Re: Hardware recommendations to scale to silly load

Shridhar Daithankar wrote:
> Just a guess here but does a precompiled postgresql for x86 and a x86-64
> optimized one makes difference?
>
> Opteron is one place on earth you can watch difference between 32/64
> bit on same machine. Can be handy at times..

I don't know yet. I tried building a 64-bit kernel and my eyes glazed
over trying to figure out how to create the cross-platform GCC compiler
that's first needed to build the kernel. Then I read all the libraries &
drivers also needed to be 64-bit compiled and at that point gave up the
ghost. I'll wait until a 64-bit Redhat distro is available before I test
the 64-bit capabilities.

The preview SuSE 64-bit Linux used in most of the Opteron rollout tests
has MySql precompiled as 64-bit and under that DB, 64-bit added an extra
~25% performance (compared to a 32-bit SuSE install). My guess is half
of the performance comes from eliminating the PAE swapping.

> I am sure. But is 64 bit environment, Xeon is not the compitition. It's PA-RSC-
> 8700, ultraSparcs, Power series and if possible itanium.

Well, just because the Opteron is 64-bit doesn't mean it's direct
competition for the high-end RISC chips. Yes, if you're looking at the
discrete CPU itself, it appears they could compete -- the SpecINT scores
places the Opteron near the top of the list. But big companies also need
the infrastructure, management tools and top-end scalability. If you
just have to have the million dollar machines (128x Itanium2 servers or
whatever), AMD is nowhere close to competing unless Beowulf clusters fit
your needs.

In terms of infrastructure, scalability, mindshare and pricing, Xeon is
most certainly Opteron's main competition. We're talking <$10K servers
versus $50K+ servers (assuming you actually want performance instead of
having a single pokey UltraSparc CPU in a box). And yes, just because
Opteron is a better performing server platform than Xeon doesn't mean a
corporate fuddy-duddy still won't buy Xeon due to the $1B spent by Intel
on marketting.

>>We should see a boost when we move to 64-bit Linux and hopefully another
>>one when NUMA for Linux is production-stable.
>
> Getting a 2.6 running now is the answer to make it stable fast..:-) Of course
> if you have spare hardware..

My office is a pigsty of spare hardware lying around. :) We're like pigs
rolling around in the mud.