HP Superdome Server sets two new land speed records

HP on August 25 announced record-breaking online transaction processing (OLTP) and data-warehousing benchmark results on its HP Superdome server running 64 PA-8700+ processors, the HP-UX 11i operating system and HP StorageWorks VA7100 disk arrays.

HP now holds bragging rights of being the only high-end server vendor in the industry to publish both single-system Oracle TPC-C and TPC-H 3 terabyte benchmarks. These results mark the next step toward HP's goal of doubling the server's performance by 2003.

The HP Superdome server set a new world record for single-system Oracle-based TPC-C with a result of 423,414 tpmC at $15.64/tpmC. The IBM p690 Regatta posted 403,255 tpmC @$17.80/tpmC. In addition to its performance leadership, the HP Superdome server delivers a lower cost per transaction with a 12 percent price/performance advantage over the IBM p690 server.

In the TPC-H 3 TB benchmark, which simulates decision support systems that examine large volumes of data, execute queries with a high degree of complexity and give answers to critical business questions. The HP Superdome server result of 27,094 QphHfor a 64-processor system is 14 percent faster than Sun's 72-processor result for the SunFire 15K and establishes a 28 percent performance advantage on a processor-by-processor basis. The HP Superdome server also was able to outperform the NCR/Teradata Worldmark system, a dedicated data-warehousing server with 128-processors, by 44 percent in raw performance, 195 percent in per processor performance and with four times better price/performance

The announcement was the latest step in a series of significant, in-chassis performance improvements and processor upgrades planned when the HP Superdome server was first launched. Superdome servers will be upgradeable to future generations of PA-RISC as well as to the Intel® Itanium® processor family, allowing for multiple operating environments to coexist in a single Superdome server.

To date, the Superdome server has successfully booted HP-UX, Windows .Net and Linux on a single server running multiple operating environments simultaneously in separate partitions at HP's development facilities. HP is also on track to boot OpenVMS on an Itanium-based system by the end of the year.