More March Madness with Oracle Exadata

There’s a basketball play called the elbow pass. The elbow pass is a behind-the-back pass — as the ball crosses the player’s back, the player hits it with his elbow, redirecting the ball back toward the side it started on.  It is rarely used and pretty much never results in points or a win.

This morning, Oracle once again advertised on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. The ad claimed that Exadata is faster. Here is what you need to know on this one:

• The ad states “up to 20x faster queries.”   There is no data. But if we assume this is true then this could mean that Oracle may have ONE query that is faster. IBM could surpass Oracle on every other query. Sort of like if you are only good at the obscure elbow pass.
• If the European client that the claim is totally based on is so pleased with Oracle, why are they not allowing Oracle to use their name? Wow, a ghost reference.
• What system is this even being compared with?
• If Oracle’s database performance is so great on Exadata, where are the Exadata industry standard benchmarks? Suffice it to say that we’ll probably see an elbow pass before we see one of those.

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The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

technorati tags: IBM, systems, performance, Oracle, Exadata,Europe,retail,query,queries,power,benchmark,AIX,

database,machine,Wall,Street,Journal,BI,TPC-H,benchmarking

The Benchmark Games: Oracle’s New TPC-C

How does a place like Manchester, New Hampshire become the epicenter of the world these days? The big P, politics.

I think that many of us are getting tired of the circus. Lately, I don’t really care about what Mitt did to Ron, Rick’s strategy, or all the attacks on Newt. I only truly care about what the candidates stand for and what kind of leaders they would be.

Sometimes the political arena even reminds me of The Hunger Games. A deadly reality show driven by appearances, theatrics, and insane rules. Whether we’re talking about post-apocalyptic Panem or the world today, when we focus more on the game rather than what it means, that’s truly sad.

Oracle just published a new x86 TPC-C OLTP benchmark result, claiming a “world record.” And the mechanics of that claim are just plain sad.

Oracle compares their brand new benchmark result with an IBM Power result from 2007. Yes, 2007. And this very old Power result is still 1.68x the performance per core of the brand new Oracle result. Oracle also compares their new result with an IBM x3850 X5 result that is half the size of the configuration of the Oracle result — if you do the math the IBM result with DB2 is actually 1.25x greater performance per core than the Oracle result. Oracle forgets to mention anything about price performance here — probably because the Oracle result is over 1.6x more expensive than the IBM x86 result. And, if you can believe it, Oracle then proceeds to pick on a poor little HP system.(1)

How sad.

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(1) Oracle Sun Fire X4800 M2 server (8 chips/80 cores/160 threads) – 4,803,718 tpmC, US$.98/tpmC, available 06/26/12. IBM Power 570 server (8 chips/16 cores/32 threads) -1,616,162 tpmC, US$3.54 /tpmC, available 11/21/2007. IBM x3850 X5 (4 chips/40 cores/80 threads) – 3,014,684 tpmC, US$.59/tpmC, available 09/22/11. HP ProLiant DL580 G7 (4 chips/32 cores/64 threads), 1,807,347 tpmC, US$.49/tpmC, available 10/15/10. Results as of 1/17/12. Source: http://www.tpc.org .
TPC-C ,TPC-H, and TPC-E are trademarks of the Transaction Performance Processing Council (TPPC).

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

technorati tags: IBM, systems, performance, Sun, X4800,TPC-C,Oracle,ProLiant,X5,M2,benchmark,x86,x3850,HP,DL580,E7-8870,G7,benchmarking

I Want to Buy a Zoo, Not an Oracle System

Most people don’t think about going to the zoo in the middle of winter. But it’s actually the very best time to go.

No crowds, the zebra fried oreo shacks are closed, and the animals are at their very best. And, after all, isn’t that what it’s really all about?

Last week, I had a spectacular visit. The polar bears were playing with dead Christmas trees, the seals and sea lions were playing with their rubber balls, and the grizzly cubs were playing with themselves.

And then there’s the Rainforest. Imagine stepping from a cold snowy Cleveland day into a zoological tropical paradise. Sort of like the feeling you get when the plane doors open, you get your carry-on from the overhead, and you step off in Miami. My rainforest favorites are the tropical monkeys, the river otters, and, of course, the anteaters. But alas, last week, the anteaters were still, lying on their sides, hiding behind a crop of rocks.

And that’s how I’ve been feeling lately about Oracle.

See what’s hiding behind the Oracle SPARC SuperCluster and Exadata systems. “Must buy” storage server software.

See what’s hiding behind that pricing in the Oracle benchmark. Artificially low support costs.

See what’s hiding behind Oracle’s “Itanium roadmap.” An investigation into Oracle’s “potentially abusive” practices.

What else do YOU think Oracle is hiding? All thoughts welcome.

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Oracle SPARC T4-4 server (4 sockets/32 cores/256 threads) 205,792 QphH@3000GB, $4.10/QphH@3000GB, available 5/31/12.
Source: http://www.tpc.org. Results current as of 1/11/12.
TPC-C ,TPC-H, and TPC-E are trademarks of the Transaction Performance Processing Council (TPPC).

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

technorati tags: IBM, systems, performance, Sun, SPARC,TPC-H,Oracle,11g,SuperCluster,T4-4,benchmark,Itanium,Autorite,HP,pricing,memory,Exadata,benchmarking

Cisco/Oracle Super Saturday TPC-C

So now they’re trying to put another one over on us. “Super Saturday” for retailers, where you shop till you drop the Saturday before Christmas, has been officially moved to tomorrow, one week early. To give us more sales and more time to shop until we drop. I’m just getting tired of being told that I should shop on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Super Saturday, or any other time. It’s sort of like the greeting card companies saying let’s make a new holiday to celebrate your dog.

And that’s how I’m feeling lately being told about the latest Oracle and Cisco benchmark claims on the newest TPC-C OLTP benchmark result. Here are the 3 things you need to know:

• The Benchmark: Oracle didn’t even run this benchmark. And they didn’t even run it on their own hardware.
• The Performance: Note the special pricey Violin memory arrays that Cisco/Oracle used. And even an IBM result from over a year and a half ago on this benchmark is 70% better performance per core than this result.(1)
• The Pricing: Cisco and Oracle both take advantage of Super Saturday pricing methods in these results. Cisco shows a 57% “large purchase discount” for hardware. Pricing for Oracle 11g is for the limited standard edition. And very minimal support is included.

I know that both American Greetings and my black lab would really like that idea for the new holiday to celebrate your dog. I already bought my lab a large braided rawhide with red and green bows. So you know they have me.

Happy Holidays!

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(1) An 8-core IBM Power 780 (2 chips, 32 threads) with IBM DB2 9.5 is the best 8-core system (1,200,011 tpmC, $.69/tpmC, configuration available 10/13/10) vs. Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Standard Edition One and Oracle Linux on Cisco UCS c250 M2 Extended-Memory Server, 1,053,100 tpmC, $0.58/tpmC, available 12/7/2011.
Source: http://www.tpc.org. Results current as of 12/16/11.
TPC-C ,TPC-H, and TPC-E are trademarks of the Transaction Performance Processing Council (TPPC).

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

technorati tags: IBM, systems, performance, Sun, Cisco,TPC-C,Oracle,11g,UCS,POWER7,benchmark,C250,standard,Linux,extended,memory,OLTP,benchmarking

All I Want for Christmas is a Good T4 Benchmark

I read an article the other day about a Santa school where aspiring Santas go to learn about how to be Santa Claus. Important concepts like how to comb your beard, how to make that amazing Ho Ho Ho, and where to properly keep your hands when a kid is on your lap.

In this economy one of the new lessons that the Santa school offers is on how to reduce kids’ expectations. Santa’s workshop has too many toys to produce Johnny, Santa can’t fit everything into his sack, a bunch of elves got sick.

Oracle announced a new TPC-H BI 3TB benchmark result today on the Oracle SPARC T4-4 server. Expectations surely need to be reduced on this one because here’s what you need to know:

• Oracle once again used an embarrassing amount of storage to run this benchmark — almost three times the amount of storage that IBM used.(1)
• Oracle once again used 128 query streams for this benchmark compared with IBM’s 8. TPC-H has a limited number of query variations; so when you run a lot of streams, you have a high probability that the same queries will be requested more than once. Oracle is greatly increasing the probability that they will have the results of the queries stored in their cache — which may not be representative of how their product would perform in a truly ad hoc query environment.
• Oracle once again published a benchmark where the configuration isn’t even available — until May 31, 2012.
• Oracle once again included extremely minimal support in their pricing. Does $2300 a year sound like what you are paying for software “incident server support” . . . ?

 

 

The most important lesson for Santas — Never promise anything.

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(1)IBM POWER 780 (8 sockets/32 cores/128 threads) 192,001 QphH@3000GB, $6.37/QphH@3000GB, available 11/30/11, 15,610 GB storage. Oracle SPARC T4-4 server (4 sockets/32 cores/256 threads) 205,792 QphH@3000GB, $4.10/QphH@3000GB, available 5/31/12, 45,600 GB storage.
Source: http://www.tpc.org. Results current as of 11/30/11.
TPC-C ,TPC-H, and TPC-E are trademarks of the Transaction Performance Processing Council (TPPC).

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

technorati tags: IBM, systems, performance, Sun, 3TB,TPC-H,SPARC,Oracle,T4,POWER7,benchmark,Solaris,11g,Java,Supercluster,T4-4,BI,benchmarking

Hey Oracle, TPC-H Shouldn’t be a Cakewalk

Here in the northern hemisphere, tis the season of pumpkins and Fall Festivals. One of my favorite festival events just has to be the Cakewalk. Where can you play a game, win an amazing cake, and ensure a great dessert without even having to turn the oven on ?

One of the ways that I’ve made sure to win one of the cakes is to buy a lot of tickets. If I get my friends to play on my behalf, I’ve really ensured that the probability that I’ll win is high. Disclosure: I do feel guilty when I do this and a little kid doesn’t win.

And that’s what we are seeing with Oracle TPC-H results. Oracle’s latest BI benchmark result was announced last week on the new SPARC T4-4. Besides the high load time, unrealistically low maintenance coverage, and huge amount of storage needed, take a look at the queries run. Two facts stand out.

The query execution times are incredibly variable — for the same exact query. As an example, Query 6 had a maximum of 4140.2 — and a minimum of only 5.1 !

The number of streams of queries was 128. Oracle ran 128 times, IBM only 9. (1)

What does this mean? My colleague Juan asked me this just yesterday.

TPC-H has a limited number of query variations; so when you run a lot of streams, you have a high probability that the same queries will be requested more than once. Oracle is greatly increasing the probability that they will have the results of the queries stored in their cache — which may not be representative of how their product would perform in a truly ad hoc query environment.

Getting results this way, it’s a piece of cake.

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(1)SPARC T4-4 server (4 sockets/32 cores/256 threads) 201,487 QphH@1000GB, $4.60/QphH@1000GB, available 10/30/11. IBM POWER 780 Model 9179-MHB server (8 sockets/32 cores/128 threads) 164,747.2 QphH@1000GB, $6.85/QphH@1000GB, available 3/31/11.
Sources: http://www.spec.org, http://www.tpc.org. Results current as of 10/5/11.

TPC-C ,TPC-H, and TPC-E are trademarks of the Transaction Performance Processing Council (TPPC).

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

technorati tags: IBM, systems, performance, BI, TPC,TPC-H,SPARC,Oracle,T4,POWER7,benchmark,Solaris,11g,11g,Supercluster,T4-4,cache,benchmarking

Gaga over POWER7

When you do something provocative, like wear a dress made of meat or advertise on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, you better know what you are doing.

Oracle today ran an ad that claims that the new SPARC Supercluster runs Oracle and Java twice as fast as the IBM Power 795. Let’s take a look at this claim.

None, that’s right none, of the benchmarks announced with SPARC T4 were run with the Supercluster configuration. So there really are no real data points for this Oracle system.

The footnote for the ad states that the claim is based on Oracle internal testing plus some sort of available information about the Power 795. Pricing is certainly not substantiated. How can you even do the math?

The IBM Power 795 is #1 in real world industry standard published benchmarks. As an example, real data shows that the IBM Power 795 is 3.9 times the performance of the Oracle/Sun M9000 for the SAP SD 2-tier benchmark, which we do have data for.(1)

If you’re going to be on the front page of a newspaper or have three heads on the cover of a magazine, make sure you know what you are doing.

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(1) IBM Power 795 on two-tier SAP SD standard application benchmark running SAP enhancement package 4 for the SAP ERP 6.0 application (Unicode): 32 processors / 256 cores / 1,024 threads, POWER7, 4.0 GHz, 126,063 SAP SD benchmark users, 0.98 seconds dialog response time, 96 percent CPU utilization running AIX® 7.1 and DB2® 9.7. Certification #2010046 vs. SUN M9000 on the two-tier SAP SD standard application benchmark running SAP enhancement package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode): 64 processors / 256 cores / 512 threads, 32,000 SAP SD benchmark users, SPARC64 VII, 2.88 GHz, Solaris 10, Oracle 10g , cert# 2009046
Sources: http://www.sap.com/benchmark. Results current as of 9/29/11.

SAP, mySAP and other SAP product and service names mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world.

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

technorati tags: IBM, systems, performance, 795, SPECjEnterprise,TPC-H,SPARC,Oracle,T4,POWER7,benchmark,Solaris,11g,Java,Supercluster,T4-4,BI,benchmarking

SPARC T4 to the core

Yesterday I went apple picking in rural Ohio. That makes sense.

It’s not something that most people associate with California even though California is actually one of the top apple-producing states. But it works rather well for this SPARC analysis.

I usually love apple picking – with the doomed sun of autumn, the crunchy sweetness of the fruit, the dog wolfing down the cores. But there were certain aspects of my trip yesterday that were plainly unimpressive.

Sort of like the latest SPARC T4 benchmark results announced by Oracle today:

Oracle claimed nine T4 world records. 7 of the 9 are not industry standard benchmarks but Oracle’s own benchmarks, most based on internal testing. Sort of like when we called the orchard and they said that many varieties were available for picking. When we got there, only a few could really be picked. Where was that renowned low hanging fruit?

Some Oracle claims compared the new T4 results with previous benchmark versions, never a good idea. Like encouraging your kids to climb on the fruit-bearing trees. Some results compared Oracle to Oracle. If you read carefully, some didn’t compare to anything.

Oracle claimed a “generational increase in performance” over previous versions. Note that this claim (which has no published benchmarks behind it) focuses on single threaded applications – how many of those do you have? And you can easily get a 5x improvement when you start from a very very small seed.

Oracle’s SPECjEnterprise2010 Java T4 benchmark result, which was highlighted, needed four times the number of app nodes, twice the number of cores, almost four times the amount of memory and significantly more storage than the IBM POWER7 result.(1) Oracle’s price performance and space metric claims (which are not even official benchmark metrics) were calculated only for the application tier of this benchmark, basically ignoring the all important database server, software and storage. Sort of like eating only the pulp of the apple and ignoring all the vitamins in the skin.

Oracle’s T4 TPC-H 1TB BI benchmark result, another benchmark which was highlighted, actually had a longer load time than the IBM result from last year. Oracle’s storage use was ludicrous, like the number of apples my Labrador ended up eating; Oracle’s total storage needed to the database size ratio was 10.80 compared to the IBM value of 3.97. Oracle needed 128 streams of queries, IBM only 9. And make sure to note the extremely low and unrealistic Oracle maintenance costs used to get to the price performance number.(2)

The range and results of these benchmarks are ultimately disappointing. Instead of making a wonderful pie and apple rings last night, we swept up chips of dried orchard mud in the dark.

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(1)Oracle WebLogic Server 11g and Oracle Database 11g Release 2 with Oracle Real Application Clusters and Oracle Solaris running on a four-node SPARC T4-4 cluster, each system with four SPARC T4 3GHz processors, (128 core app server, 64 core db server), 40,104.86 SPECjEnterprise2010 EjOPS vs. WebSphere Application Server V7 on IBM Power 780 and DB2 on IBM Power 750 Express, (64 core app server, 32 core db server), 16,646.34 SPECjEnterprise2010 EjOPS.
(2)SPARC T4-4 server (4 sockets/32 cores/256 threads) 201,487 QphH@1000GB, $4.60/QphH@1000GB, available 10/30/11. IBM POWER 780 Model 9179-MHB server (8 sockets/32 cores/128 threads) 164,747.2 QphH@1000GB, $6.85/QphH@1000GB, available 3/31/11.
Sources: http://www.spec.org, http://www.tpc.org. Results current as of 9/26/11.

SPEC, SPECint, SPECfp, SPECjbb, SPECweb, SPECjAppServer, SPECjEnterprise, SPECjvm, SPECvirt, SPECompM, SPECompL, SPECsfs, SPECpower, SPEC MPI and SPECpower_ssj are trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC).

TPC-C ,TPC-H, and TPC-E are trademarks of the Transaction Performance Processing Council (TPPC).

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

technorati tags: IBM, systems, performance, SPEC, SPECjEnterprise,TPC-H,SPARC,Oracle,T4,POWER7,benchmark,Solaris,11g,Java,Supercluster,T4-4,BI,benchmarking

Larry’s Guide to Announcing a New Product

Larry’s Guide to Announcing a New Product

Create a press release to say you will soon “share” something new with the rest of the world.

Announce that you don’t care if a certain part of your company’s business goes to zero – then in the same week launch a product based on that hardware.

Do not call your product anything that has the word “mini” in it.

Price the product so that it looks incredibly attractive – make sure not to include the huge cost of your database software in the price.

And by all means, absolutely under no circumstances announce any performance data, proof points, or benchmarks with your product announcement.

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The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

technorati tags: IBM, systems, performance, Oracle, database,appliance,Sun,X5675,Xeon,mini,benchmark,Exadata,11g,RAC,Linux,Intel,GbE,benchmarking

Old Hardware, Older Benchmarks

I spent most of this past weekend looking at hardware.

Hardware on furniture, that is. Specifically, drawer pull hardware on furniture. And when it comes to drawer pull hardware on furniture, I like old. I looked at silver, satin nickel, flat black, even something called brushed English gold — but nothing could beat the old antique look of oil rubbed bronze.

With technology, of course, that’s a different story. But you would never know that with some of the news going around lately.

Oracle just published an M9000 with 11g result on the SAP Assemble-to-Order (ATO) Standard Application Benchmark. When I first read the press release, I thought – this result surely must be impressive – it is “record-breaking,” “highest score ever posted,” “beats all.” And then I started thinking. When was the last time I had seen a result on this benchmark? When was the last time I had heard anyone even talking about this benchmark? I know that I used to include it in some of my charts – but all I could remember was that that was when I lived in my old house.

I checked the SAP site and saw that Fujitsu had published a couple of results, the most recent results —- in 2003.

The only thing possibly more dated in technology this week than Oracle’s benchmark is HP’s Anniversary Calculator.

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(1)Two-tier SAP ATO standard application benchmark (SPARC Enterprise M9000 Server, 64 processors, 3.0 GHz, 256 cores and 512 threads running Oracle Database 11g Release 2 and Oracle Solaris 10) 206,360 fully business processed assembly orders per hour. Certification number 2011033.

Source: http://www.sap.com/benchmark. Results current as of 9/6/11.

SAP, mySAP and other SAP product and service names mentioned herein as well as their respective
logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all
over the world.

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

technorati tags: IBM, systems, performance, SPARC, ATO,Oracle,11g,Solaris,SAP,M9000,Assemble,Order,HP,calculator,record,Enterprise,database,benchmark,benchmarking