2 IBM System x3850 X6 and x3950 X6 Planning and Implementation Guide1.1 Target workloadsThe IBM X6 servers introduce new levels of fault tolerance with advanced reliability,availability, and serviceability (RAS) features implemented in hardware and software,simplified servicing and upgrades with a bookshelf concept and lid-less design, and dramaticimprovements in response time with stretched memory speeds and innovative flash storageofferings, while leveraging proven technologies of the previous generations of EnterpriseX-Architecture.These servers provide those looking for the highest level of scalable performance, themaximum memory capacity, and the richest set of RAS features for maximum productivity.They are designed for mission-critical, scalable workloads, including large databases, andERP/CRM systems to support online transaction processing, business analytics,virtualization, and enterprise applications.This section describes how IBM X6 technology helps to address challenges clients are facingin these mission-critical enterprise environments.1.1.1 DatabasesLeadership performance, scalability, and large memory support means that X6 systems canbe highly utilized, yielding the best return for database applications such as these: SAP Business Suite on X6 Microsoft SQL Data Warehouse on X6 SAP HANA on X6 IBM DB2® BLU on X6X6 is well suited for Online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads. OLTP workloads arecharacterized by small, interactive transactions that generally require subsecond responsetimes. For most OLTP systems, the processor, memory, and I/O subsystem in a server arewell balanced and are not considered performance bottlenecks.The major source of performance issues in OLTP environments is typically related to thestorage I/O. The speed of traditional hard disk drive (HDD)-based storage systems does notmatch the processing capabilities of the server. As a result, often a situation occurs where apowerful processor sits idle, waiting for storage I/O requests to complete, negativelyimpacting the user and business productivity. This is not the case with X6.The OLTP workload optimization goal for IBM X6 systems is to address storage I/Obottlenecks. The possible choices are in-memory data and the use of flash storage: In-memory data:The main memory is the fastest storage type that can hold a significant amount of data.Data in main memory can be addressed more than a hundred times faster than data on aspinning hard disk.For more information about in-memory data, see 1.4, “Storage versus in-memory data” onpage 7. Flash storage as a main data store:When flash storage is used as a main OLTP data storage, entire database structures areplaced onto solid-state storage logical volumes. Solid-state storage has significantly betterIOPS performance characteristics compared to traditional spinning hard disk drives.
