STAC-M3 Report: kdb+ on IBM x3850 X5 and IBM System Storage DS3524

Solution stack sets a new bar for I/O performance. STAC has released an audited set of STAC-M3™ Benchmarks of Kx Systems' kdb+ 2.7 on the IBM System x3850 X5 server and IBM System Storage® DS3524. For the full STAC Report™, click here. kdb+ is a system for managing large volumes of real-time and historical timeseries data, such as financial instruments. The IBM System x3850 X5 is a modular server system, in this case using four quad-core Intel Xeon X7560 (Nehalem EX) processors. The IBM System Storage® DS3500 Express® is a SAS storage system. This benchmark used the STAC-M3 test specifications developed by leading trading firms and vendors and approved by the STAC Benchmark Council in July 2010. This suite of STAC-M3 Benchmarks focuses on I/O performance with respect to heavy historical data loads in single-user and multi-user situations. (Additional benchmark specifications that incorporate heavy computation are now in the beta testing phase but were not used in this project.) This solution stack set several records. For example, the 100-client-thread, 12-day volume-weighted average bid (STAC-M3.v1.100T.VWAB-12D-NO.LAT2) clocked in with a mean response time of 231 seconds and a max of 340 seconds. This particular benchmark (which is one of six operations in the benchmark suite) requires the system to process a day of tick data for 102,000 combinations of date and symbol, covering a mix of high- and low-volume symbols. Qualified members of the STAC Benchmark Council can access the benchmark specifications for more details. The report page also includes instructions on how to obtain the STAC-M3 Test Harness™ materials and the kdb+ code that were used, so that customers can run the same tests on their own systems for comparison.

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