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HP Publishs First Linux TPC-C Benchmarks
The first ever official TPC-C benchmark on a Linux system has been published.
This was run on a cluster of 32 HP servers with Intel Xeon CPUs, running Redhat Linux and Oracle RDBMS. The system had over 18 terabytes of storage, and cost over 2 million US dollars. Performance was higher than a similar system running on MS Windows.
On the other hand, the difference in performance is 17.21 vs. 18.46, i.e. approximately 6%. I think that the result is inconclusive (except that Linux can complete in this area at all).
Linux cluster:
Windows cluster:
Note that the number of clients in the windows tests is higher 24 instead of 16), with smaller CPU's. Also, the server's aren't identical.
Besides from the small differences in setup, it's plain that hardware-costs greatly outnumber software costs. Yeah, linux has a small bit more performance (less than 1%) for a bit lower price (6%) but these aren't real shocking numbers. Of course, I'll get flamed for not bashing microsoft, but the difference really isn't that big.
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If code was hard to write, it should be hard to read
As many other people have pointed out, the system configuration was vastly different despite being 'similar' - yes, I want to see Linux out perform Windows but I would rather see it run on identical systems! When benchmarks are weighted like this, it just makes Linux look like the inferior product which is not the kind of image it should be getting for itself!
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
There was a followup message on the lkml from hp discussing how these numbers can improved even further, you can see it at http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=103 237327405644&w=2
The reason to use Linux is all aspects of its openness and compatibility with other systems. With Linux, you aren't locked into a single vendor. You use tools and APIs that have been around for nearly two decades and are available, in multiple implementations, from dozens of vendors. And you control how you upgrade, when you upgrade, and what path you follow with the software. And if you don't like Linux anymore, you can switch to any of a dozen other, compatible platforms.
With Windows, you are locked into a single, proprietary implementation and Microsoft has you by the proverbial precious body parts; there is no other vendor you can get a compatible implementation of Windows or all the Windows libraries from. Every couple of years, Microsoft completely changes their computing paradigms to ape what they perceive is a threat from some other company, and when the threat is gone, they just drop the initiative and move on to the next thing.
You can get stability buy paying a premium to a company like IBM, which is committed to providing it, or through open systems available from multiple vendors or open source, where you control your future. But building a large, long-lived infrastructure on Microsoft platforms is a costly folly--the company has proven that they will change approach every couple of years and that they will force their customers to move along.
Ok.. I may get myself in some trouble here... Please be kind.. Red Hat Advanced Server is the first version of Linux to meet all the TPC requirements and provide the performance level of this benchmark. Numerous open source performance technologies were incorporated, without which, the performance would be significantly below 100,000 tpmC. The 7x24 - 4-hour response, 3 year SW and HW maintenance is also required. The TPC audit (done by a certified TPC auditor on-site) requires the demonstration of a full system crash, as well as a single node, without losing a single committed transaction. The audit for TPC benchmarks take many days... I hope the Linux community doesn't miss the point that the TPC benchmarks are the toughest benchmarks to run and pass the audit. 138K tpmC will run 95% of the OLTP business environments today. This publication provides input to the many large corporations looking more closely at Linux in the "bet your business" application areas (databases). Although I agree that the absolute numbers of performance and price/performance may not be applicable directly to many real customer applications, it is a very fair environment (level playing field) to compare HW and SW performance and price/performance. This, IMHO, is a significant step forward for Linux in the enterprise.