We're running about 2/3 as much workload as you on about 1/2 the
hardware (50gb database, 25tb storage on a H80, 2 400mhz cpus, 2GB
memory, 0.5tb disk - actually similar to your old config) and it is
doing fine. I think you will have more than enough server processing
resources for your workload.

Your comment that faster CPUs don't help much at your site suggests to
me that you have a database I/O bottleneck. Once you relieve that, you
might see more benefit from faster CPU speed. You might want to consider
taking the database out of the Shark and get some faster JBOD disks for
it. Database I/O performance is everything. You want lots of disk arms,
becuase database I/O is scattered randomly over the entire database.
Fast sequential (i.e. streaming) I/O rates in and out of those RAID
boxes are meaningless for the ITSM Database. We use a whole lot of IBM
9.1gb SSA disks for our database. Save the Shark for larger online Disk
Storage Pools, and the Recovery Log, both of which can benefit from
those technologies, because they are much closer than the Database to
the typical sequential I/O model.

We formerly ran ITSM on a 6-way. I'm not sure it ever used all 6 CPUs,
but it was certainly using at least 4 of them efficiently.

You might be up against a budgetary decision between 4 slower CPUs and 2
faster ones. I'm not sure it matters much, from a performance
standpoint. (Comments? Others, speak up on this point.) However, the 2
faster CPU configuraion gives you more future growth potential by simply
adding CPUs, which is a much easier upgrade than replacing the box.

Roger Deschner      University of Illinois at Chicago     rogerd AT uic DOT edu


On Sat, 31 May 2003, Leonard Lauria wrote:

>You can respond direct to me instead of the list
>if you wish.  Thanks!
>
>We are considering an IBM P650, either 2 or 4-way
>system as our replacement TSM server.  4 to 8 GBs
>of memory and around 1 terabyte of disk (FastT700?)
>for database, log and disk pools.
>
>Our current config is a Sun E4500 with 4 400 MHz
>processors, 2 GB of memory, and 500 GB of disk
>(mostly on a shark).
>
>Our TSM database is 60 GBs, we manage approx 130
>million files and 70 terabytes of storage.  We move
>500 GBs per 24 hour period, with most occuring during
>the night-time hours.
>
>My questions are these:  The new system would be much
>faster with either 2 or 4 1.2 GHz (or faster) processors,
>but fast processors doesn't seem to be a huge factor
>at our site.  Are 2 enough?  Can TSM efficiently use
>4 processors?  Any site of simular size running on
>the above platform?
>
>I appreciate any information you can provide.
>
>Thanks
>
>leonard
>