Re: Benchmarks

Joe Halpin writes:

>My company has been going through a process of evaluating Unix servers
>which will be used to run a moderately large Oracle database system. The
>time for a decision is drawing near, and there is still considerable
>anxiety about it. Most of that anxiety revolves around the available
>benchmarks for the servers, and how to estimate their meaning.

One thing you might want to find out about the benchmark numbers you are looking at is whether or not there was a transaction processing monitor used when taking the measurements. Among other things TP monitors can be used to multiplex end user connections into a database, thereby increasing the throughput (tps) of the database. Frequently, database benchmarks are performed using a TP monitor. If you are not planning on using a TP monitor, then this will be one of many factors that could cause the performance you see to be different from what is reported in the benchmarks, i.e. your gas mileage may vary.

In case you want a little more background on the TPC benchmarks, they are benchmarks defined by the Transaction Processing Council (TPC). The TPC has defined three benchmarks:

• TPC-A which is a single application benchmark. It simulates a network of bank tellers doing deposits and withdrawals
• TPC-B which tests the speed at which a database and CPU together can perform
• TPC-C which covers a mixed transaction workload build around a typcial order-entry application

A fourth benchmark, TPC-D covering decision support is also being developed.

The TPC-C benchmarks are much more difficult to carry out than the TPC-A benchmarks, but often provide a closer approximation of the performance you will see. In general TPC-A and TPC-B measurements are reported as transactions per second and TPC-C is reported as transactions per minute.

Please let me know if you would like more information on TP monitors in general or on Transarc's Encina Monitor. Good luck with your server selection.

Regards,

Janet Johnston
Transarc Received on Thu Aug 25 1994 - 15:16:54 CEST