90-Mhz Pentiums As SQL Servers

Harnessing the power of a 90-MHz Pentium for SQL Server applications seems like a good idea, but during testing, we were plagued with incompatibility problems--both when installing Windows NT 3.1 and building the SQL Server for NT 4.21 database. Only nine of the 19 Pentiums we tested as NT-based database servers successfully completed our SQL Server testing.

Installing NT sucessfully sometimes took two or three attempts, and one system could not install NT at all, because of BIOS incompatibilities between the Pentium's firmware and the operating system. After clearing the NT hurdle, three systems failed to build the SQL Server database, and six systems could not complete the tests after successfully building the database.

We tested the survivors in a network of 16 workstations co nnected via an ISA Ethernet network card from 3Com. We began the tests with four workstations, and after 20 minutes, we added four more workstation clients, working until reaching a total of 16 clients. Of the six systems that could not complete the tests, some failed with four and others with 12 or 16 workstations (table scores indicate transactions per second). We used a Microsoft hardware-stress utility to help identify where and why the systems failed.

These Pentiums show promise as SQL Servers, but the inherent incompatibilities of new technologies make a move in this direction premature. We advise waiting a few months until incompatibility problems disappear before jumping on the 90-MHz SQL Server bandwagon. Otherwise, you could spend many hours on the phone with technical support.

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Performance of SQL Server Tests

                                                         PRICE
VENDOR                          MODEL                    (AS TESTED)
AT&T GIS
                        AT&T Globalyst 600       $6214
Cornell Computer Systems        PCI Power Workstation    $4075
Data Storage Marketing, Inc.    DataStor P590            $5845
Digital Equipment Corp.         DECpc XL590              $5672
Duracom Computer Systems, Inc.  FilePro 586/90P-32       $5499
Dyna Micro, Inc.                Dyna System 590          $4075
Mitsuba Corp.                   VIP System-90MHZ         $3990
Xi Computer Corp.               XiP90 MTower SP          $3999
Xi Computer Corp.               XiP90 NTower DP          $4549


VENDOR                    MODEL                   NUMBER OF WORKSTATIONS
                                                 4      8      12     16
AT&T GIS                  AT&T Globalyst 600     0.78   1.04   1.03   1.05
Cornell Computer Systems  PCI Power Workstation  0.74   0.98   0.91   0.93
Data Storage
  Marketing, Inc.         DataStor P590          0.88   1.23   1.21   1.21
Digital Equipment Corp.   DECpc XL590            0.79   1.01   1.02   0.98

Duracom Computer
  Systems, Inc.           FilePro 586/90P-32     0.75   0.93   0.87   0.93
Dyna Micro, Inc.          Dyna System 590        0.71   0.87   0.89   0.84
Mitsuba Corp.             VIP System-90MHZ       0.69   0.82   0.81   0.80
Xi Computer Corp.         XiP90 MTower SP        0.76   1.05   1.03   1.03
Xi Computer Corp.         XiP90 NTower DP        0.76   0.92   0.98   0.93


                                                         HARD DRIVE
VENDOR                    MODEL                   MANUFACTURER    INTERFACE
AT&T GIS                  AT&T Globalyst 600      Quantum         SCSI
Cornell Computer Systems  PCI Power Workstation   Micropolis      SCSI
Data Storage
  Marketing, Inc.         DataStor P590           Seagate         SCSI
Digital Equipment Corp.   DECpc XL590             Digital         SCSI
Duracom Computer
  Systems, Inc.           FilePro 586/90P-32      Micropolis      SCSI
Dyna Micro, Inc.          Dyna System 590         Seagate         SCSI
Mitsuba
 Corp.             VIP System-90MHZ        Quantum         SCSI
Xi Computer Corp.         XiP90 MTower SP         Conner          IDE
Xi Computer Corp.         XiP90 NTower DP         Quantum         SCSI