Transaction Processing Performance Council

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Transaction Processing Performance Council

• 2002.06.05
• ?? 3 ? ? ?
• rome0208_at_dreamwiz.com

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A list of 10 good reasons (1)

• Provides Cross Platform Performance Comparisons
• TPC results may offer a relatively inexpensive
  and independent positioning fix.
• Without TPC results it would not be so easy to
  even gain a rough feel for how disparate
  architecture systems may compare under any
  workload.

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A list of 10 good reasons (2)

• The Cost of Performance
• The cost of performance is an important factor in
  any buying decision.
• The price performance, like performance, should
  be treated as an approximate guide for detailed
  comparisons.
• For example
• The price/performance of the loosely coupled
  configurations increases along with the
  performance when compared with the
  price/performance of their hightest performing
  single system result.

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A list of 10 good reasons (3)

• Processor versus Real Performance(1)
• MIPS is a measure of relative system performance.
• SPEC tests are primarily a measure of processor
  complex performance.
• There is more to transaction processing than just
  the processor.
• I/O and disk subsystems

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A list of 10 good reasons (4)

• Processor versus Real Performance(2)
• TPC testing provides a platform to look at the
  entire computing workload
• Just using a processor benchmark can be very
  misleading.

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A list of 10 good reasons (5)

• Balances Vendors Marketing Claims
• TPC results help to act as a sanity check on such
  claims of performance leadership.
• For example, many vendors have announced,
• hardware platforms which support a certain number
  of processors.
• Hewlett-Packards T 500 supports a maximum of
  (12)CPUs, Sun SPARCcenter (20) and Data General
  AViiON (16) processors.
• The best non-clustered TPC result consisted of a
  configuration with exactly half the number of
  potential maximum stated CPUs.

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A list of 10 good reasons (6)

• The Myth of SMP Linear Scalability
• Linear SMP scalability is the Holy Grail to which
  all aspire, but no one achieves, and TPC results
  show this.
• TPC results provide some real data to allow one
  to make their own assumptions about the
  scalability of one vendors SMP implementation
  over anothers.

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A list of 10 good reasons (7)

• Compare Technologies
• Interest in commercial applications for parallel
  processing has grown during 1994.
• How it differs from SMP
• Tandem has released TPC-C results which
  demonstrate quite clearly the potential of
  parallel computing.
• This technology also lends itself to two or more
  systems sharing the same database in order to
  increase transaction throughput.
• With TPC results available for such
  implementations one can examine performance and
  price of these and compare them with
  non-clustered offerings.

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A list of 10 good reasons (8)

• Software and Performance
• The database too can have a profound effect on
  performance.
• HP 9000 I50 c/s 184.55 tpsA _at_ 9,137/tpsA
• ? ORACLE7
• HP 9000 I50 c/s 303.10 tpsA _at_ 5,612/tpsA
• ? ADABAS
• TPC results provide an inexpensive forum for
  users to examine the effect databases can have on
  performance, and thus provide so me stimulus to
  investigate this issue further if deemed
  important.

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A list of 10 good reasons (9)

• Cost of Software
• The performance of database is one issue, pricing
  is another.
• The cost of the software may not necessarily be
  the same on both systems, despite the workload
  being the same on both.
• Example
• TPC-A result for the HP H70 c/s and Sun
  SPARCserver 1000 c/s show that the ORACLE7 costs
  50 more on the H70.

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A list of 10 good reasons (10)

• Trademarks Provide Consistency
• The TPCs trademarking of TPC Benchmarks is very
  important
• Companies cannot claim TPC Benchmark results
  which dont adhere to the TPCs rules of
  disclosure.
• TPC Benchmark results provide a relatively
  consistent view of performance with a well
  defined set of rules and accountability.

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A list of 10 good reasons (11)

• Competition Provides Fertile Ground for
  Engineering Improvements
• TPC testing provides a competitive testing ground
  for computers.
• The competition provides the impetus for
  innovation.