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Benchmarks for Linux Applications on S/390 Zseries?

Posted by Cliff on from the lies-statistics-and-benchmarks dept.

qaseem asks: "I am looking for benchmark results of various applications (DB, WebAS, mail, etc.) on Linux on the S/390 mainframe. I am also looking for tools to stress test these applications when installed in the S/390 Linux partition. I was wondering if anyone has seen such information or tried such tools. On a side note I am also interested in finding a way to relate the MIPS speed of the S/390 to the world of MHz or GHz on other platforms."

5 of 16 comments (clear)

  1. It is all about memory bandwidth... by affegott · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You won't learn too much when you compare MHz to MIPS with an S/390. They are fairly slow, but they do have a TON of memory bandwidth and very fast RAM. At my school we still do mainframe asm programming, and it was pretty clear that machine could move memory like crazy.

    DB apps and the like should run nice and fast... makes sense... that is the reason S/390's still exist.

    1. Re:It is all about memory bandwidth... by Detritus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They also have I/O channel controllers, which are like simple processors dedicated to I/O related tasks that can run user-specified programs. This takes some of the load off the main processor. The main processor doesn't have to do the bit fiddling needed in PC device drivers.

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  2. Probably the wrong question... by loony · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Everyone knows that mainframes can be mighty fast when running OS/390 apps... the better question would be, how well does the zSeries Linux take advantage of IOPs and stuff like that... If it does, it should fly - if it doesnt, then you're probably better of running DB2 or something on the mainframe and have a couple of intel based linux boxes in front doing the rest of the work (webservers, ...) DOes anyone know if Linux on the zSeries takes advantages of the mainframe architecture?

    1. Re:Probably the wrong question... by Zurk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      yep it does. to give you some rough numbers (these are VERY ROUGH)....
      0.8 to 1 Mainframe MIPS for a Pentium 200.
      10 Mainframe MIPS or more for a dual CPU gigahertz class Pentium-iii box.
      IO Rates of 50 EXCP/second for an average PC disk I/O subsystem.
      IO rates of over 500 EXCP/second for an average PC RAID array (hardware).

      put these numbers and extrapolate to give you the mainframe equivalent to a PC.

    2. Re:Probably the wrong question... by Qaseem · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Could you tell me what is your source for these numbers.

      Thanks

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