Number of Processors

[RobertLanger]

Hi All,



Our production environment is:



Win2K Terminal

Progress 9.1D08 Enterprise db (60GB)

2 * 2.8 Intel Xeon Processors

4GB RAM

#Users – Approx 200?



This setup works relatively well. There is an overnight process that takes several hours. However, if this process, (heaven forbid) fails, for whatever reason, the process then has to be run during the day. This is closely, followed by squeals from the users that the system is slow?

So the rational at the moment is to put two additional processors into the machine.

On the surface my answer is yes, as the machine has the capacity for it. However, before spending the $$’s for the extra two processors, I need to know, will Progress address the processors and therefore improve performance, and therefore achieve better processing times for large jobs. Or, will it be an expensive lemon just, sitting there chewing electricity?

I know the OS will address the extra processors, but I am not so sure what the RDBMS will do with it?

Any pointers to URL’s, white papers, etc would be appreciated.



TIA

Robert

 

[cecsno]

Hi All,



Our production environment is:



Win2K Terminal

Progress 9.1D08 Enterprise db (60GB)

2 * 2.8 Intel Xeon Processors

4GB RAM

#Users – Approx 200?



This setup works relatively well. There is an overnight process that takes several hours. However, if this process, (heaven forbid) fails, for whatever reason, the process then has to be run during the day. This is closely, followed by squeals from the users that the system is slow?

So the rational at the moment is to put two additional processors into the machine.

On the surface my answer is yes, as the machine has the capacity for it. However, before spending the $$’s for the extra two processors, I need to know, will Progress address the processors and therefore improve performance, and therefore achieve better processing times for large jobs. Or, will it be an expensive lemon just, sitting there chewing electricity?

I know the OS will address the extra processors, but I am not so sure what the RDBMS will do with it?

Any pointers to URL’s, white papers, etc would be appreciated.



TIA

Robert

Yes Progress processes will be spawned on the next available processor, just like any other process including O/S processes. Will it make you nightly job run faster? Only slightly or not at all, database and application tuning will give you more bang for the buck. If things go bad and you have to run you nightly job during the day will 4 processors be better than 2, yes, but your users will still say the system is running slower. Will 200 shared memory clients run better on a 4 processor system? Yes, and the users will think it's faster for a week or two until they get used to it.

Do not mixup SMP (symmetrical multi processing) with asymetrical or parallel processing, they are two different animals.

http://www.linuxhq.com/guides/LKMPG/node1.html

 

[RobertLanger]

Thanks to all who replied

Robert

 

[Joce]

Adding CPUs can make no difference if you IO subsystem is the bottleneck.

We made many tests with 1 and 2 cpus, 2 and 4 GB of RAM.

Conclusion: it depends on the kind of jobs you are running.

A job that makes a lot of IO may not benefit at all, while a job having a lot of computations may benefits considerably.

Remember: A job can be read intensive, write intensive, computation intensive or any combination of that.

Adding memory is an excellent choice only if your database setting is not already using all the memory your machine can assign to a single process. For example, on AIX 4.3, a single process cannot have more than 11 segments of memory. If your buffer pool (-B) is at its maximum, wich I suppose is the case during your nightrun, then adding memory will not change anything. It will only enable more clients or processes to execute during the day. In this case, less paging, better performance. But if this is not an issue, it will not change that much.

Conclusion: Tune your DB and programs OR try to get a machine with and without 2 CPUs and test, test, test... But in all case, tuning is a must and developpers must be aware about good programming.

J. Cossette
Talvest Fund Management
DBA