Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is top of the performance and price pops

Davey Winder
Tuesday, 23 September 2008 19:02

IT Industry - Market

The Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) has just ranked Microsoft SQL Server 2008 as being the value leader, hitting the top spot for price and performance benchmarks and providing the lowest total cost of ownership for an enterprise-class database.

The TPC is a non-profit corporation, founded in 1988 to define transaction processing and database benchmarks as well as to disseminate objective, verifiable performance data to the industry. TPC benchmarks are real world, business focussed, measurements and evaluations of functions and operations.

TPC-E is the newest industry benchmark for online transaction processing, and some are arguing that it is the most challenging as well.

Which is probably why Microsoft is doing the victory dance having finished number one in the latest Transaction Processing Performance Council tests.

Using new Intel Dunnington x64 processor driven hardware, SQL Server 2008 finished number 1 for price/performance, and on the new IBM System x3950 M2 server it finished in top spot for performance.

Fausto Ibarra, Director of Performance Benefits for SQL Server at Microsoft, says that "SQL Server is the only data management and business intelligence platform to be proven capable of delivering scalable results on TPC-E."

Indeed, Microsoft can now point to seven new benchmark results since the release to manufacture of SQL Server 2008 in August that establish it right at the top of the online transaction processing tree as far as real-world performance is concerned.

Microsoft is, it would appear, in a boastful mood at the moment as a press release also claims that independent software vendor solutions have set a world record benchmark on four-socket industry-standard blade servers in three-tier SAP AG Sales and Distribution Standard Application benchmark 5.

Which is nice, as is attaining the largest benchmarks ever on Siemens Teamcenter digital product life cycle management solution, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX and Camstar Inc. Manufacturing Execution Systems solution.

"These benchmark results show the type of performance benefits Microsoft customers can expect when they team the enhancements of SQL Server 2008 with the hardware advancements from industry partners" Ibarra concludes.