Jacob,
I'm a little skeptical about your pricing. An entry-level model 520 starts at $6,345:
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/hardware/520/browse_i.html
Also, I'm not sure that you can compare Windows and MS SQL Server STD editions to IBM i DB - which is an enterprise class database. MS SQL Enterprise runs about $25K per processor, for example.
-Nathan.
----- Original Message ----
From: Jacob Anderson <jwa@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Mon, February 8, 2010 5:13:07 PM
Subject: RE: Power7
Hello,
Let's talk price since I am doing this right now with just one iSeries model
520.
You can expect to pay between $20k and $40k for an enterprise grade, lower
end, iSeries server. This will get you a Power5 or Power6 processor, one or
two CPU configurations, the V6R1 software and the necessary miscellaneous
software support to run an application like yours (DB2, RPG, WDS, Query,
...)
We'll say it costs you about $25,000.
What can you get for that?
I have a stack of Sun Micro SunFire Enterprise servers in my office waiting
for deployment. 2 4250 models and 2 2150 models. Throw an HP DL360 G4 in
front of these running Linux + pound, and you have a farm. That stack cost
me $5k new, 6GB/8GB RAM configurations, SAS drives (10k), with 73GB on the
2150s and 140GBx4 on the 4150s.
A used DL360 G4 is about $500 with dual Xeon 3.6Ghz.
Running Win2k8 Std on the 4250s = $1000 x 2, $2000
Running Win2k8 Web on the 2150s = $450 x 2, $900
Running SQL Server Std on the 4250s = $5999 x 2
Where are we at?
$5200 for SUN hardware
$500 for used HP load balancer
$2000 for Windows license
$900 for Windows web license
$12000 for SQL server
===
$20,600
This is less than ONE iSeries and can handle significantly more throughput
than any single iSeries.
Just this configuration alone can handle 50,000 users on your web
application, provided that your app is written by professional ASP.NET web
developers and experienced SQL administrators who know how to create
efficient data schemas.
The down side of this type of scale-out? Power. If you are collocating at a
facility with 20A circuits, you can quickly use up your 10A running quota
and will blow your circuit if you ever have to power up ALL of the
appliances at once. Yikes.
IBM sub-45nm technology (like SUN 45nm tech, and Intel) uses significantly
less power, so you can run more on the same circuit. Yet, IBM technology is
more bulky than comparable SUN/HP technology, so you can't concentrate as
much in your rack space.
Since the iSeries will have gigabit Ethernet just like the Sun and HP
servers, it will be network limited just the same.
Additionally, Windows technology is not power-scaled in price. You can add
more CPU, more memory, and more drive space and NOT have to spend more money
to Microsoft. With iSeries, if you improve the box, you owe more to Mother
IBM.
-- Jake
-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Nathan Andelin
Sent: Monday, February 08, 2010 3:05 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Power7
From: Lukas Beeler
Sadly still nothing that has the same performance/price ratio
such as a System x3650 M2
I was looking at the SAP SD benchmark, just released by IBM, for the new
Power Server model 750, and comparing it to the one that IBM released for
their x3650 M2 server. The net result was that the model 750 offered 3.34
times more throughput.
My next thought was to try track down pricing information to estimate the
price/performance difference. Unfortunately, pricing information is harder
for me to come by. The other problem is estimating what it might take in
terms of cost to set up and deploy applications across four x3650 M2
servers, and a load balancer, and then tune the configuration to approximate
the performance of the model 750?
We're developing a new Student Information System, which may need to support
something like 100K concurrent logins from students, parents, teachers, and
administrators if licensed by larger school districts. To me it would be a
royal pain to have to deploy our applications across x86 server farms. I
think that would really drive up the cost of the system, too.
-Nathan.
midrange.com
