As of yesterday, IBM DB2 has the best x86-based TPC-C result in the industry. IBM’s x86-based system achieved more than 2.3 million transactions per minute on TPC-C benchmark. The benchmark uses the IBM System x 3850 X5, which uses the latest Intel Xeon 7500 Series processor technology. And importantly, the benchmark system is cost efficient, with a price of $0.64 USD per tpmC.
The x3850 X5 achieved this tpmC result using DB2 9.7 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (SP1). The configuration included 1.5TB of memory using the IBM MAX5 for System x and eXFlash SSD storage. MAX5 is an industry-first technology from IBM that decouples the memory from the processor, eliminating the need to buy another server to support memory-intensive workloads. Basically, it allows you to increase the system’s memory and storage, which in turn supports larger, faster databases.
For more details, see the benchmark result.
How much of that success would you attribute to DB2′s compression? Can you estimate the slope of the curve of transaction rate vs compression ratio? If you could double DB2′s compression ratio without affecting decompression time, how would that affect transaction rate? And finally, is there a TPC-H test in the works? Hope so!