ibm power systems_solution_for_postgresql

© Copyright IBM Corporation, 2014

IBM Power Systems solution for PostgreSQL

Performance and scaling overview of PostgreSQL on

Linux on Power, featuring the new

IBM POWER8 technology

Deepak Narayana and Mark Nellen

IBM Systems and Technology Group ISV Enablement

November 2014

https://twitter.com/IBMSystemsISVs


Table of contents

Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... 1

Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1

Advantages of PostgreSQL on Power Systems ..................................................................... 1

PostgreSQL performance ........................................................................................................................ 1

Power Systems built with POWER8 technology .................................................................... 3

Tested configuration details ..................................................................................................................... 4

Appendix A: Run details .......................................................................................................... 5

Appendix B: Resources ........................................................................................................... 7

About the authors ..................................................................................................................... 7

Trademarks and special notices ............................................................................................. 8


1

Abstract

This white paper describes the performance and scaling of PostgreSQL on IBM Power Systems servers featuring the new IBM POWER8 processor technology. The target audience is users and system integrators interested in using Linux on Power to run PostgreSQL.

Introduction

The performance and scalability results demonstrate how the PostgreSQL application and

IBM® Power Systems™ servers perform under heavy workloads and large data volumes. This white paper

details the performance results of the IBM Power® System S822L server running PostgreSQL 9.3.4 on

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.0. The innovative design of the IBM POWER8™ technology is for very

demanding, data-intensive applications that are well suited for PostgreSQL customers.

Built with a processor designed for such data workloads, IBM Power Systems design combines the

computing power, memory bandwidth, and I/O in ways that are easier to consume and manage, building

on strong resiliency, availability and security, demonstrated by:

Massive memory with over twice the bandwidth of prior generation servers to process the data

faster and achieve greater speed and efficiency for transactional applications such as Sugar.

Systems are easy to deploy and manage with open source technologies such as OpenStack,

kernel-based virtual machine (KVM), simplified virtualization management, and flexible capabilities

to drive rapid adoption and dramatically simplify IT consumption.

Better cloud economics for scale out infrastructures, with price-performance advantages and

security to confidently move data-centric applications to the cloud.

The subsequent sections provide clear examples of the advantages of PostgreSQL, its near-linear scaling

and advantaged performance over other platforms on Linux on Power.

Advantages of PostgreSQL on Power Systems

The key advantages of PostgreSQL running on IBM Power Systems include:

Performance

Up to twice the performance over other platforms

Economics

Fewer cores required compared to other platforms

PostgreSQL performance

Various processor configurations were used for measuring the throughput per-core running PostgreSQL

database server. The socket level throughputs were also considered in this study. The POWER8


2

processor-based hardware showed over two times per-core transactional throughput compared to the

Intel® Xeon® processor-based system.

Figure 1: Transactions per second on a per-core basis

Both Power servers tested were configured with the selected processor cores active to show an example

of the throughput on a single-socket system. The software and memory configured were the same and

minimal tuning was undertaken at the hardware and the operating system level. The number of

transactions per second (TPS) shown by the IBM POWER8 processor-based systems is over two times

than that of the Intel Xeon processor-based system.

The Intel system was scaled up to 24 cores (two sockets), while the POWER8 system was scaled to 10

cores (one socket) to demonstrate similar overall workload throughput levels. At transition levels of over

360,000, the POWER8 processor-based systems surpassed the Intel Xeon processor-based system with

two times better TPS per core. This result demonstrates that the IBM POWER® processor-based system

can support similar overall throughput levels while using less than two times the processing resources.

The new Power Systems servers based on the POWER8 technology are offered in configurations from

6 to 24 cores providing customers the flexible and future growth required by today’s enterprises.

Refer to the “Tested configuration details” section and “Appendix A: Run details” for more details.


3

Power Systems built with POWER8 technology

In this section, after presenting an overview of the POWER8 technology, the configuration of the systems

used for this PostgreSQL benchmark is provided.

POWER8 is a multicore, multichip (node), and multi-socket system. The number of chips and sockets

available vary with the model purchased. A representative layout of the POWER8 processor is given in

Figure with double the memory bandwidth when compared to the IBM POWER7+TM processor.

Figure 2. POWER8 processor


4

Tested configuration details

IBM Power Systems configuration

IBM Power Systems configuration

Intel Xeon E5-2697 configuration

IBM Power System S812 Server

IBM Power System S822L server

HP ProLiant DL380p GEN8

One 6-core POWER8 dual chip module (DCM) 3.89 GHz

One 10-core POWER8 DCM 3.42 GHz

Two 12-core Intel Xeon E5-2697 2.7 GHz

128 GB memory; eight 16 GB dual inline memory modules (DIMMs)

128 GB memory; eight 16 GB DIMMs

384 GB memory; twenty-four 16 GB DIMMs

Hypervisor – PowerKVM Hypervisor – PowerKVM Hypervisor – None

Software and version used; Same for all tests and platforms

RHEL 7.0 PostgreSQL 9.3.4

pgbench 9.3.4 (included in PostgreSQL 9.3.4)

Table 1: System configuration matrix

The following compiler options with custom values specific to hardware platforms were used in the

POWER8 processor-based system build.

mcpu

mtune

m64


5

Appendix A: Run details

The following table shows the peak throughput for each hardware configuration.

Max TPS TPS/Core Number of client

threads

10-core - POWER8 361091 36109 120

24-core – E5-2697 378733 15781 52

6-core - POWER8 251440 41907 64

Table 2: Peak throughputs

Refer to the following tables for the corresponding run details. Intel Xeon processor E5-2697 v2 at 2.70 GHz 24 core, 384 GB, 2-socket system

Clients SMT TPS Per core

16 2 175116 7297

24 2 240616 10026

36 2 308793 12866

48 2 376106 15671

50 2 378647 15777

52 2 378733 15781

54 2 377149 15715

58 2 376863 15703

64 2 376818 15701

80 2 373583 15566

96 2 369699 15404

120 2 366275 15261

160 2 365402 15225

200 2 363701 15154

Table 3: TPS result for Intel 24-core hardware


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IBM Power System S822L – 3.42 GHz

10 core, 128 GB, 1 socket system

Clients SMT TPS Per core 10 8 111266 11127

20 8 170463 17046

30 8 212683 21268

40 8 250989 25099

64 8 285223 28522

80 8 320342 32034

100 8 347689 34769

120 8 361091 36109

140 8 354801 35480

160 8 351254 35125

180 8 350604 35060

Table 4: TPS result for Power 10-core hardware

IBM Power System S812 – 3.89 GHz 6 core, 120 GB, 1 socket system

Clients SMT TPS Per core

16 8 146500 24417

18 8 156679 26113

32 8 188784 31464

48 8 217900 36317

64 8 255322 42554

90 8 241951 40325

96 8 246967 41161

100 8 250230 41705

120 8 233493 38916

Table 5: TPS result for Power 6-core hardware


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Appendix B: Resources

The following websites provide useful references to supplement the information contained in this paper:

IBM Systems on PartnerWorld

ibm.com/partnerworld/systems

IBM Power Systems

ibm.com/systems/in/power/?lnk=mhpr

IBM Power Systems running Linux – resources

ibm.com/systems/power/software/linux/resources.html

PostgreSQL official website

www.PostgreSQL.org

IBM Power Systems running Linux Knowledge Center

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/powersys/v3r1m5/index.jsp

IBM Publications Center

www.elink.ibmlink.ibm.com/public/applications/publications/cgibin/pbi.cgi?CTY=US

About the authors

Deepak Narayana is a technical consultant in IBM Systems and Technology Group, IBM PowerLinux™

ISV Enablement Organization. You can reach Deepak at [email protected].

Mark Nellen is a program manager in IBM Systems and Technology Group, ISV Enablement Organization.

You can reach mark at [email protected].

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

https://twitter.com/IBMSystemsISVs


8

Trademarks and special notices

© Copyright IBM Corporation 2014.

References in this document to IBM products or services do not imply that IBM intends to make them

available in every country.

IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business

Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. If these and other IBM trademarked

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current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at "Copyright and trademark information" at

www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml.

Intel, Intel Inside (logos), MMX, and Pentium are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States,

other countries, or both.

Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other countries, or both.

Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.

Information is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind.

All customer examples described are presented as illustrations of how those customers have used IBM

products and the results they may have achieved. Actual environmental costs and performance

characteristics may vary by customer.

Information concerning non-IBM products was obtained from a supplier of these products, published

announcement material, or other publicly available sources and does not constitute an endorsement of

such products by IBM. Sources for non-IBM list prices and performance numbers are taken from publicly

available information, including vendor announcements and vendor worldwide homepages. IBM has not

tested these products and cannot confirm the accuracy of performance, capability, or any other claims

related to non-IBM products. Questions on the capability of non-IBM products should be addressed to the

supplier of those products.

All statements regarding IBM future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice,

and represent goals and objectives only. Contact your local IBM office or IBM authorized reseller for the

full text of the specific Statement of Direction.

Performance is based on measurements and projections using standard IBM benchmarks in a controlled

environment. The actual throughput or performance that any user will experience will vary depending upon

considerations such as the amount of multiprogramming in the user's job stream, the I/O configuration, the

storage configuration, and the workload processed. Therefore, no assurance can be given that an

individual user will achieve throughput or performance improvements equivalent to the ratios stated here.

Any references in this information to non-IBM websites are provided for convenience only and do not in

any manner serve as an endorsement of those websites. The materials at those websites are not part of

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