GemStone/S 64 bit performance on SPARC T3 or SPARC VII+

Hi GemStone guys!
We want to setup new GemStone/S 64 bit database as backend and we want to know which SPARC processor we should setup to get best performance: SPARC T3 or SPARC VII+

But first of all I want to describe our environment:

Now:
- GemStone/S 6.5.2
- GemStone repository size: about 30GB
- About 300 gems connected to the database
- VisualWorks frontend
-> Sun V490, 16 GB Ram, UltraSparc CPUs


Future:
- GemStone/S 64 (I think it will be version 2.4.x in first step)
- Seaside frontend
- VisualWorks frontend
- 300 gems (VisualWorks) + 30...50 gems (Seaside)
-> Sun M4000 / M5000 or SPARC T3-?

Why do we have to go to GS64 bit -> performance issues in first place, because the amount of objects is to much to copy with a SPC of 3.6 GB.

Thanks in advance

Mark  

Hi Mark,

With a 30GB database, and an SPC of (max) < 4GB, your performance
bottleneck is most likely disk IO to your extents. If your performance
problem is more CPU related, then, given that you've optimised for
time, you'll need a new machine with faster CPU's, in which case, buy
the fastest CPU's you can find :-)

Here's your easiest solution: upgrade your current machine to 64GB
memory and create a 48GB RAM drive. Put the extents on the RAM drive
and the tranlogs on a (RAIDed) disk. Replicate the tranlogs to another
machine and replay them continually. The other machine have disks and
no user load. Make sure that you can copy extents across quickly if
you have to recover. This solution requires that you must manage your
environment properly.

If you think this is too risky and you need the extents on a disk, see
if you can get solid state disks in; put the extents on those. We
upgraded a production server to SSD's more than a year ago, and it
made a huge difference.

Yes, you can create a huge SPC with 64 bit. But (very) fast IO still
is best. 64 bit with seaside is a great thing as well. You can
multiplex many more users on a seaside gem. Perhaps start with your
users that use small bits of your app and convert them to seaside
front ends so that you can reduce your 300 users to say 150. Your less
resource intensive users should fit into 10-20 seaside gems.

Enjoy the project!

HTH
Otto

On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 3:00 PM, Mark Ross <[hidden email]> wrote: