HP cracks million mark in server test

Using Intel's processors, Oracle's database and a whopping 1 terabyte of memory, Hewlett-Packard has become the first company to build a server that exceeds 1 million transactions per minute on a widely watched server speed test.

The system, an $8.4 million HP Integrity Superdome with 64 1.5GHz Itanium 2 processors running HP's version of Unix, achieved a score of 1,008,000 transactions per minute on the TPC-C test. HP had the previous top score for the test, 824,000, using a similar system but with half as much memory and a somewhat smaller storage system.

HP's 1-terabyte system--1,024 gigabytes--uses vastly more memory than most servers are typically equipped with. Most desktop computers today come with somewhere between two-thousandths to eight-thousandths that much.

HP and IBM have been fighting for the top spot in the TPC-C test, which simulates a warehouse tracking system with numerous transactions such as purchase orders. HP now holds the top three spots, with third place running a version of Microsoft Windows on a Superdome.

Sun Microsystems has bowed out of the race with the criticism that the test has become a distorted measurement of real-world challenges.