Migrating Oracle 9iBased Sun Servers to Dell Servers Running Windows 2000 Server

Part 3: Dell PowerEdge 2650 with Windows 2000 Server

Enterprise Systems Group (ESG)

Dell White Paper

By Todd Muirhead and Dave Jaffe
todd_muirhead@dell.com dave_jaffe@dell.com

February 2003

Contents
Section 1.......................................................................................3 Executive Summary.......................................................................3 Executive Summary.......................................................................3 Section 2.......................................................................................4 Introduction..................................................................................4 Introduction..................................................................................4 Section 3.......................................................................................5 The Database Servers....................................................................5 The Database Servers....................................................................5 The Hardware..........................................................................5 Section 4.......................................................................................7 The Database Software..................................................................7 The Database Software..................................................................7 Oracle9i..................................................................................7 The Queries.............................................................................8 Migrating the Database...........................................................8 Section 5.......................................................................................9 The Tests......................................................................................9 The Tests......................................................................................9 Section 6.....................................................................................10 Conclusions.................................................................................10 Conclusions.................................................................................10 Table 1: Database Server Comparison: PowerEdge 2650 vs. Sun Fire V480.............................................................................................5 Table 2: Oracle Parameters............................................................7 Table 3: Test Results......................................................................9

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1
Oracle9i data mining performance was studied using the Dell PowerEdge 2650 with dual 2.8 GHz Xeon processors, running Windows 2000 Server, and the Sun FireTM V480 from Sun Microsystems, Inc. with four 900 MHz UltraSPARC III processors, running Solaris 9.0. A database of baseball statistics was built on the Sun database server and easily migrated to the Dell server. A set of eight intensive queries was developed and run against this database on both servers. The Dell PowerEdge 2650 completed the eight queries in an average time of 18.26 seconds, 42% faster than the Sun FireV480s 25.85 seconds. The Dell system tested was 83% less expensive than the Sun system, giving Dell an overall price/performance advantage of 8.17X.

Executive Summary

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2
In two previous papers (Migrating Oracle9i - Based Sun Servers to Dell Servers Running Linux Part 1, and Migrating Oracle 9i Based Sun Servers to Dell Servers Running Linux Part 2 at http://www.dell.com/us/en/esg/topics/products_oracle_papers_pedge_s oftware_oracle_papers.htm) we conducted studies showing that Dell PowerEdge 6450, 8450, and 6650 Servers running Red Hat Linux outperformed comparably equipped Sun Enterprise 4500 and V480 servers while also costing significantly less. This resulted in the Dell servers enjoying a significant price/performance advantage over the Sun Servers. Both studies used the same baseball statistics database and the same set of eight complex queries to demonstrate the migration from Sun to Dell and provide a performance comparison. The Sun and Dell servers were equipped and configured as equally as possible and the eight queries were run in parallel on each system. The queries used Oracle analytical features to answer questions such as who had the best five straight years in home runs, batting average, earned run average, etc. In the first study we found that a Dell PowerEdge 6450 with four 700 MHz Xeon processors was 69% faster and 85% less expensive than a comparably equipped Sun Enterprise 4500 machine with four 450 MHz UltraSPARC II processors. The second study compared the Dell PowerEdge 6650 with four 2.0 Ghz Xeon MP processors and a SunFire V480 with four 900 Mhz UltraSPARC III processors. In this study the Dell PowerEdge 6650 achieved a performance advantage of 89% faster while costing $20,000 less than the fastest SunFire V480. In this study we compared a Dell PowerEdge sever running Microsoft Windows against the same SunFire V480 data that was used in the previous study. The Dell PowerEdge 2650 was configured with dual 2.8 Ghz Xeon Processors and 4 GB of memory. A set of eight complex baseball queries was run against the same baseball statistics database on both servers. The Dell PowerEdge 2650 outperformed the SunFire V480 even though the PowerEdge 2650 had two processors and the SunFire V480 had four. The PowerEdge 2650 was also 83% less expensive than the SunFire V480 resulting in a price/performance advantage of 8.17X.

Introduction

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3
The Sun server was a Sun Fire V480 running the December 2002 version of Solaris 9.0. The V480 used four 64-bit UltraSPARC-III 900 MHz CPUs. The Dell 2-CPU PowerEdge 2650 ran Microsoft Windows 2000 Server on 2.8 GHz Intel Xeon processors with a 512k cache based on the Intel 32-bit architecture. See Table 1 for details. Dell PowerEdge 2650 Operating System CPU CPU L2 Cache Memory Internal Disk NICs Disk Controller Video Height Price as configured With 3-Year Gold Support Source Microsoft Winodws 2000 Server 2x 2.8 GHz Intel Xeon 512 K 4 GB 2x 36 GB** 2x 10/100/1000* Mb/s (both internal) PERC3-Di Dual Channel On-board 2 Rack Units (2U) or 3.5-inches $9,324 Sun Sun Fire V480 Solaris 9.0 12/02 4 x 900 MHz UltraSPARC III 8MB 8 GB 2x 36 GB 2x 10/100/1000 Mb/s (both internal) FC/AL Controller PGX64 PCI Card, Remote Console 5 Rack Units (5U) or 8.75inches $53,796

The Database Servers

The Hardware

http://www.dell.com 2/10/03

http://www.sun.com 2/10/03

*This term indicates compliance with IEEE standard 802.3ab for Gigabit Ethernet, and does not connote actual operating speed of 1 Gb/sec. For high speed transmission, connection to a Gigabit Ethernet server andnetwork infrastructure is required. ** For hard drives, GB means 1 billion bytes; total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment.

Table 1: Database Server Comparison: PowerEdge 2650 vs. Sun Fire V480

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Since this was primarily a CPU horsepower test, the Sun and the Dell database servers were configured with only internal storage. The Sun server uses two fibre channel arbitrated loop drives attached to the onboard fibre channel controller. The Dell PowerEdge 2650 used two Ultra 160 SCSI drives attached to the embedded Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller/3 (PERC/3i). Both of the systems used two 36 GB1 10,000 RPM drives. The drives were configured as single drives. No RAID level was used. Due to the small size of the database used in the testing, the disk configuration was not a factor in the testing. The amount of memory assigned to the Oracle SGA is large enough that most of the test is run from memory and disk I/O is very low. The memory amounts configured for the two servers are different with the Dell 2650 having 4 GB and the Sun V480 with 8GB. This is because on the Sun website the minimum configuration for the Sun V480 with 4 processors is 8 GB. The total amount of memory allocated to the Oracle SGA for this study is small enough to fit comfortably into 4 GB so it should not affect performance. Additionally, any performance advantage would be to Suns favor in this case.

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Section

The Database Software

Oracle9i
Oracle9i Release 2 Database was installed using the Oracle Universal Installer on both Windows 2000 Server and Solaris 9. The same options were selected on both. Oracle9i installation was completed without creating an initial database. The Oracle Database Creation Assistant (DBCA) was then used to create a new database instance using the same settings on the two platforms. The control files, log files, and data files were placed on different mount points on the internal disks and the dedicated server option was used. Version 9.2.0.1 of Oracle 9i was used on both servers. The database initialization parameters are listed in Table 2. The Sun V480 and the PowerEdge 2650 were set up the same way to facilitate comparison. These parameters were used to maximize the performance of Oracle by ensuring that plenty of memory would be available. Parameter Dell PowerEdge 2650 DB_BLOCK_SIZE DB_CACHE_SIZE LARGE_POOL_SIZE OPEN_CURSORS PROCESSES SHARED_POOL_SIZE SORT_AREA_SIZE Table 2: Oracle Parameters 8192 141557760 419430400 300 150 419430400 67108864 Sun Sun Fire V480 8192 141557760 419430400 300 150 419430400 67108864

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The Queries
A set of eight data mining queries was written using Oracles SQL for Analysis functions. The queries are representative of fairly CPUintensive queries that baseball analysts would typically make. The database schema and queries is fully documented in the first Linux paper in this series of studies titled Migrating Sun-based Oracle Databases to Dell PowerEdge Servers, Part 1 at http://www.dell.com/downloads/us/pedge/sun_oracle_linux.doc.

Migrating the Database

Migrating the baseball statistics database from the Sun database server to the Dell server was easily accomplished using Oracles export and import commands. Full details are given in the previous paper titled Migrating Sun-based Oracle Databases to Dell PowerEdge Servers, Part 2 at http://www.dell.com/downloads/us/pedge/sun_oracle_linux_2.doc.

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5
The workload consisted of simultaneously running the eight queries and measuring the elapsed time with the Oracle timing function. Simultaneous execution was achieved by starting each query in background mode in a simple shell script using the SQLPLUS command. The scripts were run directly on the database servers. Three runs were performed on each system, with the results averaged. The results are shown in Table 3:

The Tests

System

Average Query Time (sec) 25.85

Performance: Dell Advantage 1

Price as Configured (see Table 1) $53,796

Price: Dell Advantage 1

Price/| Performance: Dell Advantage 1

Sun FireV480 with 4 Processors Dell PowerEdge 2650 with 2 Processors

18.26

1.42X

$9,324

5.77X

8.17X

Table 3: Test Results The Dell PowerEdge 2650 completed the eight queries in an average time of 18.26 seconds, 42% faster than the Sun FireV480s 25.85 seconds. The Dell system tested was 83% less expensive than the Sun, giving Dell an overall price/performance advantage of 8.17X.

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6
Running the same queries against a migrated Oracle database, a Dell PowerEdge 2650 equipped with two state-of-the-art Intel processors outran a much more expensive system from Sun Microsystems, Inc., running four state-of-the-art SPARC processors. The over 8X better price/performance of the Dell system illustrates the power and value of Industry Standard Architecture servers compared against systems running proprietary processor architectures and operating systems.

Conclusions

THIS WHITE PAPER IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND TECHNICAL INACCURACIES. THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. Dell and PowerEdge are trademarks of Dell Computer Corporation. Oracle is a registered trademark and Oracle9i is a trademark of Oracle Corporation. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Red Hat is a registered trademark of Red Hat Inc. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell disclaims proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. Copyright 2003 Dell Computer Corporation. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Dell Computer Corporation is strictly forbidden. For more information, contact Dell. Information in this document is subject to change without notice.

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