Greig Wise wrote:
> So, if there are any poor souls out there running this type of
> configuration, can you tell me if you have had similar problems?
> Does anyone have any pointers on how to mitigate the DB2 issues I've
> had?
Wow, sounds like a real PITA. Out of curiosity, Would you say that your
application was highly unusual? 60,000 tables? Using datalinks along
with sshfs? etc?
I've got no experience with Itanium-based xservers, but run quite a few
x360s, x365, x265, etc. These are all used for ETL, web servers, data
mining, etc (not db2) - but have really been fast, robust and reliable.
My experiences here have been better than from a few years ago HP,
Compaq, and Dell. I've stayed away from Itanium so far, would actually
prefer to go with 64-bit AMD.
All my db2 servers are on power cpus. I've stuck with AIX just because
it is more robust & mature than linux, especially as far as a platform
for db2 is concerned. Reliability, availability, and performance has
been great. No problems have ever been encountered between DB2 &
aix/power. After adding the gnu utilities, the two environments are
very similar to work with. The downside for some shops might be that
their admins are only familiar with linux so there is small amount of
education required. On the flip side, there are fewer patches.
I assume that a P570 with four dual-core P5s would out-perform a
eight-way Itanium x465. But I've never seen a benchmark that would
prove that out. The P570 might be slightly more expensive, but can run
multiple lpars, run linux or aix, and can scale to 32 or so cpus.
ken
> Having said all that, for the longer term (and maybe even for the
> shorter term), we're considering jumping ship.
>
> This thing has just been a total disaster. We've had multiple hardware
> failures and IBM can't get parts anywhere in this country (the last set
> was shipped in from Canada). We've had the server spontaneously reboot,
> without a trace of any failure in message logs or in DB2's logs. From
> our standpoint, it looks like an orderly shutdown, as if a shutdown
> command had been issued.
>
> We've had multiple DB2 problems. The current problem is that DB2 seems
> to hang periodically. I've had this problem recur twice in the last 48
> hours. I've got IBM support involved on this and they've tracked it
> down to some sort of "latching" issue. They've suggested that I turn
> off INTRA_PARALLEL on the box as a workaround, I'm just afraid that with
> some of the complex queries we run, this would take the system's
> response time down to an intolerable level.
>
> We also have an outstanding issue where thousands of "floating point
> assist" errors are being issued in our system messages log per day from
> DB2. This is an issue that we've had DB2 support working on for about a
> month now without a fix. I have to believe that this is adversely
> affecting performance which has not been stellar to begin with.
>
> So, if there are any poor souls out there running this type of
> configuration, can you tell me if you have had similar problems? Does
> anyone have any pointers on how to mitigate the DB2 issues I've had?
>
> Having said all that, for the longer term (and maybe even for the
> shorter term), we're considering jumping ship. Given that we want to
> stick with DB2 and Linux/Unix of some flavor, can anyone offer
> suggestions for the must reliable/stable/trouble free/high
> performing/reasonably priced platform on which to run DB2? Also, how
> would the performance of said platform compare with an Itanium 8 way?
> If for example we were to decide AIX on p-Series, would a 4-way P5
> provide similar performance to our 8 way Itanium?
>
> Any input that can be offered would be much appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Greig Wise
> DBA on the verge of insanity
>
>
> P.S. I've just been notified that our "standby" server (another 8 way X
> 455) has broken down again (for about the fourth time this month) and we
> can't get parts until tomorrow.
>
>
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