White Paper Product - Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel EM64T) Cross-Industry Enterprise computing

Oracle Database 10g*: Optimized for 64-bit Intel Xeon Processors

Todays business environment depends upon the reliability and accessibility of massive amounts of information. Many enterprises are deploying grid computing solutions to achieve fault tolerant, lower cost, and scalable environments that can also offer better protection and management of that information. Oracles agship product, Oracle Database 10g*, was launched in 2004 to meet this critical need. Designed for optimal performance on the 64-bit Intel Xeon processor, Oracle Database 10g supplies the ready information access and sheer computing power needed to make decisions based on real-time data. This database application, nely tuned by engineers from Intel and Oracle, delivers high levels of scalability and performance. Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel EM64T) enables servers based on Intel Xeon processors to run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications under 64-bit operating systems, as well as running 32-bit applications under 32-bit operating systems. That exibility makes 64-bit Intel Xeon processor-based platforms ideal for use in a wide range of enterprise servers and high-end workstations. The 64-bit capabilities of these platforms enable them to address up to one terabyte of physical memory, breaking through the ceiling of 64GB imposed by previous 32-bit-only platforms. This greater memory capacity is vital in allowing data-intensive systems such as Oracle Database 10g to hold large amounts of data in memory, vastly improving performance on enterprise-scale workloads.

Oracle and Intel Deliver Performance and Scalability

For many years, engineers from Intel and Oracle have worked together to ne-tune the performance and scalability of Oracle Databases and other products on Intel platforms. All Oracle products that are intended for Intel processors are built with

pioneers in the Linux* community was also a big performance boosting factor; the work on huge-page memory sizes are a particularly signicant contributor to the high performance of Oracle Database 10g*. The joint collaboration between Intel and Oracle does not end with Oracles products. Project MegaGrid (see sidebar) was co-designed by Intel, Oracle, Dell, and EMC to test characteristics of databases on computing grids and to ascertain the performance they can deliver to businesses today. The project demonstrated the superior scalability and price/performance of Oracle databases on clustered Intel architecture-based solutions when compared with RISC*-based enterprise servers.

Intels industry-leading optimizing compilers and then rened further with the Intel VTune Performance Analyzer. As new

capabilities are added to the database software or the hardware platform, engineers from both companies work closely to optimize the resulting combination, helping to assure customers very high performance and scalability. The development of Oracle Database 10g marks a particularly high degree of collaboration between the two companies. The database platform was designed with collaborative input from Intel engineers to provide optimal support for the 64-bit environment on Intel Xeon processors. Joint Intel and Oracle teams drove tuning of Oracle Database10g in developing the new database release. A major contributor to the performance gains during product development was the application of optimizations using the Intel compilers. Of particular benet in this area were the use of prole-guided optimization and symbol pre-emption, with the Intel VTune Performance Analyzer also helping to guide the tuning process. Oracles and Intels continuing role as

To nd out more about how your company can benet from the high performance and remarkable scalability of Oracle databases running on Intel Xeon processor-based systems with Intel EM64T, go to the Intel Oracle Developer Center (http:// www.intel.com/cd/ids/developer/asmo-na/eng/94836.htm) and see what youve been missing.

Project MegaGrid: A Study in Scalability and Cost Benets

Project MegaGrid is a large testing and research undertaking jointly designed by Intel, Oracle, Dell, and EMC. Its goal is to create large grids for commercial purposes and to test the scalability of existing solutions by running very large workloads and determining transaction throughput rates and associated costs. Project MegaGrid uses Intel Xeon processors and Itanium 2 processors. Initial test runs of the project were benchmarked against a large SMP UNIX* server. These tests targeted the substantial threshold of 550,000 transactions per hour running a real-world telco application to simulate an environment that requires high scalability, I/O throughput, and quality of service (QoS) delivery. For more information on Project MegaGrid, go to the Intel Project MegaGrid Web site (www.intel.com/go/megagrid).

By attaining high levels of throughput with off-the-shelfcomponents, both Intel architecture-based congurations demonstrated the capability to effectively scale, provision, and manage Oracle Real Application Clusters on low-cost, Linux-based clustered servers. They achieved better performance at drastically reduced server costs when compared with some of the latest large SMP UNIX platforms on the market today, which use RISC architectures.

What Makes Performance and Scalability Better?

The model pairing of Oracle Database 10g with 64-bit Intel Xeon processors draws its strength from a number of design characteristics, including the core processor architecture, innovative technologies, and the development of the following underlying capabilities: Tuned for Intel EM64T by Intel and Oracle. Engineers from Intel and Oracle worked together to enhance the Oracle code base to make optimal use of the 64-bit Intel Xeon processor. By means of this cooperation, the two companies have enabled the database platform to attain an extremely high level of performance. Dedicated teams of expert performance engineers constantly strive to tune the environment for additional performance and scalability gains, and the code base is exhaustively tested against new Intel hardware innovations early in their development cycles. Greater memory support for improved database performance. Processors that support Intel EM64T can access dramatically larger amounts of data than their 32-bit counterparts (up to one terabyte for Intel Xeon processor MP, as opposed to 64GB that is normally accessible by standard 32-bit platforms). This memory is laid out as one large at memory space that can be used by applications without swapping or paging data to disk. This memory area enables the Oracle database engine to place large amounts of data in on-board memory, rather than storing it temporarily on disk. Reducing the need for disk I/O diminishes delays caused by disk access, signicantly improving database processing times. Results published by Dell of benchmarks for the Oracle 9i Database Release 2 show that order-entry workloads scale dramatically better on 64-bit Intel Xeon processor-based platforms. When database caches are scaled from the default allocation of 350MB of system memory to 6GB, the number of orders processed per minute scales 20% to 44% better on the 64-bit system, relative to the 32-bit system. When the cache is increased from 350MB to 9GB, the number of orders processed per minute scales 25% to 50% better on the 64-bit system, relative to the 32bit system. This improved headroom is a compelling value proposition available from the 64-bit Intel Xeon processorbased platform.
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Better Analysis through Higher Clock Speeds and Greater Memory Bandwidth. 64-bit Intel Xeon processors have high clock speeds and enhanced memory-bus bandwidth. High clock speeds benet computation-intensive tasks, such as database queries with many complex expressions. Enhanced memory-bus bandwidth is of greatest value to operations that make heavy use of large amounts of randomly accessed data, as found in large online transaction processing databases. Better Throughput from Multi-Core Processors and Hyper-Threading Technology. Database servers are, highly threaded applications, which means that they benet tremendously from parallel processing. Database engines often run hundreds of simultaneous threads for read/write tasks and various sorts of transactional logic. Intel and Oracle have worked together to tune Oracle Database 10g for very highly optimized utilization of Hyper-Threading Technology (HT Technology), which provides the ability for two database threads to execute simultaneously on the same processor. The already-dramatic performance advantages of HT Technology will be vastly increased by the upcoming introduction of multi-core 64-bit Intel Xeon processors that will also support HT Technology. These new processors will combine multiple execution cores in a single physical package. Thus, for example, they will support execution of eight threads simultaneously under EM64T on a single four-core processor. Oracle and Intel are working together to make next-generation platforms capable of taking full advantage of the capabilities of Oracle Database 10g, to provide unprecedented headroom in implementations of Oracle databases on Intel Xeon processor-based platforms. The multi-core feature will be completely transparent to Oracle.

Operating System Support for 64-bit Xeon Processor-based Platforms

Today, Oracle ships versions of both Oracle9i Database (Release 2) and Oracle Database 10g that support 64-bit Intel Xeon processor-based platforms with Intel EM64T, and enterprise software vendors that rely on the Oracle database engine are following suit. To obtain the full benets of Intel EM64T, however, a server must run an operating system that supports it.

1. Evaluating the Performance of 64-bit Oracle 9i Database Release 2 on the Intel EM64T- based Platform, Ramesh Radhakrishnan, Ph.D., Power Solutions, October 2004. (http:// www.dell.com/downloads/global/power/ps4q04-20040167-Radhakrishnan.pdf)

 Linux, including Red Hat and SuSe distributions, supports Intel EM64T. Red Hat* Enterprise Linux 3 (all versions) from Red Hat Inc supports 64-bit Intel Xeon processor-based platforms and has been in production at customer sites since May 2004. SuSe* Linux Enterprise Server 9 from Novell has been in use at customer sites since mid-2004. While there are other versions of Linux that support this technology, Oracle has certied its products on the Red Hat and SuSe platforms. Windows* versions for both the desktop and servers are under development. Microsoft spent much of 2004 betatesting two versions of Windows to support the new 64-bit platforms: Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition . Microsoft expects nal releases of these operating systems to ship in the rst half of 2005. Oracle Database 10g runs on both of these versions of Windows. A trial developer version of the database for Windows can be downloaded at no cost from Oracles Web site (http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/oracle10g/index.html).
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The headroom afforded by 64-bit processing provides substantial investment protection for enterprises that implement Intel Xeon processors today, as well as the potential for substantial price/performance gains by migrating from RISC platforms: Performance: By storing large amounts of data in memory, databases can perform transactions under Intel EM64T with far fewer disk accesses, meaning that database tasks complete signicantly faster. Scalability: Many corporate tasks are not computebound, but I/O-bound. By reducing the amount of I/O required to complete transactions, system performance can be scaled by the addition of RAM, rather than the purchase of new processors or I/O hardware. The introduction of 64-bit Intel Xeon processors allows the benets conferred by expanding memory to extend far beyond the 64GB of RAM-per-processor ceiling imposed by 32-bit processing. With 64-bit computing, there is plenty of room for growth as processing workloads increase. Investment Protection: Current investments in 32-bit x86 software are preserved by 64-bit Intel Xeon processorbased platforms, since the processors run 32-bit software natively at full speed. Moreover, because they offer better scalability and performance than their 32-bit counterparts, platforms based on 64-bit Intel Xeon processors will be viable computing platforms long into the future. RISC Migration: While systems based on the Itanium 2 processor (see sidebar) are the Intel architecture platform of choice for migrating large-scale RISC-based architectures, 64-bit Intel Xeon processors can also provide a compelling, low-cost alternative. RISC systems are generally expensive, proprietary, 64-bit systems that are difcult to manage, costly to expand, and limited in terms of the software they support. By contrast, Intels 64-bit platforms run multiple operating systems, use standard off-the-shelf software applications, and can be purchased from numerous third-party vendors. As a result, these systems are ideal migration platforms for database servers running Oracle or other enterprise applications. 64-bit Intel Xeon processor-based servers bring unprec-

The Power of 64
Oracles strong commitment to optimizing its products for the 64-bit Intel Xeon processor platform is based on the clear business and technical advantages to running on servers that support Intel EM64T. The capability of these servers to access up to a terabyte of RAM, high bus speeds, and large L2 caches combine with Hyper-Threading Technology and the coming dual-core and multi-core packages to generate unprecedented performance and scalability. Performance tests carried out in Intel laboratories demonstrate substantial performance increases available by running in 64-bit mode on 64-bit Intel Xeon processors . These tests showed a performance increase in transactions per minute of 26.8% on an Oracle Database10g workload when the test system was switched from 32-bit mode to 64-bit mode. While such results are necessarily dependent upon the characteristics of an individual implementation, these performance increases demonstrate the potential for dramatic benets from 64-bit Intel Xeon processors.
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2. To avoid confusion, it is important to note that Microsoft originally assigned different names to these two operating systems: Windows XP 64-bit Edition for 64-bit Extended Systems and Windows Server 2003 for 64-bit Extended Systems, respectively. 3. 2P Intel Xeon processors at 3.60GHz with 1MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz FSB (Hyper-Threading Technology enabled), 16GB RAM (8 x 2GB DDRII/PC3200, 400MHz), Red Hat Linux EL3 U2.

edented price/performance to 64-bit applications and platforms. Furthermore, these servers let enterprises reap the full benet of massive-capacity 64-bit applications and platforms, while continuing to run legacy 32-bit environments on the same hardware, natively and at full speed.

Intel Itanium 2 Processor

Intels other 64-bit computing platform is the Itanium 2 processor, which continues to be the platform of choice for migrating large-scale RISC architectures. This processor is uniquely architected for the most demanding enterprise and technical applications. Itanium 2-based platforms enable businesses and organizations to maximize their return-on-investment by delivering outstanding performance, generally at lower cost and with greater choice than proprietary RISC technologies. Intel Itanium 2 processor uses Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing (EPIC) processor microarchitecture, which allows execution of up to six xed-length instructions at a time. The processor handles those instructions in two bundles containing three instructions each. This approach enables instructions that can be executed in parallel (that is, at the same time) to be grouped together for optimal execution. EPIC is a revolutionary approach to processor design that helps the Itanium 2 processor deliver the performance, scalability, and availability required for todays most demanding enterprise and technical computing solutions.
4. 4P Itanium 2 processors at 1.50 GHz with 9MB L3 Cache, H1 Step, 40MHz FSB, 64GB RAM (16 x 4GB DDR, 200MHz), Red Hat Linux EL3 U2. 5. 4P Intel Xeon processors at 3.33 GHz with 1MB L2 Cache, 8MB L3 Cache, 667MHz FSB, 32GB RAM (16 x 2GB DDRII PC3200 , 400MHz), Red Hat Linux EL3 Gold.

A recent performance test in an Intel laboratory demonstrated the clear benets of the Itanium 2 processor over Intel Xeon processors for very large-scale implementations. Using an Oracle Database10g workload, the Itanium 2based system achieved 52% higher performance than the system based on Intel Xeon processors . The scalability of Itanium 2-based servers are also attested to by the demonstrated 14% lower performance of the system with 32GB of memory than the system with 64GB of memory. The leadership by the Itanium 2 Processor Family in highdemand environments secures its place in 64-bit computing for many years to come. Learn more about the Itanium 2 processor at the Itanium 2 Processor Family Developer Center (http://www.intel.com/cd/ids/developer/asmo-na/ eng/dc/itanium/index.htm).
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Enterprise database architects, take note: the power and scalability of Oracle databases on 64-bit Intel Xeon processors provide a winning combination that you cannot afford to ignore. Take the rst steps today: Learn more about Intel 64-bit processing technologies, processor roadmaps, and tools (http://www.intel.com/business/bss/products/server/64-bit/index.htm). Keep up on advances in the Intel Xeon processor and Itanium Processor Family platforms, before they happen.

Discover how emerging hardware technologies maximize the benets of multi-core technology (http://www.intel.com/ business/bss/products/server/dual-core.htm). Intel platform innovations such as Intel Virtualization Technology, Intel I/O Acceleration Technology (Intel I/OAT), and Intel Active Management Technology (Intel AMT) will do their fair share to revolutionize the industry. Download Oracle Database 10g for Intel EM64T (http:// www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/ oracle10g/index.html). The download of this Developers Release is free for development and prototyping use. Put it to work in your application to explore its capabilities.

 Learn more about how Intel Xeon processors (http://www. intel.com/business/bss/products/server/xeon/index.htm) and Intel Xeon processors MP (http://www.intel.com/business/bss/products/server/xeon_mp/index.htm) deliver high price to performance for outstanding computing power and responsiveness for your demanding applications. Test-drive your applications on a remote Intel EM64T system (http://www.intel.com/cd/ids/developer/asmo-na/ eng/149957.htm). Intel sponsors thirty-day free-use periods on Intel architecture-based servers. Check out Intels Developer Resources for Oracle (http:// www.intel.com/cd/ids/developer/asmo-na/eng/94836.htm). These resources cover a wide range of topics related to deploying Oracle technologies on Intel architecture.

The benets of Oracle databases on Intel Xeon processorbased platforms are available for you now to generate dramatic wins in terms of price, performance, and scalability. The ongoing design innovation on these platforms accelerates those gains for the next generation: The 64-bit solutions that build value today: www.intel.com/go/64bit The 64-bit technologies that pave the way for tomorrow: www.intel.com/go/dual-core Test drive your applications on cutting-edge hardware: www.intel.com/software/enterprise/testdrive.htm Download Oracle Database 10g for Intel EM64T: www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/ oracle10g

 Copyright 2005 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. Intel, Xeon, Itanium and Intel logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.  *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. 0905/KLM/ITF/PDF 309413-001