Sun Fire V880 versus HP rp7400

[Mike Fisher_5]

Hi all

BACKGROUND:
A client who is an HP, IBM & Sun user has asked me to source this -
SUN FIRE V880 [maximum of 8 x CPU's]
4 x 900Mhz CPU, 8GB Memory, 6 x 73Gb HDD
with Silver cover [3 year Warranty]

Sun? Beacause that's the direction their 'management' wants to go in

MY OBJECTIVE:
My contact at the coal face wants to go HP
I'm buiding a case for an rp7400 [for example]

MY QUESTIONS:
The Sun box would have to be a used American import to achieve the client's price point
1] Is there an issue with Licensing a US sun box in the UK?
[I'm hoping your answer is 'yes']
2] Warranty issues?
2] Anything else I could use as ammo?

Cheers - Mike
92F and still rising here in Worcestershire

[Tim D Fulford · Accepted solution]

No takers it seems.... I've very little & what I have is tenuous...

I scouted about to try & get info on V880 & saw very little comparing V880 & rp74xx on www.tpc.org

From what I can see V880 is going for the DSS market, where as HP's stuff is broader based (web, DSS, OLTP)...

On the tpc-H (dicision support system) @1000GB results section, there is a V880 & superdome. The superdome has 64x750 chips & does 25,806 QphH & the V880 (8x1050MHz) does 2,240 QphH

On a chip for chip, this means
PA8700, 750MHz does 403 QphH/chip@1000GB
SparcUltraIII 1050MHz does 280 QphH/chip@1000GB

USUALLY putting more chips in does not scale linearly, so the PA8700 750MHz may fair even better in an rp74xx on a chip for chip basis (e.g. it may produce 3,224+ QphH@1000GB)

What is the server going to be used for? if it is OLTP (On-Line Transaction Processing), then HP tend to sweep the board (generally), if web or Discision Support System...

Any way, hopefully someone else wil come up with more

Regards (no Euro quote)

Tim

[James Anker]

Hi Mike,

Burning up in Birmingham as well!

Here's some info for you:

Sun Fire V880/900 L/M 2 20,000
Sun Fire V880/900 L/M 4 33,810
Sun Fire V880/900 L/M 6 43,000
Sun Fire V880/900 L/M 8 55,000

HP RP7410

HP server rp7410 (750MHz) M 8 92,000

HP server rp7410 (875MHz) M 8 102,000

Just shows that the performance CPU for CPU is way way in HP's favour - if you quote apples for apples in performance terms RP7410 against the V880 the HP boxs is actually cheaper.

The V880 includes alot of space for internal drives (6 x or 12 x with expension cabinet)and hence takes up a huge amount of rack space etc - space costs ??'s - if they are using external storage then this is a really strong argument.

Don???t be fooled by the number of CPUs in the v880 box. The v880 is not a midrange server.

Here???s how it compares to the rp7400:

The rp7400 delivers superior scalability: 2X the performance, 3X the performance density, and 6X the IO bandwidth of the v880.
In addition, unlike the v880, the rp7400 offers business critical data center capabilities such as iCOD, WLM, HA features (DPR/DMR, chipkill, etc.) and partitioning.
And above all, the rp7400 actually delivers true midrange performance with almost 2 times more performance than a v880.
And so this begs the question: should the v880 really compete against the rp7400?

Also when competing against Sun don't quote 850MHz PA RISC - they are very expensive and only give a very small increase over the 750's.

To be honest Mike an RP5470 would kick the V880 and its even cheaper than the RP7410 - have a look at the figures:

hp server rp5470 (750MHz) L 1 14,200
hp server rp5470 (750MHz) L 2 27,500
hp server rp5470 (750MHz) L 4 50,000
hp server rp5470 (875MHz) L 1 15,506
hp server rp5470 (875MHz) L 2 30,030
hp server rp5470 (875MHz) L 4 54,600


Good luck!

Cheers

Jim

[Tim D Fulford]

James

Yipee..I've been looking for an 750/875 performanc comparison!!

What was your source; If you can divulge? is it tpm-c (I assume so )

Regards

Tim

[James Anker]

Hi Tim,

Really sorry - I can't reveal the source or confirm the method of measurement but it is from a valid source (i.e. not marketing FUD) - its just NDA.

Kind regards,

Jim

[James Anker]

Tim,

Drop me an email at:

Jamesanker@yahoo.com

Cheers

James

[Mike Fisher_5]

Tim: OLTP

Jim: rp5470 it is then

Tim & Jim:
Thanks guys because of you two I'm gonna be able to switch this one to HP
One in the eye for my clients 'management' meddlers
I would love to know their reasoning

I've gone to town on the points
From my POV you both deserve it !!

Would you both email me?
MikeF@chs.eu.com

Mike
'if you can't be good, be careful'

[Dave Wherry]

I have access to the same numbers Jim does and I'll just confirm everything he mentioned.

One thing I'll add, when trying to position a server I try not to max it out in the beginning. A 4 way 875MHz rp5470 does have better numbers than the 8 way 900MHz V880. The problem is, if you start with the max processors to meet your requirements and they later change, you're already maxxed out.
A 4 way 875MHz rp7410 still gives you a lot of headroom to grow.

Of course another option in the HP world and I'm not sure about Sun, when the next generation of processors comes out you can swap them in the same chassis. So if a 4 way rp5470 meets your needs now, it's not necessarily topped out in the long run. You can go with faster processors later and HP has always been generous on trade-in allowances for upgrades like this. Not if you are swapping the whole box but, just the processors.

[James Anker]

Dave makes a valid point however, the request was:

"SUN FIRE V880 [maximum of 8 x CPU's]
4 x 900Mhz CPU, 8GB Memory

So in other words they only needed 4 x 900MHz CPU's in the Sun box (although it can scale to x 8). If you take the transaction ratings for the 4 x way Sun box and transfer that across to the HP RP range that would require:

Sun Fire V880/900 L/M 4 34,000
hp server rp5470 (750MHz) L 4 50,000
i.e. lots of headroom over what they actually need. moving the HP box to 875 would net them 54,600 (equiv to the 8 x way Sun server at 55,000)

Cheers

James

[Martha Mueller]

We had to run through this exercise a couple of years ago. We found that there was a difference in the cpu's between sun and hp. The hp cpu has onboard cache, whereas the sun ultrasparc III cpu had small cache - 32 KB instruction cache and 64 KB data cache. They had up to 8 MB of external cache, but that's not as good as on-board cache. The hp PA-8700 cpu has 750 KB instruction cache and 1500 KB data cache, for a total of 2.25 MB cache on chip. This makes a big difference in performance.

[Mike Fisher_5]

Dave, James & Martha:
Thank you

All:
'Management' have seen the light & it ain't the sun