Linux Grabs World Record For TPC-H Benchmark 233
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Linux 2.4.3 now holds the world record by performance with IBM's DB2 in TPC-H. TPC-H is a decision support benchmark consisting of a suite of business oriented and ad-hoc queries and concurrent data modifications. This is way cool as the world record was held by SQL Server 2000 on Windows 2000 before." Caveats: this is only in the 100GB (smallest) category, and all but 2 of the other entries are several months old. Even so;)
Re:So is this now a legit benchmark?!?!?!? (Score:1)
Gosh, you'd almost think that rather than being a single entity which can only rationally hold a single opinion without being inconsistent that slashdot was a collection of individuals with differing opinions such that different subgroups can consistently hold differing opinions.
But hey, that doesn't get you the +5, so why not take the easy potshot?
Re:What do they need to spin? (Score:2)
And that's Microsoft problem:
Companies still need Unix (and unix experience) for the high end. The low end is eaten away by Linux. Their server might get crushed in the middle.
While the record is good, the hardware is SGI ... (Score:2)
As much as SGI has some of the coolest stuff on the planet, they also are completely lacking in much of the needed vision and business competance to make their offerings work, and be profitable. They had until recently, a completely incompetant individual in charge of sales/marketing. They recently put a person in charge of day to day operations who may not be as committed to delivering value in the Linux market as you think.
The point is quite simple. They went for the fastest performance in a market benchmark that wants the lowest price performance metric. This benchmark provides a great deal of fodder for their competitors (NT) to point out that for small databases (this was quite small), NT is a superior price performance. Had SGI had a clue as to what was needed here, they would have worked the price performance side.
Raw performance matters far more at the high end of this market. The other issue which is hidden from view here is that the 2 TB file size limit in Linux is going to be an issue for the big databases. This issue will need to be addressed in the 2.4 time frame for the bioinformatics houses to continue to use Linux. The databases there are growing at an exponential rate, and are already in the 2-5 GB range, with TB sizes expected in the next year or two.
It is a shame that SGI did this the way they did, but then again, I am frankly amazed that they had anyone to work on it. I am even more amazed given the level of committment to IA32 (see the comments about followon products). This company needs to focus more efforts on potential money makers like IA32/Linux based systems.
Price isn't competitive, though... (Score:3)
Re:Enterprises using Linux (Score:5)
What do they need to spin? (Score:5)
There's really three different markets, with Linux winning two and Windows winning one.
Under 1 GB is dominated by Linux. It's cheap, it's fast. Hard to sell software to this market because the total budget is usually in the low thousands at most.
1 GB-100 GB is decent with Windows. Much more bang for the buck then the Linux solution. At the top end, Windows just can't handle the load and buckles. At the bottom end, it starts becoming unrealistic to really spend a lot of money on your database.
Over 100 GB is dominated by the hard-core *nices. Linux can probably be used seriously now although a lot of companies would rather go with the proven solution and pay. When $10k software is under 1% of your total purchase price, free OS vs paid OS isn't much of an issue.
Look at the Scalability (Score:5)
Although it seems very logically that a 4 machine cluster is faster than it's single machine counterpart, it's not that simple an equation.
Not every database or operating system can scale that well. Lets take a look at each individual machine of the cluster. They are SGI 1450s with 4-way Xeon 700Mhz. The nearest competitor on the performance chart is the NEC 4-way machine, which is at 800. Assuming each individual machine of this cluster is also at about 800 tpm, then the cluster scaled at 85%. Not too shabby. Can you do the same type of scaling with Oracle? Not likely(look at any of the Oracle benchmarks, the biggest cluster they got have two machines).
Also, if you have recently read what the Oracle guys have been asking the kernel developers, you would know that there are a lot of features that the Linux kernel is missing right now causing it to not perform optimally as a DB server. The SGI and IBM guys have worked hard to get around every one of these barriers in order to get these results. This really shows that both these companies are very dedicated to make Linux be the top choice as DB servers in the future.
I don't want to burst anyone's bubble, but Linux off the shelve at the moment is still a very immature operating system for a DB server. However, with the work of companies like SGI and IBM, Linux now has a top result on a industry recognized benchmark.I wouldn't be surprise if there are more results coming in the near future.
Congrats to both companies for this great result!
Who cares? (Score:2)
If you were really smart, you'd consider using Teradata on MP-RAS, which with a 1000gb database gets 18500 QphH, and only costs $700k, thus leaving $250k in your budget for end of year bonus checks.
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"Don't trolls get tired?"
Let's see how Microsoft spins this one... (Score:3)
"But it's open source, so it's less secure. Would you entrust your data to something that anyone can modify the source code for?"
"But it's open source, so you don't have the satisfaction of having paid several thousand dollars for a Windows 2000 Datacenter site license."
"But it's open source, which we all know makes Baby Jesus cry."
"But it's open source, which sort of sounds like 'open sores', which is just gross, don't you think?"
Pick any or all of the above, submit to PR Newswire...
- A.P.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
Re:And look at the price per QphH (Score:1)
QphH
which really isn't especially interesting.
Re:"too good to be true", "perfect", "cool because (Score:2)
You know damned well that behind the walls of corporations people will give each other high-fives when they strike a blow (even a percieved one) against their competitor. Why should the free software community be disallowed the same enjoyment of competition?
P.S. In your face, Microsoft.
You don't need a conspiracy (Score:2)
hawk
Re:"too good to be true", "perfect", "cool because (Score:2)
> unstable and require a complete reboot
See, a perfect example of the verb "to Gates", as explained above
hawk
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:2)
> little part does.
uhm, no. At least not in the past. Part of their problems with DOJ have been about *not* disclosing such information to competitors to give word/excel a leg up, delayed disclosure, and flat out mis-disclosure.
Word and excel can rely on undocumented materials. Anywon else faces the probability that a change will break their code.
>. The only hold microsoft has over
> anyone else is their research budget!
THat and the windows monopoly that let them strike the licensicing deals to include Office on most computers. This is the single largest factor in the displacement of Word Perfect and Lotus by Word and Excel . . .
That's not why people hate gates (Score:3)
The reason that people hate Gates is that they've been hurt by his software. As in, "I've been Gatesed," a reference to the loss of data, work, or effeot because a machine behaves in a fundametnally unreasonable way, or becuase the command just used is different thatn the command that was bound to the same keys on the prior version, resulting in a loss of data. Or when the machine refuses to allow acces to a file without a bizarre workaround. Or when focus to a window is lost even though you were still typing because of a "helpful" feature. Not to mention the times when this week's version of word/excel has problems with a vile saved by last week's.
No, it isn't his money, wealth, or succes that cause most people to hate him. It's the painful to use products.
I never hated windows until I had to spend a day with it to et the files I needed to download Linux . . .
And no, I don't hate Gates. I'm not even anti-microsoft. I do, tough, understand someone who regularly uses the products becoming so . . . and I have the advantage that I haven't spent a lot of time with any since word 5.1 and excel 4--not from loack of opportunity, but because the later versions took out features I used constantly. I switched to *nix over LyX, not ideology (and I would have had to switch in a year or two anyway due to high performance computing needs that windows just can't handle).
hawk
Re:DB2 on Linux? (Score:1)
You're not limited to PL/1 with embedded SQL.
Even so, the real usefulness of java inside of Oracle is it's [java's] standard libraries rather that the language itself.
Re:mod this guy up... (Score:2)
He will then buy the Microsoft solution which offers more than enough performance for a signifigantly smaller hit to the pocketbook.
Credit where credit is due (Score:3)
Just a note: Although the database was IBM's DB2, the benchmark was done by SGI on 16-way Pentium III Xeon cluster. Also of note is the fact that the nearest competitors were 8-way Pentium III Xeon systems, not clusters, running SQL Server 2000 on Win2k.
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:3)
Oracle is more of a Unix DB, the Windows support is an after thought. That's probably why Oracle is prevelent in the larger database categories on bigger systems.
Besides, Microsoft has an unfair advantage against anyone who wants to write software for Windows -- they wrote the thing, so they know exactly how to make it go fast. (And if that doesn't work, they can always make everbody elses code go slower. Whether or not they are still doing this is debatable. Its fun to say, though. :-)
Another interesting thing to note is the price per hour metric -- Linux has the highest cost for its category, which implies that if you spend more on hardware for your Win2k server, it will outperform Linux. Whether or not this is true remains to be seen -- I'm sure some poor slob at Microsoft is paid to look for things like this and then send helpful e-mails to various third parties suggesting that they run new DB benchmarks soon.
Still, this is cool. Even if somebody comes out with a new benchmark tomorrow that puts Windows back on top, it still shows that Linux is a contender, not just some weirdo anti-American commie pinko hippie anti-Capitalistic intellectual property destroying OS that doesn't work very well.
Using a real world benchamark (Score:2)
Maybe nobody on Slashdot needs a 3TB database. And on this benchmark your bank (which will have a 3TB DB) won't yet be taking up Linux. But it is a step on the way.
Re:Optimization (Score:3)
Please note that much of this comment is hearsay from what the DB guys are saying. I try to stay out of most of the Oracle stuff myself, unless I have to mess with it.
Anyway, I'm curious whose cost-based optimizer is best.
Re:Not Surprising (Score:2)
Re:Price isn't competitive, though... (Score:2)
Re:What do they need to spin? (Score:2)
So that leaves windows blocked at the top and being nibbled to death from the bottom. Kind of like the old DEC vaxen squashed between mainframes and the killer micros. All the top end has to do is slow their upward retreat faster than they're getting eaten up from below.
Rob
Re:Er... (Score:2)
My guess is that with only 8 CPU's the DB2 benchmark results may not be faster than what was achieved with Windows 2000 Datacenter on 8 CPU's.
Re:Yeah right (Score:2)
Re:So is this now a legit benchmark?!?!?!? (Score:3)
SQL servers and nutshells (Score:2)
Anyway, the reason that struck me is that I'm very interested in DB2. I've heard good things about it, but not nearly as often as I hear about MS-SQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL, all of which are covered in O'Reily's "SQL in a Nutshell". I was only disappointed that this book didn't cover any others. If I wanted to get similar information for DB2, where would I look? It'd be cool to see some DB2-lovin hippies to publish information in the form of an addendum to that book for comparison's (and reference's) sake.
It's not the category... (Score:3)
...it's more the fact that Windows isn't the leader in any other category (all the others appear to be heavy-duty *nix). Although I imagine Microsoft will be coming right back with some results of their own. Thanks a bunch to whomever submitted this configuration for testing - does anyone know if it was sgi, or who?
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Re:"too good to be true", "perfect", "cool because (Score:3)
Essentially, it isn't safe from a free software perspective, to just think of Microsoft in the same way as any other large closed source software company. Other large closed source software companies don't go out of their way to attack free software, they try to provide non-free software that stands on its own merits. Turning your back on Microsoft is like turning your back on an axe-wielding homicidal lunatic.
Re:Enterprises using Linux (Score:2)
Part of that is the fact that $360,000 of the price is just the licenses for DB2 EEE for 16 processors ($22,500 per CPU). Also none of the other entires in that category look like they are clusters (so no redundancy) which gives them a bit of a price advantage over the SGI config which has to include the hardware for shared disk. Of course that means that if you wanted to scale up any of those others to a cluster later, you'd have to pay the price to retrofit that later rather than just rolling in more boxes and redistributing the data as with the SGI/DB2 entry.
Secondly, SGI charges a real premium for their hardware. I know they build good stuff, but really, can their box be that much better than say a Netfinity or a Proliant which also has 4 700MHz 2M Cache Xeons in it? Or for that matter that much better than say a Penguin Magnus 4500 (same CPUs)? I priced things out with the Penguin boxes and the total price including the DB2 EEE licenses (which would be the same), and it came up to just over 1/2 the SGI price... Which would give a $/QphH value well into the ballpark of the others. I don't have a good way online to get comparative pricing for IBM and Compaq hardware, but I'd suspect that it is also cheaper than SGI's, and thus would lend a better ratio as well.
Re:Enterprises using Linux (Score:2)
Differences in pricing of the database, for one. IBM DB2 EEE prices per CPU ($22,500), MS SQL Server 2000 prices per user. $360,000 of the SGI price is DB2 EEE license. The price for a limited number of users of MS SQL Server 2000 is cheaper, but not realistic for a production environment for a machine this big which will have lots of users.
Secondly, SGI's hardware is about twice as expensive as similarly configured hardware from, say, Penguin Computing, and also significantly more expensive than similar Netfinity or Proliant boxes. SGI also greatly overspec'd the amount of storage and other things on their servers, which gave themselves a little disadvantage on the pricing that they probably didn't need to.
Re:So is this now a legit benchmark?!?!?!? (Score:2)
Just for giggles I priced four Penguin Magnus 4500's (as closely configured as I could to the SGI boxes). They were just over 1/4 the price of SGI's hardware.
It is also worth noting that the DB2 EEE licenses were over 1/3 the total price.
I see it as interesting because previously no vendor had used Linux for a TPC benchmark (indeed I was under the impression that the TPC wouldn't allow it).
TPC doesn't disallow anyone from running TPC benchmarks on Linux. They disallow anyone from publishing TPC benchmarks that isn't a member of TPC and that aren't officially submitted to TPC. Both membership in TPC and submitting results cost money. Up until now a vendor hasn't been willing to pony up to submit TPC numbers under Linux. That is apparently changing.
I'd really love to see IBM and/or Compaq submit DB2 EEE results on a cluster of four quad Xeon Netfinity or Proliant servers... I think that IBM or Compaq could offer a significantly better $/QphH value than SGI does, because SGI's hardware is expensive.
Re:Kudos to SGI, IBM where are you (Score:2)
SGI was just the first to submit a Linux based TPC entry. SGI started working seriously with Linux before IBM had really taken that up too. It will be interesting to see if IBM follows SGI's lead and submits a similarly configured Netfinity (x Series) machine with DB2 EEE. I'd for one love to see that.
Is dynix more important to them than Linux, it looks like it to me.
More important to IBM or more established at IBM? Linux doesn't (yet) run on the NUMA/Q hardware that DYNIX/ptx does. However, look at what IBM is doing with AIX 5L. They are starting to make it more and more like Linux, and make Linux more and more like AIX by releasing key parts of AIX technology as open source for Linux. IBM has previously stated their intention not only to get Linux running on all their hardware platforms including the NUMA/Q machines, but also to bring the technology for DYNIX/ptx to Linux, and one would assume also add "Linux Affinity" to DYNIX/ptx.
Re:Win2k still faster (Score:2)
Actually, Data Center only does up to 32 CPUs (http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/datacenter/e valuation/business/overview/default.asp [microsoft.com]). However, that's still pretty impressive for x86 hardware.
Re:Also of note: (Score:2)
New Topic? (Score:2)
Maybe we need a new slashdot topic "Enough Already!!!" that we can uncheck if we don't want to see articles that everyone submits but they don't want to post. Then just make it a slashbox so people might be forced to see the top X headlines, but at least it will go by fast
Common goals? (Score:2)
You're right, they are very dedicated. The reason is they share a common enemy, "Microsoft". Without Linux as an OS SGI machines are going to dissapear as mid-high level workstations (MS Sure won't support them), and if they can be freed to concentrate on Hardware over Software, their server line might keep selling (they have a great product, but to quote an engineer I worked with 3 years ago when expecting a Solaris machine and logging into an SGI machine "Irix? What is Irix?").
IBM's grudge? Gee, can we say OS/2? Okay, so they probably don't still hold a grudge over that, but they have certainly bucked horns against MS every chance they could (or so it seems).
Its great to have two heavy hitters in our corner. Lets just remember that this is still business and people are still greedy. They're here because it suits them, which suits me fine. Common goals can take you preaty far.
Re:DB2 on Linux? (Score:4)
My DB life started as a MS SQL DBA and I must admit that SQL 7 was a pretty nice product. For a workgroup DB server it can't be beat, though I do agree it requires way to much babysitting to sit in a datacenter.
MySQL is a joke (IMHO) for any serous database work We have a large ASP that is running completely on ASP. (We power image sharing websites).. we are getting 1-2 million hits a day from the various customers websites which we power. Also the nature of the website puts the database into a position of doing various inserts/updates/deletes/selects on VERY large tables.
After testing our application with both Oracle/Sybase (11.9)/DB2/Informix and lastly Postgres... the database that satisfied our needs of a VERY high transaction database stable and scalable was Postgresql. Version 7.1 finaly was able to impliment some of the last needed features and writing our stored procedures in C is no problem for us.
Also, the architecture of our database allows us to easily cluster our databse contents across multiple servers and PGSQL cost structure fits our needs there to keep our performance top notch.
I found DB2 to be just to damn touchy. Oracle was too damn expensive and
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Would you like a Python based alternative to PHP/ASP/JSP?
People are complaining about the cost, but... (Score:4)
Never? Have you ever seen anything like it? Even something as simple as getting double clock rate from Intel costs about 4 times the amount of money. Is someone somehow not expecting that going from extreme performance, to twice the performance would NOT cost 4 times as much?
1. Doubling the amount of CPUs does not yield double performance, but cost much more than twice the amount. This would happen to the Windows 2000 servers as well.
2. Did anyone at least check out what is included in the price? I do not know, but for all I know, the SGI 1450 may be equipped with more levels of redundancy, have more expensive (more stable, not fastedr) hardware.
3. The operating system cost for one of these beasts is miniscule, so I as a Linux-advocate would not even consider arguing for price of the OS for machines like this. (I'd argue performance, stability and tweakability).
Re:Enterprises using Linux (Score:2)
Note: The TPC believes that comparisons of TPC-H results measured against different database sizes are misleading and discourages such comparisons. The TPC-H results shown below are grouped by database size to emphasize that only results within each group are comparable.
Doesn't say much for real world scenarios if you ask me.
Re:Database in the kernel? (Score:2)
X15 is faster. Not much, but slightly.
It's an issue of design, thorwing it into the kernel does not, inherently, make it faster, in general.
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Re:Microsoft delenda est (Score:2)
I think you are severely over reacting when you suggest that Microsoft is evil and wants to take over the world. They are just a company and they just want to sell software and make money. As a publicly traded company, they HAVE to be aggressive and do anything in their power to make profit for the share owners. It's the law. Sometimes they have stepped over the line (to illegal methods) but Microsoft is still just a place to work and a bunch of people. It's not some evil entity from space, wanting to "take over the world".
Microsoft wants their products to be everywhere - yes, of course. So what? So does the Free Software Foundation! What company doesn't want to sell as much products as possible and make as big an impact on the world as they can?
Microsoft has used illegal (and "mean") tactics and they deserve to get slapped by the DOJ - yes! But they don't deserve to get "destroyed" like you say. Microsoft is not some evil entity from space, wanting to take over the world. They are just a company selling products and a place where people work. Relax a little..
"too good to be true", "perfect", "cool because.." (Score:5)
Why does it seem that most people spend most of their time hoping for something bad to happen to Microsoft? If there's a security problem with a Microsoft product, it's not a *good* thing, much less is it "too good to be true"! If Linux scores better in a database test, it's a good thing because it means there have been advancements in software. It's not a good thing because Microsoft came 2nd.
The whole culture of hate here on Slashdot (and in the open source community in general) really bothers me.. Why do you have to hate something? Why isn't it enough for you that Linux or your favorite open source project is successful and works great? Why do you have to stomp everything else? No wonder people say "open source, closed minds".
If it was just 13 year olds writing the comments, I'd understand it. But it's the editors of Slashdot too! You guys really should set a better example than that. Even Linus Torvalds said in a recent CNET interview that he doesn't understand why everyone hates Bill Gates so much.
It's much more productive - and much better for the cause (which is to make better software, remember?) - to focus your energy in positive things. Write software, report bugs, test.. Sure, celebrate Linux being first in a database test, but don't celebrate it because it knocked away Windows 2000 & SQL Server 2000 from that spot.
Define yourself by what you are for - not by what you are against.
Re:"too good to be true", "perfect", "cool because (Score:2)
Re:"too good to be true", "perfect", "cool because (Score:2)
Hate is not posting on slashdot.
When Bill Gates dies at the hand of a user subjected to a lifetime of windows that will be hate.
Re:Microsoft delenda est (Score:2)
Many people work at MS and I guess their conscience does not bother them (it would bother me to help further their cause). Maybe they rationalize by saying that they don't really conribute to the evil that MS is spreading. Maybe they say "sure Steve Ballmer lies everytime he speaks to the press but I don't lie that much" who knows what rationalization they use?
In the end evil is as evil does. Ms has been found guilty in one court of law. They will probably win the appeals becuase their ex employee is now the head of the justice dept. Ashcroft will prosecute MS the way he defended the roadless rule by filing a two sentence brief and throw the case.
MS has corrupted the very justice system which underpins all of our freedoms how can you not call that evil?
Re:"too good to be true", "perfect", "cool because (Score:2)
Re:"too good to be true", "perfect", "cool because (Score:2)
Re:"too good to be true", "perfect", "cool because (Score:2)
You have to fight back with everything you have. Your brain, your mouth, your money anything less then 100% commitment will mean the end of linux. MS has billions of dollars in the bank, hundreds of politicians in their pocket, thousands of lawyers on the payroll. They will crush us like so many cockroaches.
As for your hardware comment it's plain weird. They got twice the performance and spent twice as much. This is practically unheard of. Ususally you have to spend exponential amounts of money to get linear improvements in speed. They can be proud of their accomplishments.
Re:"too good to be true", "perfect", "cool because (Score:2)
The business world is far from civilized. It's full of duplicity, lies and cheating. I know because I have run businesses and of course worked in them from being a serf to being in management. To paraphrase George Carlin. You know business people are assholes because if you ever put two across the table from each other they will both be convinced the other guy is out to screw them.
For some reason it does not bother your boss when Mr. Allchin calls us communists, it does not bother him when the top MS staff talks of "knifing the baby" and "cutting off the air supply", or when MS executives lie under oath or tamper with evidence during a federal trial. It certainly does not bother your boss when Mr. Ballmer tells lies in public. He is after all a PHB.
His eyes are glassed over by the shiny ads he sees in businessweek. All we can do is point out that these people are liars and have no moral or ethical compass, we can point out they routinely screw their partners over and hope that it will reach one or two CIOs. It won't effect most of them but honestly we can't afford to fly them out and feed them at fancy restaurants so it's all we can do.
Re:People are complaining about the cost, but... (Score:2)
1. You are comparing 4x4CPU boxes with 1x8CPU box. In general, the 8 way machine will cost a lot more than double a 4 way machine - especially on Intel hardware where the CPUs support only 4 way SMP natively. This means the Win2k solution is actually a lot more cost effective that it appears.
2. Just check the disclosure reports - they both use RAID arrays. The Win2k solution was hot-plug, looks like the Linux one wasn't. Oops, score another for Win2k.
3. Right on the money. OS cost compared to hardware cost and support cost is negligible (something MS has been saying for a long time with the magic acronym 'TCO'). In this case though, it looks like Linux still has a way to catch up with Win2k on the same hardware, or even achieve the same price/performance ratio. It is good to see it make it on the scores at last though.
Linux/Unix has the WORST price/performance ratio (Score:3)
What it comes down to is that if you want to save money then Win2k is going to give you the best performance for a given price, up to 8CPUs. As there are no benchmarks for a Win2k cluster in TPC-H, you can't draw any conclusions from this 'win'.
If you look in TPC-C however, you'll see that a Win2kAS clusters are ramming Unix right up the hole in performance and price... I'd be sticking to the 'Do TPC benchmarks really mean anything' stories if you want to promote Unix over Windows.
Re:People are complaining about the cost, but... (Score:2)
The supposed difference in the amount you have to pay a Linux administrator as opposed to having one of your nontechnical employees manage your W2K server part-time is buried by the fact that it takes a real admin to keep W2K running properly. Just like any other server system, W2K is reliable and secure only if properly administered. A real admin costs about the same whether he knows W2K or Linux or BSD or whatever.
If the cost of the system is dominated by the software (which it will be, in the typical case) and the cost of operating the system is dominated by administration (which it is) and administrating the system costs the same whether you run Linux or W2K, then just how does Microsoft win on TCO?
Finally, the test results, as given, say absolutely nothing about the performance of Linux on the same hardware as W2K was using. Neither do they say anything about the performance of W2K on the hardware that Linux was using. It is entirely possible that W2K would lose on the four-computer cluster just as it is possible that W2K would still win if Linux was running on the 8-way SMP box. We simply have no information either way.
And what if SQL Server under W2K pulls in a few (10, say) percent more performance than Linux on the same hardware? What difference does it make? I'll admit that I'm a free software (I run Linux, but the *BSD projects have some really cool stuff going on, too) advocate and I work really hard to get Linux accepted by the guys in suits, and I am encouraged by these results.
Why? Well among people who know what they're talking about, it is generally acknowledged that benchmarks are mostly bogus, and this benchmark especially so because it's more for the hardware manufacturers to strut their stuff than to show off the performance of the software, but it's tougher to convince someone with the argument that a benchmark isn't a "real world" test if the system you prefer doesn't even appear near the top of the benchmark results than if it does. Being at the top is nice, but being in the top 10 is almost as good. Linux doesn't have to be the best, it just has to be good enough.
XLS downloads (Score:3)
Why is it that so many sites like this one offer spreadsheets for download as "XLS" when in fact the contents of the file you receive are simply plain text? Just because PC users are too dim to load Excel themselves?
No wonder so many people think they need Office to make effective use of the web. How about if I start making all the images on my site "Gimp" images when they're really just PNGs?
Hmm. actually that's not much more mean that what I've done to my homepage [soton.ac.uk]. Try that in MS Win IE - oops, someone doesn't understand W3C font/charset interaction recommendations.
Re:Win2k still faster (Score:2)
2733/16 = 170(TCP) per CPU
Um, the SGI's page for the 1450 [sgi.com] states that it's only a 4-way machine.
That yields 683.25 TPC/CPU for Linux, versus 212.375 TPC/CPU for win2k on the Compaq hardware. In other words, Linux is more than three times faster according to my calculations.
One of us has our numbers wrong... I've got SGI's website to back mine up... Am I missing something here?
Regarding w2k datacenter, it only supports up to 32 CPUs. Anybody know of any shipping x86 hardware at that scale? Last I heard Unisys had the only box, to be resold by Compaq... Until Compaq backed out (don't mean to troll here, but conspiracies abound that MS pushed it that way in light of w2k dc's "shortcomings" - YMMV).
MS pushes for recount (Score:2)
Microsoft has hired Al Gore as a consultant while they plan on having TPC recount the benchmarking process which they labeled as unfair.
"This is ludicrous, no way are those results in any way proof of anything more, and with a 52 billion dollar budget allocated to marketing we'll prove it." stated an anonymous Microsoft spokesperson.
According to an insider, MS is also planning on declaring war on SGI for not using their ZX-10 [sgi.com] servers for the test. An SGI spokesperson simply states, "We tried to use the fucking server, but the shit just bluescreened before we even turned the son of bitch on, so we kicked it a few times and chucked that shitty OS for the benchmarking test. Look, in all fairness we tried, but until Microsoft gets their shit together, we're going to try to capitalize on using a free OS such as Linux. Our company isn't do so great anyways so Microsoft can take their licensing and shove it."
After conceding to SGI, Microsoft then contacted Mr. Gore in efforts to gain insight on what not to do when asking for a recount. "We called Al to see where he screwed up asking for a recount so we don't fall victim to the same outcomes. We then tried to have him sell XP licenses at Columbia, but he conceded when pushed too hard." stated the anonymous MS employee.
Stay tuned as things get ugly
AO -- removing the dot in dot com [antioffline.com]
Missing CPUs (Score:2)
Re:And look at the price per QphH (Score:2)
Re:Lets Be Realistic (Score:2)
Re:"too good to be true", "perfect", "cool because (Score:2)
Hate is the gut feeling I get when I have to use a Microsoft product. I didn't get my hate from slashdot or anywhere else except Microsoft's deliberately vile products. MS is a creeping pestilence and the sooner it's eradicated the better.
By the way, I don't care what Linus says. He doesn't speak for me or for any Linux users. He can go to work for Microsoft and my feelings towards Microsoft won't be any friendlier.
Win2k still faster (Score:4)
the SGI 1450 Server as 16 procs
2733/16 = 170(TCP) per CPU
ProLiant 8000-X700-8P as 8 procs
1699/8 = 212 per CPU
and doesn't the DataCenter(tm) version support like 64 procs?
Anyway, i think it's pretty damm cool linux is on top, it reassures me that TPC.org isn't just one of Microsoft bit-achs.
-Jon
One more Caveat (Score:2)
So is this now a legit benchmark?!?!?!? (Score:5)
So now that SGI cranks out a server with twice the processors and knocks off a half year old record, it's legitimate because Linux wins?
This is absurd. Either this is a legit benchmark or not, make up your mind. If you justify hype like this, then you are no better than MS's FUD teams.
You can't honestly view benchmarks as: well, when Linux wins they are the holy grail, but when someone else wins, it's rigged.
Alex
Optimization (Score:3)
I agree that the best optimizer is the human mind, but I have yet to meet database programmers who can bring themselves to regularly remember to care how big the table they are accessing is, or what fields are indexed or which part of their cartesian product is bigger. Programmers don't care. Oracle programmers have to (as far as I can understand). DB2 programmers don't.
Not Surprising (Score:4)
For free databases, I prefer postgres (transactional support, referential integrity, triggers, etc.). For commercial support, I have trouble liking Oracle (terrible query optimization for large queries, no statistics-based optimization like db2, much harder to administer, etc.). DB2 UDB on Linux is a low-cost, high-feature, high-performing dream.
Re:100GB!!! Smallest! (Score:2)
NCR is #1! (Score:2)
NCR. [ncr.com] Founded 1885. Headquarters in Dayton, Ohio. Over a century in the "point of sale" business. And now #1 in transaction processing. Now that's an old-economy company.
Re:NCR is #1! (Score:2)
It would be neat if you could log in and get a list of everything you ever bought. That might even be required under the Data Protection Directive in European Union countries.
SGI hardware Re:Enterprises using Linux (Score:3)
The test was run on SGI hardware. Even though it's intel, it's still SGI. I love the SGI hardware I've been exposed to, but you have to go into it with the knowledge and acceptance of the plain fact that you will pay out the nose for it and maybe a few other orfii too if the sales weasel is being efficient that day. At least they have the decency to make their uberexpensive machines look nice.
So while the OS was free, the hardware was cost++. (think about it man, 16 p!!! zeons alone ...)
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News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org [geekaustin.org]
Lets Be Realistic (Score:2)
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
Domain Names for $13
true, but... (Score:2)
TPC has more than 1 chart per benchmark, mostly 1 for raw performance, and 1 for price/performance. Check for example www.tpc.org and click on 'benchmarks' at the left. Select a benchmark from the list and you can select from the charts which one you prefer. In the end, it's the reader who decides WHAT's important, not the benchmark itself.
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Re:So is this now a legit benchmark?!?!?!? (Score:3)
Maybe its meaningless, but so what? It indicates that Linux vendors are playing the game too now. Even if the benchmark is totally and completely false, at least the people previously using it to spread lies have to shut up a bit now.
Here's another great example of this:
http://www.dell.com/us/en/bsd/topics/linux_spec
Yes, any of those boxes will saturate your T3 line serving the static content they are being tested with. But it looks cool to the PHBs, and thus they're less likely to force people like me to develop products for windows because its "faster". I'll drink to that.
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To use a weird analogy... (Score:2)
For some reason, this reminds me of what happens when a martial artist trains for 5 or 6 years, going through over a thousand practice fights and then gets jumped on the street. The first time they hit someone and actually see that person go down, it is always a little bit of a surprise.
Even though everyone who has used Linux , or worked on Linux, knows how great it is, when we all realize that our little pet OS can really knock out the people way bigger then us, we are always a little surprised...
Of course, since my experiences both with getting jumped and trying to use Linux are both slightly unsuccesful, maybe I shouldn't be the one to comment... ;)
Linux made its mark, but not in the best way... (Score:3)
While I'm happy to see Linux on the TPC-H leader board, there are several things that makes me feel this "win" isn't as glorious as it could be...
First of all, the cost/performance ratio is much higher than the Windows-based entrants. Since this is a decision support benchmark, the work is heavily skewed to reading mostly static data; a solution which more easily scales up by throwing hardware at it.
Put differently, if you run two clusters of the 2nd (3rd, 4th or 5th) ranked system, and it'll have better performance than the Linux solution, but at lower cost/performance ratio.
Second, the results show that Windows (coupled with cheap hardware) is working so well at the low end that it pretty much displaced Unix systems. (Geez, no wonder Sun's getting creamed in the desktop workstation market these days.)
Third, this "win" is not for a write-heavy database application -- in my personal experience, Linux has been an underperformer in write-heavy database application. (With synchronous writing turned on to guarantee data flush to disk). This makes it less appealing for real-time transactional database work.
Separately, I wish such tools as PowerBuilder and CrystalReports were available for Linux... That would go a longer way to making Linux acceptable to the Enterprise...
Decision support benchmark? (Score:2)
I love the sound of that. It brings up images of things like "well, we just spent half a million dollars on this new hardware and database software, I sure hope that decision is justified"
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Re:DB2 on Linux? (Score:4)
I have to say out of all these, SQL Server is easiest to admin, but as a DB needs constant nursing.
DB2 needs a moderate level of nursing. I have found it to be 'moody' - killing a long-running batch job sometimes seems to stop the DB, and it's far too easy to get the database into a 'backup pending' state where everything refuses to run until you execute an off-line backup.
We also have problems where a batch process seems to lock an entire tablespace, blocking other updates. An experienced DB2 DBA told me that standard practice was for each table to have its own tablespace (kinda like MySQL), which seems to me to be a bit of an admin headache when you want to e.g. change settings for a group of tables.
On-line backups seem to back up all transactions since the last off-line backup, so eventually you have to take the DB down and do an off-line backup so you can clear the logs.
Maybe some of the problems I've had with DB2 are answered in the docs. They're comprehensive, but it's next to impossible to find anything. I usually resort to grepping the HTML tree.
Oracle needs the least nursing; I haven't adminned it, but I've worked on sites which have no DBA, where the database has run happily for months. No doubt a pain to set it up properly, but (like Unix) once it's going you can (in theory) forget about it and get on with some work.
As a developer I must say I prefer Oracle to DB2 and SQL Server; Oracle's stored procedure language (PL/SQL) is much more powerful than either DB2 or SQL Server - you can actually do useful things without resorting to C, Java or Visual Basic.
Contrary to what was said above, Oracle has had stats-based query optimization since at least V7; IDK how the query optimization compares with DB2 (although I've managed to write some some slow queries in both languages that benefitted from simple re-arrangement), but one thing I have learned - DB2 makes the query plan when a statement is compiled, and doesn't change it thereafter. Oracle makes the query plan at execution time (and caches it for efficiency) this means that if the nature of your data changes, or you add new indices, you have to re-compile the queries stored in DB2 or it will continue to use inefficient query plans. I consider this extremely stupid.
There was an excellent shareware developer/admin tool for Oracle called TOAD, that did pretty much everything you could want; I'd kill for something similar for DB2.
Oracle's docs are also much more usable, and (most importantly of all) there's a pile of good O'Reilly books covering all aspects of using Oracle.
Re:Common goals? (Score:2)
This strategic error gave Microsoft a huge chunk of the low-end server space, which they are using as a base to launch attacks on the huge margin midrange systems from the classic Unix vendors such as SGI and IBM. Linux provides a cheap and easy solution to roadblock MS's growth in this market. If Microsoft's salesmen are out FUDing Linux on x86, that means they *aren't* focusing on RS/6000s accounts etc. Which keeps IBM's (etc) margins high, and the business happy.
Re:More ranting (Score:2)
Re:"too good to be true", "perfect", "cool because (Score:2)
What is this? Programming or religious vendetta? They are a company you don't like -- so what? It's only a computer operating system. People are not dying because they get Windows on their machines, any more than they get a particular engine with their new Toyota.
Grow up.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:And look at the price per QphH (Score:2)
Compaq box gives 1699 QphH for 161 US $
Some simple math gives
2733 / 347 = 7.8 QphH / US $
1699 / 161 = 10.5 QphH / US $
I.E, the linux machine doesnt use its dollars as well as the compaq system. Alhough.. high performance is always more expensive. Price vs Money is not a linear relation.
Re:Enterprises using Linux (Score:4)
(you don't need 4 monitors to run a DB server, for example...)
FP.
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Re:So is this now a legit benchmark?!?!?!? (Score:2)
Sounds good to me. Proves to the PHBs that Linux can do everything Microsoft can... such as cost more.
Re:So is this now a legit benchmark?!?!?!? (Score:2)
I see it as interesting because previously no vendor had used Linux for a TPC benchmark (indeed I was under the impression that the TPC wouldn't allow it).
Re:"too good to be true", "perfect", "cool because (Score:2)
Re:So is this now a legit benchmark?!?!?!? (Score:2)
Most people who read this site are linux fanatics. What makes linux look good is good. What makes linux look bad is bad. And we naturally want to read about that which is good. If we wanted to read about Microsoft gaining the top spot on a benchmark, or how a benchmark showing linux at the top was probably worthless, we would be reading another site. Plain and simple.
Slashdot helps me to remain safe in my belief that linux and open source are great gifts from the heavens sent to bring peace and harmony to the earth, and that Microsoft is the surly spawn of Satan struggling vainly against its own ineptitude in a doomed attempt to keep its claws firmly entrenched in the fleshy parts of the ignorant of the world.
In summation, if you're going to read my Bible, please have the courtesy not to point out its inconsistencies, because you're not going to change my mind, but you might piss me off.
It's quite simple actually (Score:2)
It sucks. Seriously, it sucks. Intel processors are very good at a single thread of execution (such as video games). As they are scaled up to multiple tasks you invariably have some form of hardware backlash due to the failure of decent on chip task switching. This may take the form of slower speeds, deadlocks, or processor expections (known to the windows world as 0E/0D/etc. blue screens of death).
Now speaking as someone who was actually at a conference in a Unisys facility when they announced this thing, they have problems. They took a standard Unix machine configuration of four processors per board with up to eight boards plugged into a gigabit crossbar and a shared memory architechture. WINDOWS NEVER DID THIS BEFORE! Unisys had to customize the NT code to make the damn thing even run, then covered it over with some figures about how much more I/O the machine could produce than a Sun Starfire E10000. But it is an inherently unstable design (at least for x86). Sun itself had a difficult time making 64 processors work. In fact in the UltraSparc III, there is on chip clustering of processors!
To make a long story short, Unisys did it to please Microsoft and found out that it wasn't practical.
Re:Win2k still faster (Score:2)
You've the point that per cpu stat w2k is better, but we(as well as most enterprises) are rather interested in knowing whether the performance scale up with no. of CPUs.
Re:Not Surprising (Score:2)
I have trouble liking Oracle (terrible query optimization for large queries, no statistics-based optimization like db2
FYI, on and prior to version 7 Oracle has cost-based and rule-based analysis/optimization. The statistical optimization is being done by database management system after 8. (I'm not sure whether they provide backward compatibility on it, anyway)
optimization like db2 - you can hardy find similarity in features in two different database system, can you? :)
Anyway, 'EXPLAIN PLAN' still work on any version of Oracle to help optimizing large queries manually.
Re:Win2k still faster (Score:2)
That raise a question: if this high-end model does any good, they'd have related stat in TPC....so why didn't they do that? I don't think Microsoft would miss a chance.
Hmm...unless....
Re:Optimization (Score:2)
Hey man you didn't miss a point, it's my fault not stating clearly that, in my own opinion, DB2 is superior, regardless of the fact that I'm an Oracle DBA for years.
I were a DB2 programmer(on MVS) during 80s...and yes, what you said is absolutely true, because I were there! Transaction-based and automatic optimization were so cool that no one at that time could compare. I swithed to Oralce for market demand(well, ok, I was layoff by IBM), now their dedication to Linux will make me jumping ship again.
Re:So is this now a legit benchmark?!?!?!? (Score:3)
Yes. Not only that, it shows that Linux can win hands down when the number of processors is double the competition and the price is more than double the next runner-up.
Dancin Santa
Go SMP!
What this means (Score:5)
However, the story is more than that. The most important thing to notice is not that Linux is at the top, or the number of processors is so high, or even that the cost is exorbitant. The important thing is the Linux is a contender at all. This is an OS that hasn't until recently gotten a lot of respect. That Linux can "keep up with the big boys", it shows that it is certainly capable of handling the computing needs of the corporate community.
Of course, if you live by the benchmark, you die by the benchmark. Linux apologists would do well to acknowledge that it only breaks the world record because the hardware is twice as powerful as the next OS's. However, they can still crow about the significant progress that Linux has made over its relatively short lifetime. What other OS has gone from 0 to 60 in such a short time?
Dancin Santa
Re:So is this now a legit benchmark?!?!?!? (Score:2)
1. Speed
2. Price of hardware
3. Running costs
It's hardly a contender when it's 4x the price of the nearest hardware. It's just a demonstration piece, a 'concept server' if you will.
It's going to be a long time before an OS like Linux can compete with the steadfast database servers that have been slowly, but surely, progressing in the back rooms of blue-chip companies.
Re:A bit off topic... (Score:3)
I work for a storage solution company and it's becoming very common for even modest organizations like universities to start scoping out needs at the 1TB level.
Why is storage still such a booming business in spite of the economy's twist and turns? Just check out your own habits and what the law and generally accepted "good" practice is: there's usually a disincentive to throw any data away.
It's worth someone's time to index and archive all of those trolls and modded down posts -- gotta give those attorney's something interesting to read.
About time (Score:2)
Re:"too good to be true", "perfect", "cool because (Score:2)
Maybe it has something to do with the situation I found myself in when I first started programming. Being a new programmer, I would make a lot of mistakes, and even though it was just a DOS program, every time I would hit one of my bugs Windows 3.1 would become completely unstable and require a complete reboot. Under suggestion from a friend, I switched to OS/2 and found programming much easier. When I hit a bug, all I had to do was close the DOS box and continue working.
Unfortunately, Microsoft's goal of 'one world - one OS' made it very difficult to use MY OS of choice for other things, since there was not much support from ISVs and hardware vendors. I detested all the FUD and underhanded tactics used by MS to destroy all competing OS solutions. It burned my soul that people would settle for a second rate solution just because they knew of no other, which they could not learn of due to Microsoft's tying deals and manipulation of the network effects.
I want to see MS fall. I want to see them fall hard. I want to see people fired for buying Microsoft, for when that day arrives every OS will have to stand on its merits, HW vendors will write portable device drivers, ISVs will write portable programs, diversity will thrive and reliability will overrule mediocrity. Until then , every nitch in Microsoft's armor is a pleasure to me.