🚀 go-pugleaf

From: jkrueger@dgis.dtic.dla.mil (Jon)
>bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
>
>>The 3090 still provides fairly awesome I/O for the price...
>>...It probably still is a cost-effective database
>>transaction machine for very large databases
>
>Barry,
>
>It's folklore in the database world that things are as you say...but
>nobody ever seems to have any numbers.  It's my opinion that you're
>right, but does anyone have any facts?

I think the standard reference is still TP1 (Codd & Date?) and it
bears this ``folklore'' out. I don't have numbers handy, my memory may
be way off but I seem to remember seeing dozens of TPS for
supermicros, around 100+ for modern minis, and approaching 1000 for
machines like the 3090. I assume someone from a mainframe company can
set this straight, it's their bread and butter.

But that's not the only consideration, and many vendors (particularly
in the super-mini and parallel mini class) are getting closer to their
numbers.

My personal feeling is that the 3090-class machines have gotten so
huge that many people who think they need one don't, it's a religion
left over from the days when smaller systems were a joke, particularly
in regards to I/O. Today they may be a relative "joke", but have those
databases really grown 10X or more? The smaller systems have.

It's, of course, driven by a lot of rational considerations also,
like installed software base (tho it's not clear that some folks
wouldn't be better off spending a few million on converting their
databases and a million on a new super-mini rather than buying the
latest and greatest multi-million mainframe.)

Look, when things get BIG there's a whole different set of
considerations that kick in. There are 3090-class machines out there
with over 10,000 simultaneous interactive sessions. Most systems which
might be sufficient in other ways can't even plug in 1,000 interactive
sessions, let alone manage them. And service and other considerations
are a big issue, can that super-mini vendor afford to take a total
loss on your system (and maybe more), millions of dollars, to save
reputation, possibly taking a long view? Will they even take an RFP
with absolute performance requirements? Not vague mumbles of
benchmarks, but if their machine doesn't cut it, they take it back,
and probably lose hundreds of thousands on install/de-install?

For those who need it, they probably *do* need it, but we're talking
databases approaching a terabyte at this point in history, probably a
fortune-1000 company with millions of customers (Mastercard, JC
Penney's, American Express etc.)
-- 
        -Barry Shein

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