VoltDB Study Shows IBM SoftLayer Performance Best in Class

By Casey Houser November 30, 2015

VoltDB, the developer of database software that runs entirely in memory, recently announced the results of its latest benchmark test for four major cloud hosting services: Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, IBM SoftLayer (bare metal and virtual machines), and Microsoft Azure.

Being familiar with the Yahoo Cloud Serving Benchmark, an open source cloud performance benchmark service, VoltDB used that platform to determine which of the above cloud services analyzed data the quickest and offered services for the lowest cost. In the end, it found that IBM outperformed its competitors as much as threefold when it comes to performance; however, Google shined bright when considering only cloud-based platform-as-a-service providers.

Bruce Reading, the CEO of VoltDB, commented generally on the results his organization found that, “These results showcase the tremendous performance, price, and scalability benefits of today’s cloud offerings for developing and deploying fast data applications.”

The Yahoo Benchmark tested the operations-per-second each cloud platform performed. The competitors weighed in as follows:

•Coming in first with regard to performance, IBM SoftLayer bare metal showed 1,543,000 operations-per-second compared to Google Cloud Platform’s 1,038,586, Microsoft Azure’s 902,017, and Amazon Web Services’ 585,000.

•Regarding price, IBM SoftLayer bare metal also grabbed top honors by showing a 4.630 billion operations-per-dollar compared to Google Cloud Platform’s 3.338 billion, Amazon Web Services’ 1.608 billion, and Microsoft Azure’s 0.415 billion.

Clearly, IBM SoftLayer runs way ahead of the competition. The competitors still offer a lot of performance for the dollar, but even the slightest gains can be extremely useful for large enterprises. When the name of the game is speed, enterprises want everything they can get for the lowest cost possible. This year, just as last year, IBM came out on top, leaving the others to try to gain ground in the battle for cloud service dominance.

Edited by Kyle Piscioniere