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A NEC server has broken the world record for transaction processing performance, aided by an Intel i960 I/O processor-based DAC960PJ RAID controller from Mylex.
Intel i960® I/O processors
The DAC960PJ RAID controller features an onboard 66 MHz i960 RD processor and integrates firmware and a RAID accelerator developed by Mylex.
"Intel I/O processors match our performance requirements," says Bill North, vice president of business development at Mylex. "The Intel i960 RD I/O processor is a highly integrated product that combines 66 MHz performance with an integrated PCI bridge and memory controller.
"In addition, the i960 I/O processor combines low power demands with an upgrade track that can grow with our requirements.
"This high integration allows us to reduce our component count while supporting a high-performance multi-channel environment in a single board. Reduced chip count also meant that our development process was significantly simplified."
Ready for I2O* technology
North says the Mylex DAC960PJ RAID controller also enables server OEMs to take advantage of Intelligent I/O, or I2O* technology, to increase throughput and performance.
I2O technology avoids the I/O bottleneck that can restrict server performance by offloading I/O-related tasks from the server's central processors to dedicated I/O processors.
"In a RAID application, I/O is too interrupt-intensive to be handled on the host processor side. With I2O technology, Intel has provided us with the tools to perform a significant amount of I/O manipulation, without interrupting the host processor of the system bus.
Record results
In the latest assault on the transaction performance benchmark, a NEC 8-processor Express 5800 HV8000 server running Windows NT* 4.0 Enterprise Edition posted results of 16,216.10 transactions per minute in the TPC-C benchmark.
This was the eighth performance record in less than four months for a major high-end server equipped with the Mylex RAID controller.
TPC-C, supervised by the Transaction Processing Performance Council, is the acknowledged industry benchmark of server performance for high volume On-Line Analytical Transaction Processing (OLTP). TPC-C simulates an automotive parts warehouse with 12,000 users, each requesting small pieces of data from a relatively small database.
The NEC TPC-C results broke the weeks-old record of 16, 101.25 transactions per minute set by an 8-processor Data General AviiON AV8600* server. This server was also equipped with the Mylex DAC960PJ RAID controller. |
