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.

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.

Sun recently entered the SPECpower fray with the publication of three results on the SPECpower_ssj2008 benchmark.  Strangely, the three publications documented results on the same hardware platform (Sun Netra X4250) running identical software stacks, but the results were markedly different.  What exactly were we trying to get at?

 Benchmark Configurations

Sun produces robust industrial-grade servers with a range of redundancy features we believe benefit our customers.   These features increase reliability, at the cost of additional power consumption. For example, redundant power supplies and redundant fans allow servers to tolerate faults, and hot-swap capabilities further minimize downtime.

The benchmark run and reporting rules require the incorporation within the tested configuration of all components implied by the model name.  Within these limitations, the first publication was intended to be the best result (that is, the lowest power consumption per unit of performance) achievable on the Sun Netra X4250 platform, by minimizing the configured hardware to the greatest extent possible.

Common Components

All tested configurations had the following components in common:

• System:  Sun Netra X4250
• Processor: 2 x Intel L5408 QC @ 2.13GHz
• 2 x 658 watt redundant AC power supplies
• redundant fans
• standard I/O expansion mezzanine
• standard Telco dry contact alarm

And the same software stack:

• OS: Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise X64 Edition SP2
• Drivers: platform-specific drivers from Sun Netra X4250 Tools and Drivers DVD Version 2.1N
• JVM: Java HotSpot 32-Bit Server VM on Windows, version 1.6.0_14
  

Tiny Configuration

In addition to the common hardware components, the tiny configuration was limited to:

• 8 GB of Memory (4 x 2048 MB as PC2-5300F 2Rx8)
• 1 x Sun 146 GB 10K RPM SAS internal drive

This is called the tiny configuration because it seems unlikely that most customers would configure an 8-core server with only one disk and only 1 GB available per core. Nevertheless, from a benchmark point of view, this configuration gave the best result.

Typical Configuration

The other two results were both produced on a configuration we considered much more typical of configurations that are actually ordered by customers.  In addition to the common hardware, these typical configuration included:

• 32 GB of Memory (8 x 4096 MB as PC2-5300F)
• 4 x Sun 146 GB 10K RPM SAS internal drives
• 1 x Sun x8 PCIe Quad Gigabit Ethernet option card (X4447A-Z)

Nothing special was done with the additional components.  The added memory increased the performance component of the benchmark. The other components were installed and configured but allowed to sit idle, so consumed less power than they would have under load.

One Other Thing: Tuning for Performance

So one thing we're getting at is the difference in power consumption between a small configuration optimized for a power-performance benchmark and a typical configuration optimized for customer workloads.  Hardware (power consumption) is only half of the benchmark--the other half being the performance achieved by the System Under Test (SUT).

Tuning Choices 

In all three publications the identical tunings were applied at the software level: identical java command-line arguments and JVM-to-processor affinity.  We also applied, in the case of the better results, the common (but usually non-default) BIOS-level optimization of disabling hardware prefetcher and adjacent cache line prefetch.  These optimizations are commonly applied to produce optimized SPECpower_ssj2008 results but it is unlikely that many production applications would benefit from these settings.  To demonstrate the effect of this tuning, the final result was generated with standard BIOS settings.

 And just so we couldn't be accused of sand-bagging the results, the number of JVMs was increased in the typical configurations to take advantage of the additional memory populated over and above the tiny configuration.  Additional performance was achieved but sadly it doesn't compensate for the higher power consumption of all that memory.

So in summary we tuned:

• Tiny Configuration: non-default BIOS settings
• Typical Configuration 1: non-default BIOS settings; additional JVMs to utilize added memory
• Typical Configuration 2: default BIOS settings; additional JVMs to utilize added memory

At the OS level, all tunings  were identical.

Results 

The results are summarized in this table:

System (Click system for SPEC full disclosure)	Processors		Performance
	Model	GHz	Metric overall ssj_ops/watt	Peak Performance ssj_ops	Peak Power watts	Idle Power watts
Sun Netra X4250 (8GB non-default BIOS)	L5408	2.13	600	244832	226	174
Sun Netra X425 (32GB non-default BIOS)	L5408	2.13	478	251555	294	226
Sun Netra X4250 (32GB default BIOS)	L5408	2.13	437	229828	296	225

Conclusions

• The measurement and reporting methods of the benchmark encourage small memory configurations.  Comparing the first and second result, adding additional memory yielded minimal performance improvement (from 244832 to 251555) but a large increase in power consumption, 68 watts at peak.

• In our opinion, unrealistically small configurations yield the best results on this benchmark.  On the more typical system, the benchmark overall metric decreased from 600 overall ssj_ops per watt to 478 overall ssj_ops per watt, despite our best effort to utilize the additional configured memory.

• On typical configurations, reverting to default BIOS settings resulted in a significant decrease in performance (from 25155 to 229828) with no corresponding decrease in power consumption (essentially identical for both results).

Configurations typical of customer systems (with adequate memory, internal disks, and option cards) consume more power than configurations which are commonly benchmarked, while providing no corresponding improvement in SPECpower_ssj2008 benchmark performance. The result is a lower overall power-performance metric on typical configurations and a lack of published benchmark results on robust systems with the capacities and redundancies that enterprise customers desire.

Fair Use Disclosure

SPEC, SPECpower, and SPECpower_ssj are trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation.  All results from the SPEC website (www.spec.com)  as of June 5, 2009.  For a complete set of accepted results refer to that site.

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