I just completed some new benchmarks that are rolled up into two distinct benchmark reports.  Please see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/stocktrader-benchmarks.aspx for links to both downloadable reports.

The first looks at the use of Microsoft AppFabric Caching Services, comparing the performance of Microsoft Windows Server AppFabric to IBM eXtreme Scale 7.1.  These benchmarks include comparisons with and without the use of cache replication for failover, and focus on the performance of the middler tier distributed cache servers.  The benchmarks include pricing comparisons for the configurations tested, and the results are quite interesting.  Full source code and tuning details is of course provided in the full benchmark report.  Some highlights:

  • Both IBM eXtreme Scale 7.1 and Microsoft Windows Server AppFabric are capable of dramatically improving the scalability and performance of business applications by providing a robust distributed caching grid.
  • Both products can dramatically reduce the utilization/load on central database servers.
  • Microsoft Windows Server AppFabric outperforms IBM eXtreme Scale 7.1 in key test cases with cache failover (replication) support turned on.
  • Microsoft Windows Server AppFabric provides this better performance at a fraction of the cost of IBM eXtreme Scale when compared running on the same hardware configurations.
  • In the small object tests with cache replication, the Microsoft Windows Server AppFabric solution costs just 22% of the IBM eXtreme Scale solution, yet provides 15% better performance as measured in transactions per second.
  • In the large object tests with cache replication, the Microsoft Windows Server AppFabric solution costs just 22% of the IBM eXtreme Scale solution, yet provides 11% better performance as measured in transactions per second.

The second is an update to the StockTrader benchmarks, and focusses on core .NET 4.0 performance vs. IBM WebSphere 7.0.  Performance is compared to both IBM WebSphere 7.0 running on a Windows Server 2008 R2 platform, and to IBM WebSphere 7.0 running on an AIX/Power platform.  These results also show a very large price-performance advantage with the Microsoft .NET 4.0 Framework vs. IBM WebSphere 7. 

I encourage customers to see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/stocktrader-benchmarks.aspx and download the two benchmark reports, and to perform their own testing of these platforms.