This one is often either overlooked or overblown.   zSeries zealots will
talk about how the IO processors do the I/O for z and I/O being done in the
cpus for others.  While neither machine really DOES I/O in either the CPU
or SAP (IOP), there is high priority set up code which must be done to
start and finish I/O's.  In the zSeries this code is done in the SAPs.  The
real benefit of doing this is that the code is always run on an engine
which is running at low utilization reducing the wait time significantly.
Also the I/O processing context does not muck up the L1 cache of the CPs.
To avoid excessive wait time and cache working set problems it is sometimes
(but not always) necessary to run UNIX and Intel machines at lower
utilization.   When this happens there is a clear advantage to the zSeries.

The other side of the coin is that the zSeries cannot use the SAP cycles
for CPU work which for any given infrastructure reduces the number of CPUs
in the machine. For this reason the SAPs do not count toward the machines
capacity or pricing beyond their inclusion in the  infrastructure of the
machine.


Joe Temple
Executive Architect
Sr. Certified IT Specialist
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
845-435-6301  295/6301   cell 914-706-5211
Home office 845-338-1448  Home 845-338-8794


                                                                       
             Uriel                                                     
             Carrasquilla                                              
             <Uriel_Carrasquil                                          To
             [EMAIL PROTECTED]>              [email protected]         
             Sent by: Linux on                                          cc
             390 Port                                                  
             <[EMAIL PROTECTED]                                     Subject
             IST.EDU>                  Re: Business Week Article       
                                                                       
                                                                       
             06/30/2005 01:33                                          
             PM                                                        
                                                                       
                                                                       
             Please respond to                                         
             Linux on 390 Port                                         
                                                                       
                                                                       




Chris:
The z890 uses a separate CPU for all of the I/O's.  Something we don't have
on the aix/sun platform.
The application does lots of I/O to get the data and the server had tons of
cache which was of little value for our purposes.
We trimmed memory to just what was needed, mostly PGA plus 128 MB for the
OS plus a bonus 128 MB to feel good.
Now, instead of CPU cycles on my main processor managing large cache, the
work is shifted to the I/O CPU.
We run aix/sun at about 60% to keep customers happy.  Now I can run busier
and we meet our requirements.
We are also running Apache, SMB and NFS.  We collect a lot of data on a
daily basis and load into our dbms.

Regards,

[EMAIL PROTECTED]
NCCI
Boca Raton, Florida
561.893.2415
greetings / avec mes meilleures salutations / Cordialmente
mit freundlichen Grüßen / Med vänlig hälsning



                      "Little, Chris"

                      <[EMAIL PROTECTED]        To:
[email protected]
                      hs.org>                  cc:

                      Sent by: Linux on        Subject:  Re: Business Week
Article
                      390 Port

                      <[EMAIL PROTECTED]

                      IST.EDU>



                      06/30/2005 01:16

                      PM

                      Please respond to

                      Linux on 390 Port







Were those Solaris/AIX servers underutilized?  By a lot?

Certainly workloads don't compare across platforms.  I agree with that, but
for database workloads I was told (informally) to assume a single z/900 IFL
at a Pentium III 700mhz.  Within reason, it seems correct.  We are probably
getting better than that, but certainly nowhere near what you are seeing.

Low CPU/high IO (webserving, maybe?) might translate better to linux on
zseries, I don't know.

-----Original Message-----
From: Uriel Carrasquilla [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2005 12:12 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Business Week Article

Crhis:
I suspect not all workloads are the same.  What we are finding out is that
loads are taking place much faster.  That was a large pecentage of our
usage
before.  We don't have any users signed on and we only run the zLinux image
to service requests.  It works for us and no one is complaining.

Regards,

[EMAIL PROTECTED]
NCCI
Boca Raton, Florida
561.893.2415
greetings / avec mes meilleures salutations / Cordialmente mit freundlichen
Grüßen / Med vänlig hälsning




                      "Little, Chris"

                      <[EMAIL PROTECTED]        To:
[email protected]
                      hs.org>                  cc:

                      Sent by: Linux on        Subject:  Re: Business Week
Article
                      390 Port

                      <[EMAIL PROTECTED]

                      IST.EDU>





                      06/30/2005 11:48

                      AM

                      Please respond to

                      Linux on 390 Port









Are you getting that much performance out of an IFL? Four times the
performance of a single RISC unix server?

I say that because the Oracle database we moved from an HP server with 2
PA-RISC 8600 (440mhz) cpus consumed a little more than one IFL(100%-120% on
a two IFL LPAR).

This was about in line with what IBM recommended.

-----Original Message-----
From: Uriel Carrasquilla [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2005 10:15 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Business Week Article

John:
The formula we use is 4xCPU (sun 1.2 GHz or aix 1.0 GHz) is the same as one
IFL under z890 running zLinux under LPAR.
If zVM, we take away 10% power for the zVM overhead.
This is a rough estimate and gets refined upon the real circumstances.
Products licensing based on number of CPU's get penalized but we spend more
for the H/W (IBM is happy).
There are other benefits that are more important, such as saving in head
counts that I rather not get into but you can figure it out.

Regards,

[EMAIL PROTECTED]
NCCI
Boca Raton, Florida
561.893.2415
greetings / avec mes meilleures salutations / Cordialmente mit freundlichen
Grüßen / Med vänlig hälsning




                      "McKown, John"

                      <[EMAIL PROTECTED]        To:
[email protected]
                      insctr.com>              cc:

                      Sent by: Linux on        Subject:  Re: Business Week
Article
                      390 Port

                      <[EMAIL PROTECTED]

                      IST.EDU>





                      06/30/2005 09:35

                      AM

                      Please respond to

                      Linux on 390 Port









> -----Original Message-----
> From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
> Pieter Harder
> Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2005 8:18 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Business Week Article
>
>
> > Run Oracle on the z/890 as a "super server", (We just eliminated
> > z/VM and Linux on the zSeries because nobody knew what to do with
> > them
>
> John,
>
> Just curious, on what are they planning to run Oracle then?
> zOS? You guys mus have gobs of money....
>
> Best regards,
> Pieter Harder

We don't have "gobs of money". That scenario is what is being touted by
certain managers. Personally, I don't buy it, but what do I know? They say
that Oracle is licensed by the number of processors in the box. And that a
license for z/OS on two processors (regardless of which processor it is -
z800, z890, z990, all the same cost) costs the same as a license for
Windows
running on two processors. This seems silly to me, but I cannot refute it.

Also, at one time, we did test Oracle on Linux under z/VM (back when we had
those products). The Oracle DBAs (who ran the test themselves) came to the
conclusion that a z800 single IFL and 1 Gb of memory did not perform as
well
as a 10Gb Sun system with 10 processors. Well, duh!

--
John McKown
Senior Systems Programmer
UICI Insurance Center
Information Technology

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