RE: Simulation Server

Aaron,
 
We've recently been wondering the same thing. The wiki page
http://www.urbansim.org/wiki/external/index.php/Eugene_Database#Benchmar
ks_for_simulating_Eugene summarizes some informal tests runs over the
last few weeks.
 
It appears that dual-core Linux is about 3 times faster than single-cpu
Windows, but it's not clear how much of that is from Linux and how much
is from the dual-core. Similarly, our one test on a 64-bit Linux system
appears to be 2 times faster than a roughly similar 32-bit Linux system.
 
If any of you have other times, please add them to the wiki (send me
email if you need write access to the wiki). It would be nice to get
other times, such as for dual-core 32-bit (or 64-bit) Windows system.
 
Another consideration, of course, is whether your travel model runs on
the same OS, if you are running a travel model in conjunction with
UrbanSim.
 
Cheers,
 
David Socha
Center for Urban Simulation and Policy Analysis
University of Washington
www.urbansim.org <http://www.urbansim.org/>
206 616-4495

________________________________

        From: users-bounces_at_urbansim.org
[mailto:users-bounces_at_urbansim.org] On Behalf Of Jesse Ayers
        Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2006 5:02 PM
        To: 'Aaran Stent'; users_at_urbansim.org
        Subject: RE: Simulation Server
        
        
        Aaran-
         
        I am not sure which processor is best, but faster is always
better. Linux is a good choice of OS. We recently compared some run
times for our recently released Eugene, OR tutorial model and Linux
consistently ran faster than Windows, often by a large margin. The more
RAM you have the better, I think 2GB would be a minimum recommendation
depending on the size of your database. I think our servers run the
PSRC model with 4GB of RAM. My guess is that the disk speed is of least
concern, I dont think that there is lots of disk activity unless you
dont have enough RAM. Perhaps one of our developers will have more to
say about this.....
         
        --
        Jesse Ayers
        Center for Urban Simulation and Policy Analysis
        www.urbansim.org

                -----Original Message-----
                From: users-bounces_at_urbansim.org
[mailto:users-bounces_at_urbansim.org] On Behalf Of Aaran Stent
                Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2006 5:35 PM
                To: 'users_at_urbansim.org'
                Subject: Simulation Server
                
                
                Hi,
                 
                We are about to purchase a server dedicated to running
UrbanSim 4. I just thought I would ask if anyone had any advice on what
sort of a system I should be looking for. Namely should I invest in
faster disk, cpu or ram. Obviously all 3 would be nice but I do have a
budget to stick to. I was thinking the 64 bit Opteron Chips running
Linux was a good idea for pure number crunching capability? Any
suggestions or tips are most welcome.
                 
                Regards,
                 
                Aaran Stent
                National Economics
                aaran.stent_at_nieir.com.au
                416 Queens Parade
                Clifton Hill VIC 3068
                Ph: 0419 227 262
                 
Received on Sun Dec 10 2006 - 22:37:09 PST