orders@techbook.com (TECHbooks) (04/09/91)
Edited by Jim Grey, this is a "compendium of the popular performance and price/performance metrics for database systems and transaction processing systems." The goal is to show which computer system you should buy, based on its performance versus price. As the book notes, there are obviously other considerations (quality of programming tools, operational costs, reliability) beyond merely the purchase price. Those costs are difficult to quantify, but the performance can be measured and compared. This book shows how to implement several different benchmarks: TPC BM A for online transaction processing including a LAN or WAN; TPC BM B for online transaction processing without a network; the Wisconsin benchmark for relational queries; AS^3AP for a mixed workload of transactions, relational queries, and utility functions; the set Query Benchmark for complex queries and reporting; and OO1 for engineering workstation-server (object operations). Most noticeable by its absence is SPEC (System Performance Evaluation Cooperative), but The Perfect Club is also missing. These benchmarks, aimed at the scientific and workstation communities, are not included because they are not scaleable. The results of most benchmarks are not included, which is slightly disappointing. Obviously people considering purchase of massive iron will want to run the benchmarks themselves, and some systems change rapidly as the base model is upgraded. Also, someone actually considering purchase (as opposed to us daydreamers) of one or more large scale machines will probably find all the numbers they could possibly want flung at them by salescritters. Still, I would like to have seen how local hero Sequent compared to Pyramid. The last chapter is devoted to preparing your company's own benchmark, and explanation why you might want to devote your time to doing that. As well as clear in reasoning, this chapter is also fun to read (beware of the "escalating war of wizards": company A wins the benchmark, so company B says they just used normal humans while company A used 'one-star wizards' and they need to bring in their 'two-star wizards). Good bibliographies at the end of each chapter guide you to further info on the benchmark covered in that chapter. MIPS vs SPARC, Intel vs Motorola, System/6000 vs the world? You aren't going to find much of interest if you're a workstation devotee. But true to its title, this book is recommended for anyone looking into benchmarking online transaction or database systems. "The Benchmark Handbook for Database & Transaction Processing Systems" is published by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc. in 1991. It has an ISBN of 1-55860-159-7 and lists for $49.95. Note: with ISBN number (which also tells publisher), you may be able to have your local bookstore or library order this book for you. -- Voice: +1 503 646-8257 FAX: +1 503 248-6320 orders@techbook.com - or - Public Access UNIX site: +1 503 644-8135 ...!uunet!techbook!orders TECHbooks sells technical (and other) books at discounted prices. Authorized SCO and ESIX resellers.