Re: Smoke and Mirrors anyone?
@Phil 4.
"No SPEC CPU2006 benchmarks released on SPARC T4 because Oracle is focused on developing SPARC processors for systems to accelerate commercial software, not HPC, not games."
Why have they then been releasing numbers for every previous generation of the SPARC processors up to and including the T3 ? Oracle (who took over SUN's SPEC license's) has license nr. 6.
And other vendors have not been shy of giving the public the numbers they need. I remember machines like the HP N4000 with PA-RISC 8600 absolutely hammering for example the IBM M80 with RS64 processors.
Soo..
Now the T4 was IMHO a great feat of engineering, it's basically the first real general usable processors of the T processors. And if you've ever read for example the Hotchips presentations of the Processor, then you'll see that the Oracle processor people actually use relative specint/fp to relate the T4 to the T3.
http://www.hotchips.org/wp-content/uploads/hc_archives/hc23/HC23.19.7-Server/HC23.19.731-T4-Golla-Oracle-hotchips_corrected.pdf
Lets just quote one of the slides:
Singlethread performance
• Estimate ~5X S2’s SPECint2006* performance
•Estimate ~7X S2’s SPECfp2006* performance
Throughput performance
•~2X S2’s per thread throughput performance
The real clue about why Oracle haven't released much numbers on the T4 is the last sentence here... which implies that the overall chip throughput of the T4.. is roughly the same as the T3.
Again which is a great feat as Oracle managed to remove some of the stupidity of the T processor line, by allowing for relative good single threaded throughput in the T4.
Or .. well just look at slide 10.. here it is from the horses own mouth.. the throughput of the T4 is the same as the T3. So we are talking in the range of 666 on specintrate for a 4 socket system. Kind of a drag when the competitions lowest clocked 4 socket system is doing 1000+, and your own brand spanking new x86 systems are doing 700 .. on 2 sockets. The real problem here is that this does not fit into Larrys marketing machine.
Again the data is from the horses own mouth. What pisses people like me and others off is that that the lack of data makes my job harder. I have to write up the standards and strategy for my company's usage of SPARC, Itanium and Power systems. And the lack of data and facts makes my job harder. Or even worse will mean that the guys who has to use the standards I make will get their sizing data wrong.
Now we can agree upon criticising and putting down specCPU2006, it has become a shitty benchmark.. kind of broken some would say but it's there and people use it, even your own beloved Oracle uses it.
As for the world records.. have you been smoking mushrooms ?
Now do I really have to go through them all and show you how crap they are ?
Lets look at
http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/performance-scalability/sun-sparc-enterprise-t-servers-078532.html
then...
SPARC T4-4 Server Sets First World Record on PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 Benchmark.
Again if you investigate the benchmark.. it's the only... ONLY 9.1 submission.
SPARC T4-4 Server Delivers Best Four-Processor Result on TPC-H Benchmark at 3 TB Scale Factor
It's the only 4 processor system who has a submission. So ofcause it's the fastest 4 processor system, is it the fastest ? No bloody way,
SPARC T4-4 Server with Sun FlashFire Technology Delivers Record Performance on PeopleSoft Enterprise Payroll 9.1
3 submissions... M5000, z10 mainframe and then the T4-4 (not really a big field to compete in)
Here they actually manage to beat a mainframe by roughly a factor of 2. But.. the mainframe have a virtual machine with 8 cores for the benchmark + 1 support processor, 24 GB of RAM and then a traditional disk storage system.
The T4-4 has 32 cores 256GB of RAM and flash disks.
So .. the native database of the application and the native language format, 3 times the cores, 10 times the RAM and flash disks and a bare metal installation. Geee... guess mainframes are kind of tough anyway ?
Oracle’s SPARC T4-4 Server with Oracle Database 11g Beats Itanium and POWER7-based Systems on TPC-H Benchmark at 1 TB Scale Factor
Again it is by far not the fastest result, not even using Oracle (which is an HP result).. so it's not a bloody record.
SPARC T4-Based Highly Scalable Solution Posts New World Record on SPECjEnterprise2010 Benchmark
This is actually the first record that they have.. on a little obscure spec benchmark with 29 submissions, they actually managed to win one. by throwing a shitload of hardware after this benchmark, as others also have stated here.
SPARC T4 Server Delivers Outstanding Performance on Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g
To deliver outstanding performance does not make it a world record. And I've searched and searched.. and the only other machine I can find that have made this benchmark is the T5440.. So.. a benchmark only run by Oracle on Oracle hardware beats an older version of the machine... is this a world record ? Technically.... i guess it is ... but honestly ? You've gotta be kidding, how can they post statements like this and not feel ashamed ?
SPARC T4-2 Server Achieves World Record on Oracle E-Business Suite R12 Benchmark
Again in this particular category... the only ... submissions made.. are by Oracle. So again in a field where you are the only one that have submitted a result.. on a benchmark you make yourself.. you hold the world record... HOW NICE... get real.
SPARC T4-2 Server Achieves World Record Results on PeopleSoft Enterprise Financials 9.1 Benchmark
Again... the T4-2 is the only... ONLY server to ever submit a 9.1 benchmark.. there are some M series machines also Oracle on the version 9 of the benchmark.. but again.. in a field where you are the only one to participate you win and set a world record... it's ridicilous.. do you see the pattern ?
SPARC T4-2 Server Achieves Best Single-System JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Benchmark
This one is also funny.. cause they actually get creamed by an IBM iSeries machine again with internal disks versus flash, and 0.17 second response time versus "Sub second" for the T4.
Again Oracle manage to say that they win the benchmark by saying "78% more Users/rack unit than the IBM Power 770 server. " Man that made me chuckle... user per rack unit... *cackle*
SPARC T4 Servers Set World Record on Siebel CRM 8.1.1.4 Benchmark
Again here the results are few.. but a host of T4 systems with 1.5-2 times the processors (depending on the role in the benchmark) 1.5-2 times the memory, flash disk versus traditional disks, 7 times the response time manages to do 8000 more users than a setup of POWER servers, that does not run at full utilization. 20-80% depending on role in the benchmark.
It's really not impressive.. but sure you can call it a world record.. .but.. again.
SPARC T4-2 Server Tops Industry-Standard, General-Purpose Java Benchmark
This is SpecJVM2008.. it's a benchmark for ... ... PC's. The only real machine that you can compare the T4 benchmark results with is an ... 2009 Apple.. iMAC. And it does 50 with 1 chip and 2 cores, versus 450 for the T4-2 with 16 cores and a version of java that is 8 generations later than the iMac.
Sooooooooo... it's a world record that you beat a 3 year old iMac running an old java version with 10% per core ?
Do you know how ridiculous that makes your statement:
"Oracle has published over 14 #1 world record benchmarks on the SPARC T4"
Oracle Communications ASAP enables Service Activation of over 150 Million Mobile Subscribers on Oracle's Newest SPARC T4-2 Server
Ehh.. this is an internal Oracle benchmark.. it's very hard to dig up anything on this benchmark.. but one statement from a T3 "benchmark test" sprung to mind:
"Oracle used internally developed cryptography performance tests to measure performance."... come one.. this is not a industry benchmark.. it's.. a ridiculous claim.
SPARC T4-2 Servers Deliver New World Record on Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Benchmark with Interactive and Batch Components
Here we have a host of 2xT4-2 and a T4-1 and a Flash array against a single lille 8 core IBM i POWER7 machine with some internal disks. I mean.. come on there isn't even a site where you can compare benchmark results. IT's x10 the RAM x5 the cores and flash storage versus internal SAS disks. Come on... it's laughable.
Again all these Oracle product benchmarks are not really industry standard benchmarks.. They are more POC benchmarks.. to show that the solution can be done.
Now do you understand why people think that Oracle is full of it ?
It is quite understandable, when you do the research, why people think Oracle is full of it.
// Jesper