Oracle Beats NetApp Results on SPECsfs2008 NFS Benchmark at Less Than Half the Price, Sets Two-Node World Record

BENCHMARK SUMMARY

(As of Tuesday, 17 April 2012)

Oracle's Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance (two-node) beat all current NetApp SPECsfs2008 NFS benchmark results, four-node and smaller(1). The Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance set a two-node world record on the SPECsfs2008 NFS benchmark, delivering 267,928 SPECsfs2008_nfs.v3 ops/sec with an Overall Response Time (ORT) of 1.31 msec(1). The Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance delivered 41 percent higher throughput than the dual-controller NetApp FAS6240 and 164 percent higher throughput than the dual-controller NetApp FAS3270 on the SPECsfs2008_nfs benchmark at less than half the list price of both current results(2).

BENCHMARK DESCRIPTION

SPECsfs2008 is the latest version of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation benchmark suite measuring file server throughput and response time, providing a standardized method for comparing performance across different vendor platforms. SPECsfs2008 results summarize the server's capabilities with respect to the number of operations that can be handled per second, as well as the overall latency of the operations. The suite is a follow-on to the SFS97_R1 benchmark, adding a CIFS workload, an updated NFSv3 workload, support for additional client platforms, and a new test harness and reporting/submission framework.

Note these results are only comparing using the NFSv3 workload.

BENCHMARK OUTCOME

Oracle's Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance (two-node) delivered world-record performance on the SPECsfs2008_nfs.v3 benchmark delivering more SPECsfs2008_nfs.v3 ops/sec than any other two node or smaller result and beating all 4-node and smaller results published by NetApp to date.

The Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance delivered 267,928 SPECsfs2008_nfs.v3 ops/sec with an Overall Response Time (ORT) of 1.31 msec on the SPECsfs2008 NFS benchmark. (1)
The Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance had 41% higher throughput than the dual-controller NetApp FAS6240 on the SPECsfs2008_nfs.v3 benchmark.
The Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance recorded a response time of 3.1 milliseconds at 267,928 SPEC SFS2008_nfs ops/sec while the NetApp FAS6240 recorded a response time of 3.6 milliseconds at 190,675 SPEC SFS2008_nfs ops/sec which is 16% slower than Oracle.
The Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance had 164% higher throughput than the dual-controller NetApp FAS3270 on the SPECsfs2008_nfs.v3 benchmark.
The Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance recorded a response time of 3.1 milliseconds at 267,928 SPEC SFS2008_nfs ops/sec while the NetApp FAS3270 recorded a response time of 4.3 milliseconds at 101,183 SPEC SFS2008_nfs ops/sec, which is 38% slower than Oracle.
The Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance had 3% higher throughput and 14% better Overall Response Time than the NetApp Data ONTAP 8.1 Cluster-Mode (4-node FAS6240) on the SPECsfs2008_nfs.v3 benchmark.
As benchmarked, FAS6240 system under test has a list price that is over 2x greater than Sun ZFS Storage 7420 appliance. (2)

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. SPEC and SPECsfs are registered trademarks of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC). Results as of April 17, 2012, for more information see www.spec.org.

(1) Sun ZFS Storage 7420 Appliance 267,928 SPEC SFS2008_nfs Ops/sec, 1.31 msec ORT, NetApp FAS6240 190,675 SPEC SFS2008_nfs Ops/Sec, 1.17 msec ORT, NetApp Data ONTAP 8.1 Cluster-Mode (4-node FAS6240) 260,388 SPEC SFS2008_nfs Ops/Sec, 1.53 msec ORT. NetApp FAS3270 101,183 SPEC SFS2008_nfs Ops/Sec, 1.66 msec ORT SPECsfs2008_nfs.v3 http://www.ideasinternational.com/Benchmark-Top-Ten/SPECsfs2008_nfs. Nodes refer to the item in the SPECsfs2008 disclosed Configuration Bill of Materials that have the Processing Elements that perform the NFS Processing Function. These are the first item listed in each of disclosed Configuration Bill of Materials except for EMC where it is both the first and third items listed, and HP, where it is the second item listed as Blade Servers. The number of nodes is from the QTY disclosed in the Configuration Bill of Materials as described above.

(2) Configuration Bill of Materials list price for Oracle result of US$ 423,644, https://shop.oracle.com/pls/ostore/f? p=dstore:product:3130100562972910::NO:RP,6:P6_LPI:424445173149341922658385. SPECsfs2008_nfs.v3 Configuration Bill of Materials list price for NetApp FAS3270 result of US$ 1,215,290. Configuration Bill of Materials list price for NetApp FAS6240 result of US$ $1,224,350.