Intel 170 Servers User Manual

Server models were designed for a client/server workload and to accommodate an interactive workload.
When the interactive workload exceeds an interactive CPW threshold (the “knee of the curve”) the
client/server processing performance of the system becomes increasingly impacted at an accelerating rate
beyond the knee as interactive workload continues to build.  Once the interactive workload reaches the
maximum interactive CPW value, all the CPU cycles are being used and there is no capacity available for
handling client/server tasks.

Custom server models interact with batch and interactive workloads similar to the server models but the
degree of interaction and priority of workloads follows a different algorithm and hence the knee of the
curve for workload interaction is at a different point which offers a much higher interactive workload
capability compared to the standard server models.
 
For the server models the knee of the curve is approximately:

y 100% of interactive CPW for:

y iSeries model 170s announced on or after 9/98
y 7xx models

y 6/7 (86%) of interactive CPW for:

y AS/400e custom servers

y 1/3 of interactive CPW for:

y AS/400 Advanced Servers
y AS/400e servers
y AS/400e model 150 
y iSeries model 170s announced in 2/98

For the 7xx models the interactive capacity is a feature that can be sized and purchased like any other
feature of the system (i.e. disk, memory, communication lines, etc.).

The following charts show the CPU distribution vs. interactive utilization for Custom Server and pre-2/99
Server models.

IBM i 6.1 Performance Capabilities Reference - January/April/October 2008

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 Copyright IBM Corp. 2008