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3 Posts tagged with the risc tag

How does Intel Xeon Processor 7400 Series (Dunnington) compare to RISC

Posted by EMcConnell Oct 2, 2008

Posted by Eoin McConnell Oct 2nd, 2008
Back in May I shared some thoughts about how I would choose between different Servers based on RISC architecture and Intel based architecture. My decision making was based on three basic tenets in terms of choosing the right CPU architecture
1) Choice and the ability to pick between multiple suppliers.
2) Performance
3) System Cost and Total cost of Ownership

As you probably know by now, we launched the Xeon Processor 7400 Series (codename; Dunnington) on September 15th. The performance results delivered by systems based on the Xeon 7400 processor are astounding when you actually compare with performance delivered by systems based on RISC architecture. Who would have thought that you could get this level of performance from Xeon at a fraction of the cost of comparable RISC based architectures.
The Xeon 7400 is designed for high-end enterprise workloads like your typical database so I decided to look at the latest database results. If you get a chance, then check these out for yourself at tpc.org. Amazing performance, a fraction of the cost and you can choose from multiple Vendors and Operation System combinations.
- HP Proliant DL 580 4s system delivered 634,825 tpmC at $1.10/tpmc. This compares with an equivalent POWER 6 based system at 629,159 tpmC at $2.49/tpmC

I also decided to look at how many users a Xeon 7400 based system could support in an SAP environment. For this comparison I took a slightly different approach to look at a 4s Xeon 7400 based system as compared to a 2S UltraSPARCT2 system. You may ask why I made this strange comparison, well to me a 2S UltraSPARCT2 system is a 4S system in disguise in terms of system capability, memory supported and most of all the price!

HP Proliant DL 580 4s system supported 5,155 users. This compares with an equivalent UltraSPARcT2 based system at 4,170.

Oh and a similar system with 64GB memory is about $32,000 for HP DL580 and a T5240 is about $56,000

Ok, I’ll stop doing direct comparisons now as I can understand how this could read as Intel marketing. I’m really excited by these results and wanted to share with you, please check these performance results out here at intel.com.

Here are also some links to articles that I found written about Intel Xeon 7400 offering ‘RISC-Class performance at a fraction of the cost’. Wall Street Journal, Internet News, The Register

In the next few weeks I will share some further thoughts on comparing Xeon with RISC, but in the meantime, what do you think?

Related Blog Links:

Six More Benefits of 45nm
HP Announces World Record 4-Socket TPC-C Result
IBM Announces World Record 8-Socket TPC-C Result

Previous Blog links:
So what does RISC really mean to you?

0 Comments Permalink Tags: risc, sparc, power, ultrasparct2, dunnington, intel, server_room, performance

Virtualization and Legacy Replacement - where there's risc there is risk

Posted by K_Lloyd Aug 29, 2008

I recently spoke with a large financial customer that has several hundred sparc boxes ( mostly inherited from an acquisiton). These systems are a challenge in that they are aging - some running out of available maintenance, slow, old, and the expertise in the company just doesn't extend to this architecture.

They were also very proud of there virtualized Xeon architecture where they could move vm's quickly to maximize efficiency and optimize resources. I think it is time to bring these two together.

So given 500 solaris servers:
about half of these are running enterprise applications - like Oracle(tm) - that run just great under windows or linux. Move these today.
Of the other half, most of these are - performance wise - tiny servers. You could put dozens of them - maybe all of them - in VMs on just a few large xeon servers. ( Don't forget about the phenominal virtualization perofrmance on the Xeon 7400 that Intel announced last week at IDF )

So how do I move these custom solaris sparc based physical servers into my super efficient Xeon based virtual machines?
Three ways:
1) recompile the apps for solaris 10 - which runs great in a vm on your virtualized pool
2) Use transitive quicktransit and move the binaries to Solaris 10 or Linux vms in the pool
3) Move to the windows or linux version of the software, or replace it with software that does the same business function.

Presto - 500 physical legacy servers - collapsed into a more efficient, more manageable, more modern pool of resources. What will you do with all the free space?

0 Comments Permalink Tags: virtualization, solaris, data, center, legacy, risc, refreash, modern, replace, dunnington

So what does RISC really mean to you?

Posted by EMcConnell May 14, 2008

Have you ever asked yourself that question when you are bombarded with marketing messages from multiple different companies on why choose their products vs. a competitors product?. As a non-Engineer in an engineer centric company, I certainly have thought about this several times and asked myself a very simple question - Why should I choose one architecture type over another offering?

I suppose the best place is to start at the beginning and try and decipher the acronym soup of RISC, x86 etc. I decided to use my ‘old friend’ Wikipedia http://www.wikipedia.org/ to help with this process. What I found was another alphabet soup that I could have researched for hours, but try and simplify it below. I attach my detailed definition findings at end of this blog.

Simply put, RISC (pronounced risk) is a CPU design to use simplified instructions to execute very fast thus providing higher performance. x86 is a generic term that refers to the instruction set of another CPU architecture. So basically both RISC and x86 are types of instruction sets linked to CPU architecture.

So which one should I choose?.
Call me old fashioned, but as a business guy, it always comes down to 3 basic tenets in terms of making a decision
1) I like choice and the ability to pick and choose between multiple suppliers to get the best deal to meet my needs.(and the ability to change supplier without major obstacles)
2) Performance is really important. The higher performance means that I get my work done quicker which reduces the overall cost / improves time to revenue and ultimately improves the productivity of my business
3) System cost and total cost of ownership are key decision points in today’s era which is vastly different from the ‘dot.com’ boom. It is all about managing the bottom line through good decisions around CAPEX and OPEX spending

I applied my decision criteria and quickly found out that there is not a lot of choice from a hardware and operating system perspective with RISC architecture. In fact it looks quite the opposite of choice which always concerns me, call me pro-choice if you like, but I like the ability to move around suppliers!. On the other hand I found x86 to have lots of choice with many hardware vendors to list and a range of operating systems from windows to Linux and Solaris.

Having choice out of the way, I then moved onto performance for my business and looked at published results from many hardware vendors on different websites like http://www.spec.org. what I found was that Intel based systems had a lot of leading results against architectures like SPARC from SUN or Fujitsu and POWER from IBM.

I then looked at price (and being an ex-Accountant in my past career) nearly jumped for joy when I saw that system prices were low for x86 systems compared to the comparable RISC systems.

This analysis helped me understand it better and helped simplify my decision making.

Here is a short video with a little bit more detail. I would be interested in your thoughts and have you had any similar experiences that you would like to share.