Sun Blade X6270 Server Module

The Sun Blade X6270 server module equipped with two Intel Xeon X5570 processors (8 core, 16 threads) and running SAP enhancement package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode) with Oracle Database and Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) on top of the Solaris 10 OS delivered the highest two, four, and eight-processor Unicode results on the two-tier SAP SD Parallel Standard Application Benchmark. As of October 12, 2009, Sun's blade server supported 3,800, 7,220 and 13,718 SAP SD- Parallel Benchmark users, respectively.

SAP is one of the world's premiere ERP application providers, and maintains a suite of benchmark tests to demonstrate the performance of competitive systems on various SAP products. The SAP Standard Application Sales and Distribution (SD) Benchmark is a two-tier ERP business test that represents order-processing and invoice-processing workloads, while also demonstrating the ability to run both the application and database software on a single system. The SAP SD Benchmark represents the critical tasks performed in real-world ERP business environments. The SD-Parallel Benchmark runs the same workloads as the SD Benchmark and also allows to use parallel and distributed databases.

Benchmark Outcome

• These new Unicode-based results rely on Oracle10g RAC Database software working seamlessly with the latest version of SAP software to deliver breakthrough performance. Results also highlight the optimal performance of SAP ERP applications on Intel Xeon-based Sun Blade server modules running Solaris 10 OS and the seamless multilingual support available for systems running SAP applications.
• Unicode enables seamless multilingual support when running various SAP applications and requires a different version of the software. Sun has pioneered the usage of Unicode-based SAP software in several benchmark publications to date and has gained significant expertise in lowering the additional resource consumption normally associated with Unicode software.
• Oracle Database running on Intel-based blade modules from Sun demonstrate superior ERP performance and database scalability leadership at two, four and eight-processor level.
• A cluster of four Sun Blade X6270 server modules (8 processors, 32 cores, 64 threads), running SAP enhancement package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode) with Oracle Database on top of the Solaris 10 OS delivered the highest eight-processor result on the two-tier SAP SD-Parallel Standard Application Benchmark, delivering 66 percent better performance than the previous best eight-processor result of 8,280 SD users on SAP enhancement package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode) held by HP ProLiant DL785 G6 (8 processors / 48 cores / 48 threads) server running Microsoft SQL Server[2].
• A cluster of two Sun Blade X6270 server modules (4 processors, 16 cores, 32 threads) running SAP ERP application Release 6.0 Enhancement Pack 4 (Unicode) with Oracle Database on top of the Solaris 10 OS delivered the highest four-processor result on the two-tier SAP SD-Parallel Standard Application Benchmark, beating the result of 4,665 SD users on SAP enhancement package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode) held by HP ProLiant DL585 G6 (4 processors / 24 cores / 24 threads) server running Microsoft SQL Server by 55 percent[3].
• A single Sun Blade X6270 server module with two Intel Xeon X5570 processors, running Oracle Database and Oracle RAC, is capable of supporting 3,800 SD users, the same number of users that the Sun Fire X4270 server also equipped with two Intel Xeon X5570 can support. Since the Sun Fire X4270 server was not using RAC, the identical results clearly demonstrate that there is no performance penalty for running Oracle Database versus Oracle 10g RAC. Moreover, the Sun Blade X6270 server module outscored the IBM System 550 server's result of 3,752 SD users that was achieved with four POWER6 (8 cores, 16 threads) processors running AIX 6.1 with DB2 database[4].
• These three new benchmarks highlight the near-linear scaling of Oracle 10g Real Application Clusters on Sun x64 hardware in a SAP environment. As documented and certified by SAP, the one, two and four-node configurations delivered near-linear performance improvment supporting 3,800, 7,220 and 13,718 SAP SD-Parallel Benchmark users, respectively, while providing a high level of performance and availability for SAP enhancement package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode).
• The single Oracle RAC node delivers more performance-per-processor and per-core on the SAP SD-Parallel Standard Application Benchmark running Enhancement Package 4 (Unicode) for SAP ERP 6.0 than the best non-clustered results from IBM DB2(3) and Microsoft SQL Server[5].

• Single Node Benchmark Result

• Two Node Cluster Benchmark Result

• Four Node Cluster Benchmark Result

• Press Release

The Sun Blade X6270 server module leads the pack on SPECjvm2008, a general-purpose multi-threaded Java benchmark. The winning combination of Sun's open network systems, OpenSolaris 2008.11 and open-sourced Java HotSpot software, offer a proven and stable environment with the best performance in the industry.

SPECjvm2008 is a multi-threaded Java benchmark suite measuring the performance of a Java Runtime Environment (JRE). The benchmark focuses on executing a single application and reflects the performance of the operating system and the underlying processor and memory subsystem as the system executes the JRE. This multi-threaded Java benchmark stresses specific aspects of JVM performance, such as threading, locks, just-in-time (JIT) compiler, and the virtual memory management system. It contains a broad collection of real-world applications and is applicable to measuring general-purpose Java performance on a wide variety of both client and server systems.

Benchmark Outcome

• The Sun Blade X6270 sever module delivered a composite result of 317.13 SPECjvm2008 Base ops/m, the highest result ever posted on this benchmark.
• Sun continues to demonstrates performance leadership on SPECjvm2008 with each new benchmark submission, while relentlessly pushing the performance of the Java platform forward.
• The Sun Blade X6270 sever module, equipped with two Intel Xeon X5570 processors, improves the previous high score by 12% percent.
• The most stable Java platform in the industry — Sun's Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE) software (1.6.0_14 Performance Release) and OpenSolaris OS — really shine on Sun's new open network systems, making them an ideal choice for customer deployments that rely on JRE to execute a single application on a given system.

• Press Release

The Sun Blade X6270 server module, running Reuters Market Data System 6.3.3 (RMDS), posted the best throughput results for Source Distributor and Point-to-Pint-Server (P2PS) for all 2-processor systems using standard deployment topology. The new benchmark result demonstrates the robustness of the Solaris 10 implementation of the 10 Gb Ethernet protocol under traditional RDMS topology.

The benchmark was conducted using Sun Blade X6270 server modules with two Intel Xeon X5570 processors running the Solaris OS and utilizing 10 Gb Ethernet network infrastructure.

Benchmark Outcome

• The Sun Blade X6270 server module posted the highest standalone mode throughput result of 1,540,000 messages per second for Source Distributor and 1,330,000 messages per second for point-to-point-server (P2PS).
• This leading benchmark score demonstrates the robustness of the Solaris 10 implementation of the 10Gb Ethernet protocol. It shows traditional RDMS topology on the Sun Blade X6270 can handle throughput of up to 850,000 messages per second with end-to-end latency of less than one millisecond. This is the highest reported RMDS throughput under those conditions.
• The new Open Network System from Sun — the Sun Blade X6270 server module — delivers 50% higher performance as compared to previously published record-breaking RMDS throughput results on Intel Xeon-based Sun Fire X4150 servers.
• The Sun Blade X6270 server module is capable of delivering more than 3.5 million outbound user messages per second from a single Point-to-Point Server in a fanout mode. This benchmark utilized Thompson Reuters standard topology, not stacked topology, and did not use multiple P2PS instances on the same system.
• Algorithmic trading continues to drive the quest for greater speed and lower latency. This need is even more critical today as financial organizations strive to keep pace with new technology and remain competitive in the face of increasing market demands.
• Sun's open network systems approach offers outstanding system and network performance, with the Solaris OS delivering deterministic latency at very high message throughput rates. A significant reduction in end-to-end trade latency under ever increasing loads gives capital markets firms a critical trade timing advantage in the face of increasing market data and trading volumes - without necessitating big-budget infrastructure replacements.

• Press Release

Sun's newest blade system, the Sun Blade X6270 server module, cuts through the competition to deliver the best-ever single task floating point performance.

The compound effect of OpenSolaris and Sun Studio 12 Update 1 compiler software running on next-generation Sun Blade modules results in a new world record result on SPECfp2006 benchmark, with a commanding 20% lead over the next best score.

The SPEC CPU2006 benchmark exercises a computer's processor, memory architecture, and compilers on a variety of real-world compute intensive workloads and consists of two benchmark suites. One suite measures and compares compute-intensive integer performance and the other measures and compares floating-point performance. For each of these suites, two metrics are collected: One measures how fast the computer completes a single task and the other measures how many tasks a computer can accomplish in a certain amount of time (the throughput).

Benchmark Outcome

• OS and compiler software help to deliver the best performance by providing optimizations tailored to a specific hardware platform or microprocessor architecture. The community-developed OpenSolaris OS and freely available Sun Studio 12 Update 1 compiler software, running on top of the latest Intel Xeon-based architecture, propelled the Sun Blade X6270 server module, equipped with two Intel Xeon X5570 processors (8 cores, 16 threads), to the top position with a SPECfp2006 result of 50.4.
• Additionally, the SPECfp_base2006 score of 45.0 is better than all published highly optimized peak scores, proving the superiority of Sun's software offering and guaranteeing well-balanced performance to all types of users.
• With this result, an integral part of Sun's open network systems offering—the Sun Blade X6270 server module—clearly demonstrates the value of an open software stack, one that enables companies to explore the value and many advanced features of the community-developed open-source OS and award-winning compiler tools.

• Press Release

The Sun Blade X6270 server obtained x86 single JVM World Record score of 503,675 SPECjbb2005 bops (503,675 SPECjbb2005 bops/JVM) on this industry-standard benchmark.

SPECjbb2005 benchmark that emulates the design of real-world server-side Java applications and provides an accurate reflection of the business logic and objects, while stressing the implementation of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and the scalability of the system's processors and memory.

Benchmark Outcome

• SPECjbb2005 benchmark produces two equally important metrics—total system throughput (SPECjbb2005 bops) and JVM scalability (SPECjbb2005 bops/JVM), reflecting how different organizations may deploy their applications.
• Running a single instance of the Java Virtual Machine per physical server continues to provide an effective way to isolate multiple tasks in the environments where dedicated solutions are necessitated by business or regulatory requirements. Moreover, this mode of operation guarantees the uniformed system utilization desired by enterprise datacenter managers and users alike.
• As demonstrated by this leading benchmark result, the Sun Blade X6270 server module, equipped with two Intel Xeon X5570 processors (2 chips, 8 cores) and running the latest version 1.6.0_14 Performance Release of Sun's Java Platform Standard Edition software, is well suited for single JVM deployments.
• Powered by OpenSolaris 2008.11 the Sun Blade X6270, Sun's newest open network blade server, the delivers top-shelf single-JVM performance, showcasing new capabilities of hardware, OS and Java including multiple enhancements, specifically optimized for Intel's new Xeon Processor 5500 series.
• Organizations and users that prefer to run a single instance of Sun's Java Platform Standard Edition (J2SE) software, will find that the latest version (1.6.0_14 Performance Release) of the software, in combination with the Sun Blade X6270, performs 80% better than the closest dual-socket score of 279,095 SPECjbb2005 bops (279,095 SPECjbb2005 bops/JVM) that was posted by Dell PowerEdge 2950 III server, equipped with two Intel Xeon X5460 processors(2 chips, 8 cores).

• Press Release