record
SGI Altix 4700 Bandwidth System	Itanium2 9040	1.6	128	256	3507	3419
IBM Power 595	POWER 6	5.0	64	32	2184	1681	Best POWER6
Fujitsu/Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000	SPARC64 VII	2.52	64	256	2005	1861
SGI Altix 4700 Bandwidth System	Itanium 9150M	1.66	128	256	1947	1832
SGI Altix ICE 8200EX	Intel X5570	2.93	8	32	742	723

(2) Results as of 23 June 2009 from www.spec.org.

(2) Results as of 23 June 2009 from www.spec.org.

Results and Configuration Summary

Hardware Configuration:

1 x Sun Blade 6048

48 x Sun Blade X6440, each with

4 x 2.7 GHz QC AMD Opteron 8384 processors
32 GB, (8 x 4GB)

Software Configuration:

O/S: OpenSolaris 2008.11
Compiler: Sun Studio 12 Update 1
Other SW: MicroQuill SmartHeap Library 9.01 x64
Benchmark: SPEC CPU2006 V1.1

Key Points and Best Practices

The Sun Blade 6048 chassis is able to contain a variety of server modules. In this case, the Sun Blade X6440 was used to provide this capacity solution. This single rack delivered results which have not been seen in this form factor.

To run this many jobs, the benchmark requires a reasonably good file server where the benchmark is run. The Sun Fire X4540 server was used to provide the disk space required being accessed by NFS by the blades.

Sun has shown 4.7x greater SPECint_rate_base2006 and 3.9x greater SPECfp_rate_base2006 in a slightly smaller cabinet. IBM specifications are at: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/hardware/595/specs.html. One frame (slimline doors): 79.3"H x 30.5"W x 58.5"D weight: 3,376 lb. One frame (acoustic doors): 79.3"H x 30.5"W x 71.1"D weight: 3,422 lb. The Sun Blade 6048 specifications are at: http://www.sun.com/servers/blades/6048chassis/specs.xml One Sun Blade 6048: 81.6"H x 23.9"W x 40.3"D weight: 2,300 lb (fully configured). 

Disclosure Statement:

SPEC, SPECint, SPECfp reg tm of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Results from www.spec.org as of 6/22/2009 and this report. Sun Blade 6048 chassis with Sun Blade X6440 server modules (48 nodes with 4 chips, 16 cores, 16 threads each, OpenSolaris 2008.11, Studio 12 update 1) - 8840 SPECint_rate_base2006, 6500 SPECfp_rate_base2006; IBM p595, 1870 SPECint_rate_base2006, 1681 SPECfp_rate_base2006.

See Also

• Sun Constellation System - Overview
• SPEC Home Page

The Performance Technology group, which we are a part of, just came out with a new group wiki.  The PT Wiki has information about Hardware, Software, ZFS, Oracle and other various performance topics.  This wiki attempts to categorize and present information so it is easy to find and use. We are just getting started, but please let us know if there are any topics which would be useful.