Record Price Perf TPC-H @300GB Sun Fire X4100 M2, Sybase IQ

Monday Jun 04, 2007

The Sun Fire X4100 M2 has 50% better price performance than the HP DL585. This benchmark result demonstrates that the Sun Fire X4100 M2, powered by 2 dual-core 3.0GHz Opteron, improves upon Sun's previously published world-record $/performance result at 300GB. The Sun Fire X4100 M2 is the only 1U system ever submitted for a TPC benchmark at the 300GB scale-factor.

The Sun Fire X4100 M2 achieved the best price-performance among all systems at 300GB. It improved upon Sun's previous world-record price-performance, achieved by the Sun Fire X4200, by 6%.

Note all of this detail, and the very different ways in which results are marketed with the IBM POWER6 post.

The Sun Fire X4100 M2 achieved a 55% QphH@300GB improvement upon previously published 2-socket Single-core RevE Sun Fire X4200 result, i.e., 7641 QphH@300GB versus 4936 QphH@300GB.

Specifically, Sun, using its Sun Fire X4100 M2 server achieved a $/QphH@300GB of $5.89, whereas the Sun Fire X4200 achieved a $/QphH@300GB of $6.29. The latter result was submitted on June 23, 2006.

TPC-H @300GB Performance Results (sorted by $/QphH for single (non-clustered) systems:

$/QphH = $/QphH@300GB TPC-H Price/Performance metric (smaller is better)
QphH = QphH@300GB TPC-H Composite Metric (bigger is better)
Disk Data Ratio is the ratio of the total number of gigabytes of configured storage to the scale factor number of gigabytes (smaller is better)

System	Sockets/ Cores/ Threads CPU GHz	QphH	Price/ QphH	Price in currency	DBMS	Available	Disk Data Ratio	Cluster
Sun X4100 M2	2/4/4 Opteron 3.0	7641	$5.89	45,001 $US	SybIQ	6/23/06	3.17	N
Sun X4100	2/2/2 3.0 Opteron	4936	$6.29	31,033 $US	SybIQ	6/23/06	2.9	N
HP DL585 G1	4/8/8 Opteron 2.4	12225	$11.71	143,041 $US	SQLS	01/26/06	19.9	N
HP DL585 G2	4/8/8 Opteron 2.8	18298	$13.67	250,057 $US	SQLS	04/19/07	24.96	N
IBM x3650	2/4/4 WoodC 3.0	10165	$15.40	156,535 $US	DB2	10/06/06	12.8	N
Sun V440	4/4/4 US IIIi 1.6	2501	$22.09	55,245 $US	SybIQ	05/09/05	1.81	N
HP DL585 G1	4/8/8 Opteron 2.4	11915	$22.78	271,379 $US	DB2	10/05/05	19.7	N
HP DL585 G1	4/4/4 Opteron 2.6	8434	$30.18	255,586 $US	DB2	05/17/05	13.8	N
IBM eServer 366	4/4/8 Xeon 3.6	7762	$32.94	255,702 $US	DB2	05/02/05	18.5	N

The results reported here were performed on a Sun Fire X4100 M2 system running the Sybase IQ database manager. Sybase IQ is a special product designed specifically for data warehousing applications. Sybase IQ was developed as a totally separate product from the more widely known Sybase database management system (Sybase Adaptive Server).

Sun achieved this result using only 14 disks. Other vendors used anywhere from  104 disks (the IBM x3650 result) to 208 disks (the HP DL585 G2 result).

The significance of being able to house a data warehouse with fewer disks provides numerous advantages far beyond the scope of the TPC-H metrics. These include, ease of management, lower probability of admin errors, a much lower probability of disk failures and a true reduction in the total cost of ownership over the life of a system.

All Sun/SybaseIQ submissions, including this one, RAID protect their storage. Only a few, of the almost 30 existing non-Sun submissions, at 300GB RAID protect their storage. The lack of RAID protection results in artificially cheaper configurations, which no production shop would ever deploy.

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.

Disclosure Statement:

TPC-H @300GB Sun Fire X4100 M2 7641 QphH@300GB, $5.89/QphH@300GB, avail 5/25/07; TPC-H, QphH, $/QphH tm of Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC). More info www.tpc.org.

Audited Results
	Database Size:	300 GB (Scale Factor 300)
	TPC-H Composite:	7641 QphH@300GB
	Price/performance:	$5.89 / QphH@300GB
	Available	May 25, 2007
Number of Systems:		Sun Fire X4100 M2
Total Processors, cores, Threads:		2,2,2
Processor		Dual-core Opteron 3.0GHz
Storage:		951 Gigabytes of disk
Database:		Sybase IQ 12.6
Operating System:		Solaris 10
Total 3 year Cost:		$45,001.35
Other Performance Metrics
	TPC-H Power:	7847
	TPC-H Throughput:	7440.5
	Database Load Time	4 hours 22 minutes 53 seconds
	Storage Ratio/type:	3.17 ratio/ two STK3320 SCSI JBOD array

See Also

Sun Fire X4100 M2 TPC-H Executive Summary Report Acrobat PDF (68K)

Complete Sun Fire X4100 M2 TPC-H Full Disclosure Report Acrobat PDF (590K)

Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) Home Page

Ideas International Benchmark page

I'll even show my math, I challenge other vendors to show it too!

6% claim from: (6.29-5.89)/6.29 = 0.0635
50% claim from: (11.71-5.89)/11.71 = 0.4970 (49.7 rounds to 50)
55% claim from: (7641-4936)/4936 = 0.5480 (54.8 rounds to 55)