Re: Linux betas NT in TPC testing, running Oracle8

In article <tScWBPXn#GA.142_at_pet.hiwaay.net>, "nik" <ndsimpso_at_ingr.com> writes:
>
>r.e.ballard_at_usa.net wrote in message <7heu86$eq6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>>>
I wrote:
>>> Try looking at:
>>> http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/news/0,4153,401970,00.html
>>>
>>> This is a ZDNet comparison of NT, Netware,
>>> Linux and Solaris on as near
>>> as possible the same hardware.
>>
>>But not necessarily the same operating conditions. If default
>>configurations are used, Linux would be running CGI (fork/exec) while
>>NT runs in threads. A comparable test would be to use apache modules,
>>which run fork but don't then exec.

But if you had taken the time to look at the benchmark at the URL I gave you you would have seen that the WebBench test in question was a test of static page serving, here's a quote from the page:

	For our static WebBench test (see benchmark chart, below) we
	took extreme care to ensure that all the payload data was held in
	RAM and that disk subsytems were not hit during the tests.

(Chart URL: http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/graphics/0510solarisbm.gif)

The chart text mentions upgrades to 2.2.7 of the Linux kernel and additional patches to try and squeeze out extra performance - hardly a default configuration.

The chart is well worth looking at if you haven't already. Linux hits its request per second limit at around 30 clients, Netware at around 40, NT is finally slowing down at the edge of the graph around 60 and Solaris is still climbing at that client level.

>Hmm, in a previous post you claimed that the seperate process fork/exec
>model of LINUX was vastly superior to the multi-threaded model of NT. Now
>when a benchmark actually put this to the test you want to claim that the NT
>machine had an advantage because it was using threads, looks like you want
>to have your cake and eat it.

>>This would make sense. Solaris doesn't do write-behind, which means
>>that updates to the directories, inodes, and allocation tables must be
>>completed in real-time. A cached update takes about 200 microseconds,
>>the physical update takes about 75 milliseconds. In the real world,
>>Sun systems are usually set up with RAID drives that have as much as 16
>>megabytes of cache. If the power fails, the RAID drive flushes cache
>>immediately.

Not usually. Most RAID caches are backed up by battery power. When the power fails the battery holds the data which is updated when the array powers back up again.

-- 
Phillip Fayers, SunAdmin/Support/Programming/Postmaster/Webmaster(TM)
Dept of Physics & Astronomy, University of Wales, College of Cardiff.
P.Fayers_at_astro.cf.ac.uk     Attribute these comments to me, not UWCC.