Hardware equipment and software environment for the DB2 Connect performance tests

To perform our DB2 Connect™ performance tests, we created a customer-like environment. We configured the hardware, software, network, storage server and the z/VM® guests.

This chapter provides details on the hardware and software used in our testing. Topics include:
  • Host and client hardware used
  • Host and client software used
  • Network setup
  • Storage server setup
  • z/VM guest setup
  • The test environment
  • Workload description

Host hardware and software

The following section lists the hardware, software, network, and configurations we used for the environment on System z™.

Hardware

Two LPARs on a 16-way IBM® System z9®, type 2094-S18, equipped with:
Table 1. System memory and CPUs
System/Guest Memory Dedicated CPUs
z/VM 16384 MB (4096 MB expanded) 5 or 6
z/OS® 8192 MB 4 - 7
Additionally, the z/VM LPAR used an OSA-Express2 gigabit Ethernet card (OSA code level 0805).

Network setup

Our network setup consisted of the following:
  • The clients were connected to the z/VM LPAR via Fiber Gigabit Ethernet Interface
  • The z/VM guests used virtual guest LANs
  • The z/VM LPAR and the z/OS LPAR were connected via a HiperSockets™ connection

Storage server setup

Enterprise Storage Server® (ESS) 2105 800
  • IBM 3390 disk model 3
  • Physical DDMs with 15,000 RPMs

z/VM guest setup

Table 2 shows the z/VM guest configuration we used for our tests. We used this configuration for our tests using the Trade 6 workload. For tests using the IRWW workload the WebSphere® Application Server guests were not required.

Table 2. Test system configuration: WebSphere Application Server
System/Guest Memory # of Virtual CPUs
DB2 Connect 512 MB (1024 MB) (2048 MB) 1 (2)
WebSphere Application Server (1) 2048 MB 2
WebSphere Application Server (2) 2048 MB 2
WebSphere Application Server (3) 2048 MB 2
WebSphere Application Server (4) 2048 MB 2

Client hardware

1 x330 PC with 2 processors, 1.26 Ghz

Software

Table 3. Host and client software used
Product Version/Level
WebSphere Application Server 6.1.0.3, Build Number: cf30646.29
DB2 Connect Enterprise Edition for Linux® on zSeries® 9.1
Red Hat Enterprise Linux RHEL 4 ES (client)
WebSphere Studio Workload Simulator iwl-0-03309L
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SLES9 SP3, kernel level 2.65-7.244-s390x (all z/VM guests)
DB2® for z/OS 9.1
z/OS 1.8
z/VM 5.2