Sun and Oracle scorched by Firestorm
IBM, Intel and Microsoft have ignited their Firestorm project by claiming the top spot for clustered server performance.
IBM, Intel and Microsoft have ignited their Firestorm project by claiming the top spot for clustered server performance, according to the latest rankings from independent testing authority Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC).
They have stormed Sun Microsystems's and Oracle's Risc fortress for data-intensive enterprise resource planning business-to-business applications by tripling the performance of comparable Sun clusters running on Oracle.
They have also slashed the cost per transaction by running IBM's DB2 UDB database on 32 four-way Pentium III Xeon-equipped Netfinity servers, using Windows 2000 Advanced Server.
Announced at Microsoft's TechEd developers' conference in Amsterdam last week, the exercise aimed to show potential customers the scalability of Windows software running on Intel architecture for ebusiness applications. Available from one node, the project also displayed how VARs can help customers that want to enter ecommerce, start small and grow as their business develops.
The Type C standard is used to measure system performance by analysing throughput. This is defined as "how many new order transactions per minute a system generates, while the system is executing four other transactions types: payment, order-status, delivery and stock-level".
All five Type C transactions have a certain user response time requirement.
The new order transaction response time is set at five seconds. For a 710 Tpmc number, a system generates 710 transactions per minute, said the TPC. The submission to the TPC by the alliance, posted at www.tpc.org, shows Firestorm achieved a Tpmc of 440879 with a price per Tpmc of $32.28 (£21.32). Don Roy, Netfinity marketing manager of clustering solutions at IBM, said this figure equates to 1.4 billion transactions per day.
The nearest rival, a Risc-based IBM RS/6000 S80, running Oracle 8i, achieved a Tpmc of 135815 with a price per Tpmc of $52.70. Sun on Oracle 8i could manage only fourth place in the rankings with a Tpmc of 135461. It costs $97.10 per Tpmc. Compaq temporarily held the top slot in the rankings, but its recent submission has been withdrawn.
Adam Jollans, EMEA software marketing manager at IBM, said the development "shows what can be achieved when IBM, Microsoft and Intel get together".
Alan Priestly, strategic marketing manager of the enterprise server group at Intel, said: "Type C is a big number on a standards-based system, giving the same performance as proprietary Risc but at a lower cost."