Re: Linux betas NT in TPC testing, running Oracle8

r.e.ballard_at_usa.net wrote in message <7guvu2$bi9$1_at_nnrp1.deja.com>...
>In article <m1emkwpwy5.fsf_at_inconnu.isu.edu>,
> Craig Kelley <ink_at_inconnu.isu.edu> wrote:
>> r.e.ballard_at_usa.net writes:
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>> > It isn't a true "conspiracy", but the folks who audit these results
>> > cannot accept the Linux terms as legitimate results. If one were to
>> > consider only the raw hardware costs - which could be competitively
>> > obtained for $50k-$60k and the software costs which are in the $2k
>> > range, and the mainenance contracts available from companies like
>> > Flagship ($6,000-$20,000 for 5 years) this is typical of Linux
>> > "bargain basement" environments, a total of $80k. If Linux were
>> > able to crank out 8,000 TPC/M (plausable when you compare the SCO
>> > numbers), then Linux would still be in the $10/TPC range. Just
>> > looking at one of the "low-end" NT machines, it's easy to see how
>> > Linux could generate some rediculously low $/TPC numbers. NT
>> > generates $30/TPC with it's bottom of the line systems.

NT systems are in low 20s for 4-way XEON, no one bothers to benchmark the 2-way PIII systems in TPC/C because they run out of memory before they run out of other horsepower, this would apply to LINUX as well.

>>
>> And in this day-and-age, benchmarks are becoming worthless. If they
>> were so important, nobody would even use Windows NT, Microsoft's SQL
>> Server or MySQL. People want *reasonable* solutions to their
>> problems, both in terms of performance and price. Linux only needs to
>> meet this requirement in order to satisfy the majority.
>
Thousands companies use SQL Server for database applications, so a benchmark using SQL Server is very definitely of interest to customers purchasing database systems. A 4-way XEON server running NT and SQLServer is pushing the 25K TPM under the TPC/C benchamrk, this would easily meet the database requirements of hundreds of everyday applications.

>It's rather interesting that when you Compare Linux to NT using nearly any
>metric other than training expense in the first 60 days, Linux comes up a
>clear winner. This goes beyond simple benchmarks as well.
>
> Web Server Benchmarks - Linux carries as much as 8 times the capacity
> of Windows NT. At very low levels, NT gives
> slightly better response times, but
Linux/Apache
> response time is nearly flat or linear while
NT
> deteriorates at an exponential rate.
>

Other than you're opinion, what actual real data like SPECWeb results do you have to back this claim up?

> Availability - NT Availability has improved from 95% in 1996 to nearly
>99.7% in 1999. Linux has gone from 99.98% to 99.998% this means Linux is
>down for about 5 minutes every 3 months.

Show me a singgle company anywhere in the world that will guarnatee 99.998% uptime for a LINUX server. This is completely bogus claim.

> NT is down 5 minutes per week. In
>response to Linux stability, Commercial UNIX systems are targeting 5
>minutes/year.

Hmm, seems COMPAQ, HP and UNISYS would all disagree with you about the uptime of NT, they all have packages which guarantee (and will pay you money if they fail to meet the guarantee) uptime on NT configurations well in excess of what you are quoting. There is not a single vendor who would make the same claim (and the same money back guarantee) for LINUX.

>
> Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Due partly to the lower cost of Linux,
but
>mostly due to the high reliability and "self sustaining" maintenence
>scripting, Linux has shown itself to be as much as 1/10th the cost of NT
>Servers. In the workstation environment, Linux has shown after the first
60
>days, to be 1/5 the the cost of NT. Most NT TCO studies are limited to 90
>days againts commercial UNIX systems such as Solaris, AIX, or HP_UX.
>
>
Again, point to real data as opposed to LINUX advocate data for TCO studies of LINUX, I suspect you'll be hard pressed to find any.

> Total Benefit of Ownership (TBO). Again, due to the lower cost, high
> reliability, and low management costs, Linux has been able to
> pack "more bang per buck" into it's system. A reliable NT
> configuration requires separate router, firewall, naming
service,
> web server, and database machines. Linux configurations can
easily
> fit all of these functions into a single machine and still run
> reliably.

ROTFLMAO.
>
> Scalability. NT has a "scalability wall" of about 100 concurrent users
>per machine.

Funny, I'm posting this for an NT USENET server which takes a 38K group feed and regualrly supports 250-300 simultaneous users, and that is fairly slimly confgurted (by today's standards) Pentium Pro machine.

>
> Linux has shown itself to be extremely scalable. Linux can run
> effectively on an 80386 machine with as little as 8 meg and a
20
> meg hard drive (using network support). It can be scaled up to
> Alpha, UltraSparc, or PPC G3 chips with a gigabyte of RAM and
both
> RAID in software and RAID in hardware, including multiple SCSI
and
> network cards (ethernet or ATM).
>
> Linux also supports SMP systems of up to 16 processors and can run
number

If you are going to say that LINUX scales to 16 processors, you are going to have tpo point us at some benchmarks that demonstrate this, I think you'll find that hard to do. By the same metric (i.e what the kernel can theoretcially support) NT can handle 32 processors.

--
Nik Simpson