Xref: utzoo comp.arch:4686 comp.databases:978 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!oliveb!amdahl!rtech!davek From: davek@rtech.UUCP (Dave Kellogg) Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.databases Subject: Re: Unix machines for large databases Message-ID: <2064@rtech.UUCP> Date: 7 May 88 08:09:54 GMT References: <22126@pyramid.pyramid.com> Reply-To: davek@rtech.UUCP (Dave Kellogg) Organization: Relational Technology Inc, Alameda CA Lines: 74 Keywords: INGRES, RTI, TP1, DebitCredit I can understand Eric's skepticism because if someone told me 6 months ago that INGRES would exceed 100 TPS I might have asked them if they bumped their head on the way to the office. However, I know what Mark Diamond says is true because I was in the room with him, along with Tom Sawyer from Codd & Date consulting, when INGRES hit 104 TPS. To appease any cynics I'll list the one caveat of the benchmark first: * The INGRES system (running on a Sequent Symmetry machine) which hit 104 TPS was running a prototype version of RTI's next release. As part of normal prototyping activity we asked ourselves "Just how fast can this go?" We convinced Sequent to let RTI use a large Symmetry machine, and we were off... Eric was surprised about the 1+ Gigabyte database size. In fact, the benchmark was run with a DebitCredit defined 100 TPS sized database. Before continuing, a little background on the DebitCredit benchmark is in order. DebitCredit is a well-defined standard benchmark and was written in the late 1970's by Jim Gray and about 20 other database professionals. The paper was eventually published in DATAMATION under the title "A Measure of Transaction Processing" by the authors "Anon et al." Rumour has it the authors wished to remain secret due to flame-ups that occurred after Dave DeWitt and Dina Bitton wrote their paper on DBMS benchmarking. DebitCredit is one of three benchmarks described in the paper, and various degenerate forms of DebitCredit have become loosely known in the industry as "TP1." The problem with TP1, and the ensuing "TPS" (transactions/second) measurements, is that most vendors size the databse irregularly (i.e. smaller than DebitCredit defines). Thus, as Eric points out, when comparing TPS measurements one is often comparing apples and oranges. For the Silver Bullet benchmarks, to which Mark refers, the database was sized at 100 TPS, or 10 Million 100 byte account records, 10,000 100 byte teller records, and 1,000 100 byte account records. Thus, a real purist would rob RTI of the 104 TPS (and grant only 100 TPS) because the database was sized for 100 TPS. (If you do the multiplication you'll see that the account relation alone is 1 gigabyte of data.) Overall, the benchmark conformed to DebitCredit standards quite well, including the submission of tranasctions via a network. However, there were a few things we didn't do 100% to the DebitCredit spec. But then again, we did a couple to exceed the spec. In any case, the auditor's report is being published tommorrow so all DebitCredit whizzes can take a look. In conclusion, I saw one "pop-off" on the net (flame semi-on) which questioned the integrity of the auditor since "Codd and Date and RTI have always had a good working relationship..." I'll reply to that with * If we wanted to pay someone to lie we wouldn't have paid Codd and Date's rates! ;-) * Mr. Sawyer was the auditor of Tandem's 208 TPS benchmark. * I personally hope that he is not on the net to see this random assault on his character. * If you read his report you'll see that he is certainly impartial. Finally, if you're interested in seeing the benchmark report you can reply to this message with a postal address and I'll do my best to get you a copy. Dave Kellogg ucbvax!rtech!davek (might need a mtxinu before the rtech) "Hmmm. We hit 100 TPS, can I go to bed now??"