nCUBE and Oracle Demonstrate Record-Breaking Scalability in Decision Support Benchmark

Strategic Insights -

The demonstration showcased the capability of nCUBE's massively parallel processing (MPP) computer running Oracle Parallel Server software to achieve high performance figures in decision support benchmarks. The system achieved scan rates of 528MB/second, average load rates of 70KB/second per processor, and scaling efficiency greater than 85 percent across 512 processors. This performance was six times faster than high-end IBM mainframes and demonstrated the scalability of the system to 440 instances of Oracle Parallel Server.

Key Takeaways:

  • The nCUBE 2S system achieved scan rates of 528MB/second, average load rates of 70KB/second per processor, and scaling efficiency greater than 85 percent across 512 processors.
  • The system demonstrated virtually no performance degradation as the number of Oracle instances scaled to 60, 120, 240, and 440 processors, which is critical in the successful implementation of VLDBs.
  • Running up to 440 instances of Oracle Parallel Server, the demonstration provided near-linear performance improvements as the number of Oracle instances increased.
  • The demonstration used data and queries from the ticketing system of a major transportation company and showed significant performance benefits compared to the company's current computing environment.
  • The nCUBE 2S scalable parallel architecture can be configured with up to 8192 processors in a single computer.
  • The system's advanced scalable I/O capabilities provide extremely high disk-to-processor throughput, offering direct parallel links to many TeraBytes of disk capacity.
  • Oracle Corp. developed and markets an integrated family of software products for database management, tools for CASE, application development, and office automation, and application packages for accounting and manufacturing.

Statistics:

  • Scan rates: 528MB/second
  • Average load rates: 70KB/second per processor
  • Scaling efficiency across 512 processors: >85%
  • Number of Oracle instances: 60, 120, 240, 440
  • Number of processors: 512, up to 8192
  • Disk storage capacity: 336 GigaBytes
  • Number of instances running: up to 440

Sources:

  • nCUBE Corporation
  • Oracle Corp.
  • Gartner Group
  • Howard Richmond, vice president of high-performance commercial computing for the Gartner Group
  • Robert Goldberg, vice president of marketing for nCUBE
  • Scott Hunter, director of MPP technologies at Oracle