[rhn-users] Intel or AMD

[Dominique Demore]

Red Hat Network Users List <rhn-users at redhat.com> on Thursday, December 16, 2004 at 13:28 -0500 wrote:
>
>
>Single CPU?  Dual CPU?  Quad CPU?

Well I am hoping to be purchase a Dual 248 or 250 version of the Opteron. However since Oracle's licensing is pretty
hefty for the second processor, I will have to wait an see.

As for the applications, these servers would only be for the SIS database and Application Server (plus any custom apps
which access Oracle). You mentioned the HP Server. I was looking at their prolient DL models.

>
>Opteron's use a Non-Uniform Memory Architecture (NUMA).  Specifically, 
>each CPU has its own connection to its own bank of RAM.  Memory is 
>accessed via a different path than I/O.  Then there's connections 
>between the CPUs in case one CPU needs to access RAM or I/O hooked up to 
>the other processor.  Xeons and Itaniums have a Front Side Bus that all 
>access to all I/O and memory goes through, leaving you with a single 
>bottleneck.
>
>
>So, it depends on the exact Opteron motherboard design that you're 
>talking about, but with a dual or quad CPU system, an Opteron will make 
>a much better database server than a Xeon or an Itanium (assuming the 
>motherboard is designed right.)  I've looked at the design specs for 
>Sun's Opteron servers and HP's Opteron servers, and both are solid 
>designs that put RAM in the right places.  In both cases, on the 
>dual-opteron design all I/O is off of one CPU (with ram on both) and on 
>the system that can handle more than 2 CPUs, I/O is spread between 2 of 
>the CPUs.  (and a bank of RAM on every CPU, of course)  I haven't 
>checked if they've updated, but about a year ago IBM's Opteron systems 
>looked kind of sub-par (no on-board RAID); designed for compute clusters 
>not database servers.  I have no idea about other vendors; quality can 
>vary widely.  There are definitely some Opteron boards out there that 
>put all the RAM and I/O on one CPU, which makes the system about as slow 
>  as if it had a front-side bus.
>
>
>Check for support from Oracle.  An Opteron can still make a very speedy 
>server for running 32-bit applications, but you're best off if the 
>specific things you're running actually support the "x86_64/AMD64/ia32e" 
>64-bit instructions.
>
>
>Also, go read this article, and make sure to look at the diagrams:
>http://www.samag.com/documents/s=9408/sam0411b/0411b.htm
>-- 
>Eric Eisenhart <eric.eisenhart at sonoma.edu>
>Linux/Unix Systems Administrator
>Office: Schulz 1050A, (707) 664-3099
>AIM: ericeisenhart, ICQ: 156218985
>Sonoma State University, IT
>
>
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-----
Dominique Démoré
Technical Services Coordinator
Rainbow District School Board
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Sudbury, Ontario
P3E 3G5
Tel: (705) 674-3171 x. 258
Fax: (705) 671-2442