BM Seer Unofficial thoughts from an anonymous Sun employee

IBM avoiding system comparison

Thursday Feb 26, 2009

I'm seeing more articles from IBM trying to get customers too look at wrong things! Shame, Shame.

What customers would like to know about CMT vs IBM POWER6:

  • How does system performance compare?
  • How much do IBM's 16-thread/core systems cost? (answer: $1,000,000)
  • What is the system $/Perf?
  • What is the measured watts on benchmarks?
What you have to believe in order to read IBM's new Power6 vs. CMT architectural papers. Hard to believe any well-trained computer architect would make any of these mistakes.
  • Comparing per-thread or per-core performance is more important than system performance.
  • Hardware threads all cost the same (server price divided by number of threads).
  • IBM power6 16-core system costs the same as T5440?!?
  • Single-thread performance is the most important aspect of a medium or large system with 128threads (example: IBM p595 has 128 threads).

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Posted at 07:00AM Feb 26, 2009 in IBM Follies
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SPC-2 Benchmark: Sun Storage 6780 Array best in-class-$/perf

Thursday Feb 12, 2009

The power of the Sun Storage 6780 Array product coupled with our 4Gb HBAs has demonstrated industry class leading SPC-2 benchmarking capabilities: Best-in-class $/performance, Half Price of IBM.

Sun Storage 6780 Array has best-in-class $/performance of $53.61 (RAID5) and $55.25 (RAID6) beating IBM by almost 50%

Sun Storage 6780 Array has best-in-class performance of 4,818.43 (RAID5) and 4,675.50 (RAID6) SPC-2 MBPS.

The Sun Storage 6780 Array has a 1.7X better price/performance advantage over the same performing IBM system.

The Sun Storage 6780 Array delivers the best SPC-2 performance of any dual controller system.

The Sun Storage 6780 Array delivers the same performance as the IBM system, but at nearly half the price.

The Sun Storage 6780 Array delivers the best SPC-2 performance of any sub-$250K system, the best performing systems are over $1.6M in SPC-2 total price and are not even 2X in performance.

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

System SPC-2
MBPS		 $/SPC-2
MBPS		 ASU (GB) TSC Price Data Protect-
ion Level		 Date Result Id
Sun SS6780 4,818.43 $53.61 16,383.186 $236,790 RAID 5 2/3/09 B00039
IBM DS5300 4,818.43 $93.80 16,383.186 $451,986 RAID 5 9/25/08 B00037
Sun SS6780 4,675.50 $55.25 14,042.731 $236,790 RAID 6 2/3/09 B00040
IBM DS5300 4,675.50 $96.67 14,042.731 $451,986 RAID 6 9/25/08 B00038
Fujitsu E8000 3,480.68 $238.93 4,569.845 $831,649 Mirroring 3/8/07 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.

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.

Disclosure Statement:

Sun Storage 6780 Array 4,818.43 SPC-2 MBPS, $/SPC-2 MBPS $53.61, ASU Capacity 16,383.186GB, Protect RAID 5, Cost $258,329.00, Ident. B00039. 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 4,675.50 SPC-2 MBPS, $/SPC-2 MBPS $55.25, ASU Capacity 14,042.731GB, Protect RAID 6, Cost $258,329.00, Ident. B00040. SPC-2, SPC-2 MBPS, $/SPC-2 MBPS are regular trademarks of Storage Performance Council (SPC). More info www.storageperformance.org

Results Summary

Results
System: Sun Storage 6780 Array Sun Storage 6780 Array
Performance: 4,818.43 SPC-2 MBPS 4,675.50 SPC-2 MBPS
Price/Performance: $53.61 $/SPC-2 MBPS $55.25 $/SPC-2 MBPS
ASU Capacity: 16,383.186 GB 14,042.731 GB
Data Protection Level: RAID 5 RAID 6
TSC Price: $258,329.00 $258,329.00
Results Identifier: B00039 B00040
Server: IBM Ssytem x3850 M2 IBM Ssytem x3850 M2
Operating System: Windows Server 2003 SP2 Windows Server 2003 SP2

See Also:

  • Sun Storage 6780 Array SPC-2 (RAID 5) Executive Summary (6 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 (6 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

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    Posted at 02:22PM Feb 12, 2009 in Benchmark Issues
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    • SAP-SD 2-Tier and Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000/32 SPARC64 VII

    Wednesday Jan 07, 2009

    The 32-way Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 with 2.52 GHz SPARC64 VII processors, 32 processors / 128 cores / 256 threads, achieved 24,650 users on the two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) standard SAP ERP 6.0 (2005) application benchmark.

    The 32-way Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 gets to 69% of the per-cpu result of largest configuration 32-way IBM p595 (POWER6 5.0 GHz, 64 cores total). Note the Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 can be configured as a 64-way system.

    SAP-SD 2-Tier Performance Table (in decreasing performance order)

    System OS
    Database    		 Users SAP
    ERP/ECC
    Release    		 SAPS SAPS/
    Proc    		 Date
    Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000
    64xSPARC64 VII @2.52GHz
    1024 GB    		 Solaris 10
    Oracle 10g    		 39,100 2005
    6.0    		 196,564 3,071 14-Jul-08
    IBM Power 595
    32xPOWER6 @5.0GHz
    64 cores, 512 GB    		 AIX 6.1
    DB2 9.5    		 35,400 2005
    6.0    		 177,950 5,561 08-Apr-08
    HP Integrity SD64B
    64xItanium2 @1.6GHz
    128 cores, 512 GB    		 HP-UX 11iV3
    Oracle 10g    		 30,000 2005
    6.0    		 152,530 2,383 18-Dec-06
    Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000
    64xSPARC64 VI @2.4GHz
    1024 GB    		 Solaris 10
    Oracle 10g    		 25,130 2005
    6.0    		 129,420 2,022 11-Jul-08
    Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000
    32xSPARC64 VII @2.52GHz
    512 GB    		 Solaris 10
    Oracle 10g    		 24,650 2005
    6.0    		 123,470 3,858 17-Dec-08
    IBM p5 595
    64xPOWER5+ @2.3GHz
    64 cores, 512 GB    		 AIX 5.3
    DB2 9    		 23,456 2004
    5.0    		 117,520 1,836 25-Jul-06
    Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000
    16xSPARC64 VI @2.4GHz
    256 GB    		 Solaris 10
    Oracle 10g    		 7,300 2005
    6.0    		 36,570 2,285 17-Apr-07

    SAP ERP 6.0 (2005) application benchmark is a bit more heavy-weight than mySAP ERP 2004 (SAP ECC 5.0), which has a performance impact of ~2-3%.

    Complete benchmark results may be found at the SAP benchmark website http://www.sap.com/benchmark.

    Benchmark Description

    The SAP Standard Application SD (Sales and Distribution) Benchmark is a two-tier ERP business test that is indicative of full business workloads of complete order processing and invoice processing, and demonstrates the ability to run both the application and database software on a single system. The SAP Standard Application SD Benchmark represents the critical tasks performed in real-world ERP business environments.

    SAP is one of the premier world-wide ERP application providers, and maintains systems on the various SAP products.

    Disclosure Statement:

    Two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) standard SAP ERP 6.0 (2005) application benchmark as of 12/17/08: Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (32 processors, 128 cores, 256 threads) 32 x 2.52 GHz SPARC64 VII, 512GB memory, 24,650 SD benchmark users, Cert#2008075, Oracle 10g, Solaris 10, SAP ECC Release 6.0; Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (64 processors, 256 cores, 512 threads) 64 x 2.52 GHz SPARC64 VII, 1024GB memory, 39,100 SD benchmark users, Cert#2008042, Oracle 10g, Solaris 10, SAP ECC Release 6.0; Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (64 processors, 128 cores, 256 threads) 64 x 2.4 GHz SPARC64 VI, 1024GB memory, 25,130 SD benchmark users, Cert#2008040, Oracle 10g, Solaris 10, SAP ECC Release 6.0; Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 (16 processors, 32 cores, 64 threads) 16 x 2.4 GHz SPARC64 VI, 256GB memory, 7,300 SD benchmark users, Cert#2007026, Oracle 10g, Solaris 10, SAP ECC Release 6.0; IBM Power 595 (32 processors, 64 cores, 128 threads), 35,400 SD benchmark users, 32 x 5.0 GHz POWER6, 512 GB, DB2 9.5, AIX 6.1, Cert. 2008019, SAP ECC Release 6.0; IBM System p5 595 (64 processors, 64 cores, 128 threads), 23,456 SD benchmark users, 64 x 2.3 GHz POWER5+, 512 GB, DB2 9, AIX 5.3, Cert. 2006045, SAP ECC Release 5.0; HP Integrity SD64B (64 processors, 128 cores, 256 threads), 30,000 SD benchmark users, 64 x 1.6 GHz Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2, 512 GB, Oracle 10g, HP-UX 11iV3, Cert#2006089, SAP ECC Release 6.0; SAP, R/3, mySAP reg TM of SAP AG in Germany and other countries. More info http://www.sap.com/benchmark.

    SAP-SD 2-Tier benchmark Summary

    Certified Results
    Performance: 24,650 benchmark users
    Server: Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000
    Processors: 32 x 2.52 GHz SPARC64 VII
    Memory: 512 GB
    Operating system: Solaris 10
    Database S/W: Oracle 10g
    SAP S/W: SAP ECC 6.0
    SAP Certification: #2008075
    Storage: 1 x Internal System Disk
    8 x Sun StorageTek(tm) 6140 Arrays

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    Posted at 11:08AM Jan 07, 2009 in Benchmark Issues
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    IBM show us your energy efficiency data!

    Friday Nov 21, 2008

    HP and IBM must be scared.  They are now arguing over data none of us can see...

    It does the industry no good to argue about who has the best power-performance if you do not show numerical quantities that support public claims.

    "...one of the best and most energy efficient platform options. RFG has written many research reports stating that mainframes should be considered and used in certain environments and RFG stands by those statements." ...from http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Robert-Frances-Group-921499.html

    To me this is a base-less claim. If I'm wrong, simply show me the data.

    That means one has to disclose the numerical quantities "measured power" and "measured performance".   Sun does this others just make marketing claims and hold all cards close to the chest.

    ...or even good-faith estimates. Nah, just the data...

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    Posted at 11:57AM Nov 21, 2008 in IBM Follies
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    IBM New world record

    Thursday Oct 23, 2008

    IBM New world record: MOST EXPENSIVE CORE. :) IBM continues to charge lots per core and avoid benchmarks. Here IBM will say trust me it is fast and ask for a blank check. The IBM Z10 mainframe (64-"processor" quad-core) costs $25,000,000 Dollars. No grey area here, this is the old wasteful way of spending money for computing.

    IBM mainframe Pricing at: http://www.tech-news.com/publib/pl2097.html

    Let's see a public demonstration of performance on the mainframe, then Sun and others will show much more cost-effective, less carbon-producing options.

    ...Now I'll let all of the IBM employees try to hide who they work for by anonymously postings comments under cute names all trying to look like customers with lots of money who want to buy these super expensive things in tough economic times :)

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    Posted at 09:44AM Oct 23, 2008 in Benchmark Issues
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    IBM's new power6 more cores tiny up in GHz

    Wednesday Oct 08, 2008

    IBM announced new power6 Quad-core, but it won't be avail until late November 21st? Wow that is really pre-announcing a long way ahead.

    Let's cut through some of the over-marketing-hype...

    Extremely Fast Pattern Matching on Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220/T5240

    Friday Aug 08, 2008

    Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 / T5240 beats IBM Cell Broadband Engine with significantly easier application code development!

    Pattern matching or string searching are important to a variety of commercial, government and HPC applications. One of the core functions needed for text identification algorithms in data repositories is real-time string searching. For this benchmark, both IBM and Sun used the Aho-Corasick algorithm for string searching.

    Note: Got this from an internal website on info that is going public.

    The 2-chip Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 performed string searching at a rate of 6.12 GB/s (49.0 Gbit/sec) whereas the 2-chip IBM Cell Broadband Engine DD3 Blade performed string searching at a rate of 0.48 GB/s (3.8 Gbit/sec).

    The 1-chip Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 performed string searching at a rate of 3.08 GB/s (24.6 Gbits/s).

    The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 demonstrated a 2x speedup over the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220.

    The Aho-Corasick algorithm as deployed on the IBM Cell Broadband Engine DD3 Blade required substantial optimization and tuning to achieve the reported performance, whereas on the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 or T5240 only a basic implementation of the algorithm and a simple compilation were needed.

    Performance Summary

    System Throughput
    (GBits/sec)    		 Chips Cores GHz
    Sun SPARC Enterprise
    T5240    		 49.0 2 16 1.4
    Sun SPARC Enterprise
    T5220    		 24.6 1 8 1.4
    IBM Cell Broadband Engine
    DD3 Blade    		 3.8 2 16 3.2

    IBM results are obtained from Figure 7(d) of IEEE Computer, Volume 41, Number 4, pp. 42-50, April 2008. Sun benchmark results as of 08/05/2008.

    Benchmark Description

    One of the core functions needed for text identification algorithms in data repositories is real-time string searching. This string searching benchmark demonstrates the usefulness of Sun's UltraSPARC T2 and T2 Plus processors for both ease of code creation and speed of code execution.

    In IEEE Computer, Volume 41, Number 4, pp. 42-50, April 2008, IBM describes a variant of the Aho-Corasick string searching algorithm that uses deterministic finite automata. The algorithm first constructs a graph that represents a dictionary, then walks that graph using successive input characters from a text file. Each "state" in the graph includes a state transition table (STT) that is accessed using the next input character from the text file to determine the address of the next state in the graph. IBM defines an automaton as a two-step loop that: (1) obtains the address of the next state from the STT, and (2) fetches the next state in the graph.

    IBM reports the performance of its Cell Broadband Engine (CBE) to execute this algorithm to search a 4.4 MB version of the King James Bible using a dictionary of the 20,000 most used words in the English language (average word length of 7.59 characters). Each of the 8 synergistic processing elements (SPEs) of each of the two CBEs executes 16 automata, for a total of 256 automata. All automata and hence all SPEs access a single, shared dictionary.

    IBM describes elaborate optimizations of the Aho-Corasick algorithm, including state shuffling, state replication, alphabet shuffling and state caching. These optimizations were required to: (1) overcome "memory congestion", i.e., contention amongst the SPEs for access to the shared dictionary, and (2) compensate for the limited local storage that is associated with each SPE. These optimizations were necessary to achieve the performance reported for the CBE DD3 Blade. IBM does not provide references that indicate where to obtain the dictionary and Bible. IBM reports the algorithmic performance in Gbits/s but does not indicate whether an 8-bit byte is extended to 10 bits as required for network transmission.

    In order to closely approximate the dictionary and Bible that were used by IBM, Sun used a dictionary of 25,144 English words (the Open Solaris file cvs.opensolaris.org/source/xref/onnv/onnv-gate/usr/src/cmd/spell/list) for which the average word length is 8.22 characters, and a 4.6 MB version of the King James Bible (www.patriot.net/users/bmcgin/kjv12.zip). For reporting of results in Gbits/s, the length of a byte is assumed to be 8 bits.

    In order to demonstrate the usefulness of Sun's UltraSPARC T2 and T2 Plus processors for both ease of code generation and speed of code execution, Sun implemented the Aho-Corasick algorithm using ANSI C. No optimizations of the algorithm were required to achieve the performance reported for the T5220 and TT5240.

    The source code was compiled using the -m64 -xO3 and -xopenmp options. The dictionary is represented using a graph that comprises 187 MB. Each core of the T5220 or T5240 executes 8 automata using one OpenMP thread per automaton. Thus, the T5220 executes 64 total automata and the T5240 executes 128 total automata. All automata and hence all cores access a single, shared dictionary. Access to this dictionary is accelerated by the large, shared L2 caches of the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 and T5240.

    Disclosure Statement:

    Pattern Matching: Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 (2 x 1.4 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus, 2 chips, 16 cores), Solaris 10, Sun C 5.9, 49.0 GBits/sec; Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 (1 x 1.4 GHz UltraSPARC T2, 1 chip, 8 cores), Solaris 10, Sun C 5.9, 24.6 GBits/sec; IBM Cell Broadband Engine DD3 Blade (2 x 3.2 GHz Cell Broadband Engine, 2 chips, 16 cores), Linux kernel v2.6.16, IBM CBE Software Development Kit v2.1, 3.8 GBits/sec.

    System Configuration

    Throughput (GBits/sec) 24.6   T5220
      49.0   T5240
    Reference Date: August 5, 2008
    Systems: Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220, T5240
    Total Number Processors: 1, 2
    Processor/GHz of Server: 1.4 GHz UltraSPARC T2, T2 Plus
    Operating System: Solaris 10

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    Posted at 02:00PM Aug 08, 2008 in Benchmarks
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    Linpack HPC benchmark Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 @ 2.52GHz

    Monday Jul 14, 2008

    The Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 server running 2.52GHz SPARC64 VII processors delivered 2.023 TFLOPS on the Linpack HPC benchmark.

    For single servers, the Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 server outperforms the best IBM Power 595 5GHz POWER6 published result by two times on the Linpack HPC benchmark. This system is the largest that IBM makes for its 5GHz Power6-based servers.

    A single Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 server shows 2.7 times the performance on the Linpack HPC benchmark when compared to the HP Integrity Superdome Itanium 2 system.

    The Sun Performance Library was enhanced to take advantage of the SPARC64 VII architecture.

    Benchmark Description

    The Linpack benchmark suite measures the performance for factoring and solving a dense set of linear equations in double-precision floating-point.

    The Linpack HPC benchmark allows the solution of any size matrix with a single right hand side. It was developed to allow vendors to show off their hardware. Because big problems allow for peak performance potentials, the benchmark is seen as an upper bound of potential performance of a machine. The run rules are much more flexible. The solution technique must use a pivoting scheme and the driver must follow the spirit of the Linpack 1000 or Linpack 100 benchmarks.

    LINPACK HPC Performance Chart - GFLOPS (bigger is better)

    Table below does not include clustered solutions.

    System GFLOPS Processors
    Total Peak Threads CPUs Type GHz
    Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 2023.0 2580.5 256 64 SPARC64 VII 2.52
    Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 1032.0 1228.8 128 64 SPARC64 VI 2.4
    IBM Power 595 1028.0 1280.0 64 32 POWER6 5.0
    HP Superdome 745.5 819.2 128 64 Itanium 2 1.6
    Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 548.2 645.1 64 16 SPARC64 VII 2.52

    Disclosure Statement:

    Linpack HPC, results from http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/index.html as of 07/01/08. Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (SPARC64 VII @2.52, 64 chips, 256 cores), 2.023 TFLOPS. IBM Power 595 (POWER6 5.0GHz, 32 chips, 64 cores) 1028.0 GFLOPS. HP Superdome (Itanium 2 1.6GHz/24MB, 64 chips, 128 cores) 745.5 GFLOPS.

    Linpack HPC, results from http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/index.html as of 04/13/07. Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (SPARC64 VI @2.4, 64 chips, 128 cores), 1.032 TFLOPS. IBM p5 595 (POWER5 1.9GHz, 32 chips, 64 cores) 418.0 GFLOPS. HP Superdome (Itanium 2 1.6GHz/24MB, 64 chips, 128 cores) 745.5 GFLOPS.

    Results Summary SAE (Strategic Applications Engineering) has submitted results for the LINPACK HPC benchmark
    Published Results
    Performance: 2.023 TFLOPS
    System: Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000
    Total Number Processors: 64
    Processor/GHz of Server: SPARC64 VII, 2.52 GHz
    Operating System: Solaris 10
    Compiler: Sun Studio 12

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    Posted at 03:05PM Jul 14, 2008 in Benchmarks
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    World Record SAP-SD 2-Tier: Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 SPARC64 VII SAP-SD 2-Tier ERP 6.0 (2005)

    Monday Jul 14, 2008

    The Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (64 processors, 256 cores, 512 threads) set a World Record for the SAP-SD 2-Tier Standard Application benchmark. World Record SAP-SD 2-Tier: Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 SPARC64 VII SAP-SD 2-Tier ERP 6.0 (2005) outperforms largest IBM Power 595 / 5GHz POWER6.

    The 64-way Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 with 2.52 GHz SPARC64 VII processors achieved 39,100 users on the two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) standard SAP ERP 2005 application benchmark.

    The 64-way Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 beat the 32-way IBM Power 595 (5GHz 64-core Power6) by 10%. This is the largest configuration that IBM makes. IBM has a very different and very complicated core. Users should compare hardware system costs for these two systems. The IBM p595 achieved 35,400 users on SAP-SD 2005 6.0 (177,950 SAPS, 5,561 SAPS/proc, 08-Apr-08).

    The 64-way Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 beat the 64-way HP Integrity Superdome by 30%. The IBM p595 achieved 30,000 users on SAP-SD 2005 6.0 (152,530 SAPS, 2,383 SAPS/proc, 18-Dec-06).

    SAP-SD 2-Tier ERP 6.0 (2005) Benchmark Description

    The SAP Standard Application SD (Sales and Distribution) Benchmark is a two-tier ERP business test that is indicative of full business workloads of complete order processing and invoice processing, and demonstrates the ability to run both the application and database software on a single system. The SAP Standard Application SD Benchmark represents the critical tasks performed in real-world ERP business environments.

    SAP is one of the premier world-wide ERP application providers, and maintains systems on the various SAP products.

    SAP-SD 2-Tier Performance Table (in decreasing performance order).

    System OS
    Database    		 Users SAP
    ERP/ECC
    Release    		 SAPS SAPS/
    Proc    		 Date
    Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000
    64xSPARC64 VII @2.52GHz
    1024 GB    		 Solaris 10
    Oracle 10g    		 39,100 2005
    6.0    		 196,564 3,071 14-Jul-08
    IBM Power 595
    32xPOWER6 @5.0GHz
    64 cores, 512 GB    		 AIX 6.1
    DB2 9.5    		 35,400 2005
    6.0    		 177,950 5,561 08-Apr-08
    HP Integrity SD64B
    64xItanium2 @1.6GHz
    128 cores, 512 GB    		 HP-UX 11iV3
    Oracle 10g    		 30,000 2005
    6.0    		 152,530 2,383 18-Dec-06
    Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000
    64xSPARC64 VI @2.4GHz
    1024 GB    		 Solaris 10
    Oracle 10g    		 25,130 2005
    6.0    		 129,420 2,022 11-Jul-08
    IBM p5 595
    64xPOWER5+ @2.3GHz
    64 cores, 512 GB    		 AIX 5.3
    DB2 9    		 23,456 2004
    5.0    		 117,520 1,836 25-Jul-06
    Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000
    16xSPARC64 VI @2.4GHz
    256 GB    		 Solaris 10
    Oracle 10g    		 7,300 2005
    6.0    		 36,570 2,285 17-Apr-07

    Complete benchmark results may be found at the SAP benchmark website http://www.sap.com/benchmark.

    Disclosure Statement:

    Two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) standard SAP ERP 2004/2005 application benchmark as of 07/14/08: Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (64 processors, 256 cores, 512 threads) 64 x 2.52 GHz SPARC64 VII, 1024GB memory, 39,100 SD benchmark users, 1.93 sec. avg. response time, Cert#2008042, Oracle 10g, Solaris 10, SAP ECC Release 6.0; Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (64 processors, 128 cores, 256 threads) 64 x 2.4 GHz SPARC64 VI, 1024GB memory, 25,130 SD benchmark users, 1.65 sec. avg. response time, Cert#2008040, Oracle 10g, Solaris 10, SAP ECC Release 6.0; Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 (16 processors, 32 cores, 64 threads) 16 x 2.4 GHz SPARC64 VI, 256GB memory, 7,300 SD benchmark users, 1.98 sec. avg. response time, Cert#2007026, Oracle 10g, Solaris 10, SAP ECC Release 6.0; IBM Power 595 (32 processors, 64 cores, 128 threads), 35,400 SD benchmark users, 32 x 5.0 GHz POWER6, 512 GB, DB2 9.5, AIX 6.1, Cert. 2008019, SAP ECC Release 6.0; IBM System p5 595 (64 processors, 64 cores, 128 threads), 23,456 SD benchmark users, 64 x 2.3 GHz POWER5+, 512 GB, DB2 9, AIX 5.3, Cert. 2006045, SAP ECC Release 5.0; HP Integrity SD64B (64 processors, 128 cores, 256 threads), 30,000 SD benchmark users, 64 x 1.6 GHz Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2, 512 GB, Oracle 10g, HP-UX 11iV3, Cert#2006089, SAP ECC Release 6.0; SAP, R/3, mySAP reg TM of SAP AG in Germany and other countries. More info www.sap.com/benchmark.

    Sun's submitted results for the SAP-SD 2-Tier benchmark
    Certified Results
    Performance: 39,100 benchmark users
    Server: Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000
    Processors: 64 x 2.52 GHz SPARC64 VII
    Memory: 1024 GB
    Operating system: Solaris 10
    Database S/W: Oracle 10g
    SAP S/W: SAP ECC 6.0
    SAP Certification: #2008042
    Storage: 1 x Internal System Disk
    8 x Sun StorageTek(tm) 6140 Arrays

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    Posted at 11:48AM Jul 14, 2008 in Benchmark Issues
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    another useless unrealistic uber-simplistic TPC-C result

    Thursday Jun 12, 2008

    The IBM Power 595 IBM reached over 6 million tpmC on the TPC-C benchmark, but IBM avoids single-system TPC-H like the plague, why? Why didn't IBM measure and publish server watts actually used on this benchmark? Did that 4TByte of memory flame their power meters?

      {postscript: an IBM blogger says it is Sun speaking and then points to this blog, no these are the BM Seer's opinions (yes I am a Sun Employee) but don't necesarily represent Sun or Sun's management. I'm glad Sun doesn't post on the above mentioned benchmark. It is worthless. Sun publishes on most benchmarks, I'd say more than IBM, to see a huge list of very reasonable benchmarks avoided by IBM on the power6 servers see: blogs.sun.com/bmseer/entry/they_tried_to_make_ibm}

    It is no mystery that my opinion is that the 16-year old TPC-C benchmark has been worthless for at least a decade. It isn't the fact that TPC-C is old but that it does not represent databases today (did it even then?).

    Has IBM just optimized solely for TPC-C on hyper-expensive cores? Their engineers basically admit extreme benchmark optimization: http://blogs.sun.com/bmseer/entry/careful_reading_shows_a_lot http://blogs.sun.com/bmseer/tags/tpc-c

    It is simplistic, small, encourages silly configs, even honest people in IBM admitted a year ago that it is losing relevance: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/eserver/benchmarks/wp_TPC-E_Benchmark_022307.pdf

    Even IBM admits in the paper above, "TPC-C configurations do not reflect typical client configurations." They go on to call "Ease of partitioning: Unrealistically easy". Also all referential integrity for every table is turned OFF!

    "The TPC-C benchmark is comprised of 5 stored procedure calls: New-Order, Payment, Delivery, Order-Status and Stock-Level." see this Microsoft blog from over a year ago. FIVE, Five, really only five - a huge server doing only 5 very-very simple things on 9 tables. No one in the world has a database that looks like this - it is really useless.

    IBM and other vendors keep pushing TPC-C for bragging rights. They spend a huge effort telling customers that they need it.

    What's next? IBM re-hyping other ancient benchmarks like Dhrystones as the most relevant benchmark for POWER6?

    Disclosure Information:

    IBM Power 595 (5 GHz, 32 chips, 64 cores, 128 threads) with IBM DB2 9.5 TPC-C result of 6,085,166 tpmC ($2.81/tpmC, configuration available 12/10/08) Results as of 6/10/08, see www.tpc.org. TPC-C, TPC-H, TPC-E are trademarks of the Transaction Performance Processing Council (TPC).

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    Posted at 10:54AM Jun 12, 2008 in Benchmark Issues
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    IBM Power6 pricing - cores configured in systems are very expensive

    Friday Apr 25, 2008

    IBM finally let the truth out about their $70K/core pricing - and it is just as I said. Now you can do your own $/perf analysis. IBM has posted real prices publicly on the web. I've included those links and a summary of the cost breakdown for those expensive cores.

    IBM p570 4-core 64GB Memory(667MHz) = $287K or $71K/core

    • $50.9K for base system (chassis, 2-sas disks, two 1600w power supplies, IO, ethernet, etc.) = $50.9K
    • $115.0K for 4-core of 4.7GHz CPUs (note: you have to buy the CPUs and then pay for activation: part#7380 4.7GHZ POWER6-2/0CORE 12 DDR2 2x$11,500, part#5403 ONE PROC (1-core) Activation fee FOR FC#7380 is 4x$23,000)
    • $121.2 for 64GB of 667MHz memory (note: you have to buy the memory and then pay for activation: part#5694 0/8GB DDR2 Memory(4X2GB) DIMMs - 8*$3,035, part#5680 Activation of 1GB DDR2 POWER6 64*$1,515)

    IBM p570 8-core 128GB Memory(667MHz) = $553.8K or $69k/core

    • $81.4K base system (chassis, 2-sas disks, two 1600w power supplies, IO, ethernet, etc.)
    • $230.0K for 8-core of 4.7GHz CPUs (note: you have to buy the CPUs and then pay for activation: part#7380 4.7GHZ POWER6-2/0CORE 12 DDR2 4x$11,500, part#5403 1-core Activation fee FOR FC#7380 is 8x$23,000)
    • $242.4k for 128GB of 667MHz memory (note: you have to buy the memory and then pay for activation: part#5694 0/8GB DDR2 Memory(4X2GB) DIMMs - 16*$3,035, part#5680 Activation of 1GB DDR2 POWER6 128*$1,515)

    IBM's official public links, found by Googling:

    IBM p570 power6 4.7GHz pricing:
    http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_ca/8/897/ENUS107-288/ENUS107288.PDF

    IBM p595 power6 5.0GHz pricing:
    http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_ca/7/897/ENUS108-257/index.html

    OK, Its very very late now, so I don't have time to post the 4.2GHz and slower memory, but it really doesn't change the price story that much, anyway you can go to the links and find it yourself.

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    Posted at 05:04PM Apr 25, 2008 in Competitor Follies
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    IBM funny comparisons...

    Wednesday Apr 23, 2008

    Just saw this posting on c0t0d0s0:

      IBM understands the art of nonsensical comparision to perfection. IBM Germany tries to convince the customers, that Sun is extremly expensive. Okay, at first: They use the oldest trick in their portfolio again. Comparing a new system with an old system. The p570 is a system introduced last year. The UltraSPARC IV+ with 1.8 GHz was introduced in August 2006. We´ve introduced the UltraSPARC T2 and the SPARC64-based system since.
    Read the complete at:
    http://www.c0t0d0s0.org/archives/4203-Benchmark-games-today-The-german-Power6-brings-the-truth-to-daylight-campaign.html

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    Posted at 04:00PM Apr 23, 2008 in Competitor Follies
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    HP's real story about power6

    Thursday Apr 17, 2008

    HP puts out various "real stories" about competitors. They have an updated one about the new IBM power6 systems. http://h71028.www7.hp.com/ERC/cache/107848-0-0-0-121.aspx

    I'll try to comment on some of them:

      Fact 1 they state:
        IBM software experts have admitted that software already tuned for out-of-order version of POWER is, “no [sic] so good for in-order power6 processor.” “Maximizing Application Performance on POWER” IBM Linux on POWER GCC Team Lead, April 19, 2007, page 8, SW_Summit_gcc_and_tool_chain_Peter.pdf
      If you don't understand the issues with"out-of-order", what you can take away is that not every technology that you hear hyped by vendors will give you a true advantage when you look at whole system performance on real applications.

      Fact 2 & 3: shows that adding GHz doesn't add delivered performance but it does add a disproportionate number of watts. IBM p 595 (POWER6) 27,500 watts max for 64 cores. 27500w/64-core = 430watts/power6-core

        The max rated system electrical load for the POWER6-595 server has increased nearly 5000 watts over the POWER5-p595 for the same number of processors.(ENUS108-257)
      Then they go on to compare multi-threaded server chips with a 1-job benchmark. I don't know why they didn't compare on server benchmark SPECrate_int2006, maybe when you test these as servers you see real differences. Let's look at the latest 2-chip results for Itanium2, power6, and UltraSPARC T2 Plus:

      A 2-chip Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server, running the UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor at 1.4 GHz, beat the 2-chip IBM 4.7GHz POWER6-based p570 by 29% on the SPECint_rate2006 benchmark, and also beat the 2-chip HP 1.66GHz Itanium-based Integrity rx2660 by 2.5 times on the SPECint_rate2006 benchmark.

      Fact 4: shows IBM is raising its software prices.

      Fact 5: HP states that AIX 6.1 will be needed to more fully exploit POWER6, and then asks: how many ISV applications are certified for AIX 6.1?

    For more on the latest SPECint_rate 2006 results see: http://blogs.sun.com/bmseer/entry/2_chip_spec_cpu2006_rate

    For more on prices on small 4-core IBM: http://blogs.sun.com/bmseer/entry/some_ibm_power6_actual_prices

    I haven't seen anything on IBM p 595 power6 prices 64-core 5GHz, if you have any pointers please post in the comments.

    Disclosure statement:
    SPEC, SPECint reg tm of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Sun result submitted to SPEC, other results from www.spec.org as of 4/7/08. Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 (UltraSPARC T2 Plus, 2 chips, 16 cores), 157 SPECint_rate2006; IBM p 570 (POWER6, 2 chips, 4 cores), 122 SPECint_rate2006, HP Integrity rx2660 (Itanium2, 2-chip, 1.66GHz/18MB), 62.8 SPECint_rate2006.

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    Posted at 07:37AM Apr 17, 2008 in Competitor Follies
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    Sun T5220/T5120 Faster than 4.7GHz 4-core power6 IBM p 570 (p550/p520 only 4.2GHz)

    Wednesday Apr 02, 2008

    IBM and those who comment on this blog (employees? or just fans?) are trying to ignore that the UltraSPARC T5120/T5220 simply outperforms the 4-core 4.7GHz (2-chip) IBM p 570. They try to say that we should compare not to the price of 4.7GHz IBM p570 (which is slower than UltraSPARC T5120/T5220), but compare to even lower GHz 4.2GHz IBM p 550 (4-core)/4.2GHz IBM p 520 (4-core) so IBM doesn't look so bad? What, this makes no sense! When they lose, do they just make stuff up and ignore that people can think on their own?

    Simply put Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220/T5120 are faster than the 4.7GHz IBM p 570 (4-core). See the benchmarks below:

    SPECjbb2005: The Sun T5220 server (single UltraSPARC T2) demonstrated 9% better performance than the 4-core 4.7GHz IBM p570 (POWER6) result of 175,474 SPECjbb2005 bops 87737 SPECjbb2005 bops/JVM. The Sun T5220 server has 2.5x better power-performance and has 4.9x better SWaP than the IBM 4-core p570.

    SAP-SD: The 2RU Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 server with a 1.4 GHz UltraSPARC T2 processor outperformed the 4RU IBM System p570 with two 4.7 GHz POWER6 dual-core (quad-thread) processors by 7%.

    SPECjAppServer2004: One Sun T5220 server (single UltraSPARC T2 chip) demonstrated 67% better performance over the IBM result of 1197.51 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard which used 4-core IBM p570 with 4.7GHz POWER6 processors. The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 used as Application server has 3.8x better power-performance and has 7.3x better SWaP than the IBM p570 power6. Enterprise T5120 used as database servrer has 3.4 better power-performance and has 13.5x better SWaP as the IBM p550.

    Siebel: The benchmark demonstrates that the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 and T5220 Servers provide the highest performing and the most cost-effective business solution for Siebel CRM applications. This is achieved through a powerful combination of Oracle's Siebel CRM Release 8.0 architecture with Oracle 10g R2 database running on a 8-core / 64 threads UltraSPARC T2 processor, Sun Java System Web Server, and the industry leading, free and open Solaris 10 OS. http://www.oracle.com/apps_benchmark/doc/Sun_Siebel8_10000_PSPP_On_Solaris.pdf

    Pointer to IBM p 570 paper: http://www.oracle.com/apps_benchmark/doc/IBM_Siebel8_7000_PSPP_On_AIX_POWER6%20Final.pdf

    SPECweb2005: NO results from 4.7GHz IBM p570!

    Disclosure statement:

    SPECjbb2005 Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 (1 chip, 8 cores) 192055 SPECjbb2005 bops, 24007 SPECjbb2005 bops/JVM, Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 (1 chip, 8 cores) 192055 SPECjbb2005 bops, 24007 SPECjbb2005 bops/JVM, IBM p570 (2 chips, 4 cores) 175474 SPECjbb2005 bops, 87737 SPECjbb2005 bops/JVM, SPEC, SPECjbb reg tm of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Results as of 10/08/2007 on www.spec.org.

    Two-tier SAP Standard Sales and Distribution (SD) standard SAP ERP 2005 application benchmark: SPARC Enterprise Model T5120 (1-way, 1 proc, 8 cores, 64 threads) 1 x 1.4 GHz UltraSPARC T2, 64GB memory, 2175 SD Benchmark users, 1.91 sec avg response time, Cert#2007059, Oracle 10g, Solaris 10; IBM System p 570 (2-way, 2 processors, 4 cores, 8 threads) 2 x 4.7 GHz POWER6+, 32GB memory, 2035 SD Benchmark users, 1.99s avg resp time, Cert#2007037, Oracle 10g, AIX 5L Version 5.3; SAP, R/3, mySAP reg TM of SAP AG in Germany and other countries. More info www.sap.com/solutions/benchmark.

    SPECjAppServer2004 1 Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 (8 cores, 1 chip) and 1 Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 (8 cores, 1 chip) 2000.92 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard. 1 IBM p570 (4 cores, 2 chips) and 1 IBM p550 (4 cores, 2 chips) 1197.51 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard. 1 HP rx2660 (4 cores, 2 chips) and 1 HP rx2660 (4 cores, 2 chips) 874.17 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard. SPEC, SPECjAppServer reg tm of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Results from www.spec.org as of 10/10/2007.

    SPEC, SPECint registered trademarks of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 server (1xUltraSPARC T2 1.4GHz) (1 chip, 8 cores, 64 threads) 83.9 SPECint_rate2006. Competitive results from www.spec.org as of February 12, 2008. IBM System p570 (4.7GHz POWER6 processor, 1 chip, 2 cores, 4 threads) 60.9 SPECint_rate2006. HP Proliant DL360 G5 (3.16 GHz, Intel Xeon processor X5460,1 chip, 4 cores, 4 threads) 73.0 SPECint_rate2006.

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    Posted at 11:12AM Apr 02, 2008 in IBM Follies
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    IBM core confusion

    Wednesday Mar 26, 2008

    IBM only seems to pin all of their marketing on core count (metric/core). This is disingenuous.

    IBM does not compare benchmark results on cost of systems, #RU, hardware cost, TCO, $/perf, watt/performance, etc. I guess IBM would just lose if they use metrics that are important to customers?

    Any one can do the math, just ask IBM for price quotes on 4.7GHz with a reasonable 8 GB/core of memory, then divide price by number of cores. OUCH. IBM has by far the most expensive cores industry.

    But are are those expensive IBM cores fast enough to give you better performance or $/perf? Nope, Sun's CMT servers cleans their clocks - server to server. Just look at the many benchmarks where a Sun T5220/T5120 beats a 4-core, 4RU 4.7GHZ IBM p570 (with better perf, $/perf, watt/perf, SWaP, TCO, etc). http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/benchmarks/index.jsp

    humor with a point to follow: Why do IBM cores cost so much? maybe because to support an IBM core requires so much expensive stuff.

    IBM p570 (4RU, 2 CPU, 4 cores) weight 140lb, or 35.0lb/core
    Sun T5220(2RU, 1 CPU, 8 cores) weight 52lbs, or 6.5lb/core

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    Posted at 06:00AM Mar 26, 2008 in IBM Follies
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