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ChrisCollinson12-Amethyst
12-Amethyst
March 22, 2013
Question

Windchill 10.1 on Linux

  • March 22, 2013
  • 5 replies
  • 2923 views

Gurus,


Anyone running Windchill 10.1 and Oracle on RH Linux,


We are currently running Windchill 9.1 m070 on WIndows platform and I have heard from several sources that Windchill and Oracle run better on Linux so am investigating if this is worth doing. We already have Linux and Oracle expertise on Linux in house but I wanted to get the feedback from this community.


Why did you choose to go for Linux?


Have you compared performance between Linux and Windows


Was this true prior to 64 bit Windows Server being available or based on actual performance over a Windows machines


Any information would be great on this subject


Thanks in Advance


CJ

5 replies

P
ptc-24720531-Visitor
1-Visitor
March 22, 2013

Chris,


We recently migrated a Windchill 10.1 & Oracle 11g system from Solaris to RH Linux 6.3 and have been happy with system performance. We are also looking into moving several Windows environments to Linux. Our primary driver is cost and the ease of system administration with Linux.


With regards to comparative performance of Oracle in Windows vs. Linux. I have not collected any hard data, but it probably comes down to the level of system tuning in either case. From my experience, it is easier to tune RH Linux for Oracle and there is plenty of literature available online for this.


Regards,


Ravi Dharmalingam
ProductSpace Solutions Inc.

A
AlexSaji8-Gravel
8-Gravel
March 22, 2013

I recently ( Nov 2012 ) migrated our implementation from Solaris Sparc ( Niagra Architecture ) to Linux ( RHEL) 64 bit platform. During our benchmarking ( RHEL 64 bit on HP with Enterprise SSD ) we did a lot of testing using 3rd party tools to simulate multi user object creation . The results were like day & night.


I havent tested in Windows platform ( I am biased to UNIX 🙂 ) . We have a large user communtiy using PDM Link for Product Data , Engineering Change and also ProjectLink . We got very good feed back from user community.

B
BineshKumar11-Visitor
1-Visitor
March 22, 2013
Hi Chris,

As far as Oracle is concerned, there is no doubt that Linux gives you more
throughput, more administrative utilities commands, kernel tuning
parameters etc A Google search will give you several case studies.

For Windchill, you should consider/compare the Oracle JVM performance on
Linux and Windows. Given the same hardware, we cannot anticipate to get any
significant performance differential and what matters is the CPU.

I agree with Alex, Solaris is a champ specially on SPARC .


Thanks,
Binesh
Consultant
Barry Wehmiller International Resources



On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 7:58 AM, Ravi Dharmalingam <
rdharmalingam@productspace.com> wrote:

> Chris,
>
> We recently migrated a Windchill 10.1 & Oracle 11g system from Solaris to
> RH Linux 6.3 and have been happy with system performance. We are also
> looking into moving several Windows environments to Linux. Our primary
> driver is cost and the ease of system administration with Linux.
>
> With regards to comparative performance of Oracle in Windows vs. Linux. I
> have not collected any hard data, but it probably comes down to the level
> of system tuning in either case. From my experience, it is easier to tune
> RH Linux for Oracle and there is plenty of literature available online for
> this.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ravi Dharmalingam
> ProductSpace Solutions Inc.
>
A
AlexSaji8-Gravel
8-Gravel
March 22, 2013

We also compared More Cores or More CPU speed . I went with more CPU speed . Oracle tuning I feel its more comforatble in LINUX.

P
patrickchin20001-Visitor
1-Visitor
May 29, 2014

As officially stated by PTC Technical Support with the just recent release of SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2 CU11, SQL Server is only meant for low to medium implementations. Just before CU11 was released, I was advised to constantly reduce the number of foreground and background method servers which is the opposite of performance tuning for scalability. I spoken to other customers who kept their Windchill application with RH Linux and went with SQL Server and noticed an immediate 20 to 30% hit/negative performance. In some cases, PTC technical support told me to go to Oracle instead for large, heavily taxed implementations.


As for OS alone, you better stick to RH Linux for better performance. You will not face the high possibility of incompatibility with your SANs devices that is UNIX based and performance issues with R/W with so many files and folders. It is easier to upgrade java with symbolic links to the latest versions. Never have to reboot the machine.


All that wasted time and resources every week performance tuning and restarting with Windowscould be spent with Oracle with Linuxand less headaches and issues.


With Linux, you can use AuFS. This way you don't have to duplicate vaults, Windchill installs and never have to backup the entire Windchill system when deploying code. Thus, your dev and test can be complete mirrors of point to a layered terabytes/petabytes of vaults.


With Windows, you are always going to face memory and NUMA issues. Plus, oracle JAVA 64 bit on Windows is not truely 64 bit because it takes 4G chunks of memory which can result in more fragmentation and GC collection on larger systems.


Don't take chances with Windows, just because of a IT knowlege issue of Linux. Linux is so easy to get used to. Much easier than HP-UX, Solaris and AIX. You only get one chance to be successful most of the times. Best to go with RH Linux first of2X 8 core 3.4 GHz or 10 core 3.0 GHz ($2K to $3K each intel chip) on your application and CAD worker. Make sure that you have a physical memory (8GIG min) for each core so that communication stays within the channels. As for the oracle database, 2X 4Cores (3.4/3.8 GHz) is enough.


Remember to place all you OS, applicaitons, vaults, temps and logs on different LUNs that can beexpandable.


I suggest using physicals dedicated blades first for you production and VMs for your test and development servers on different blades.


Windchill behaves like ProE, it needs speed in everything in order to perform and have no issues. In all my years of working with Windchill since 1999, Windows for Windchill and its database doesn't cut it for scalability, performance, reliability and dependability. Linux is really cheap RH Linux ES is only $600 for 2 sockets.


I've added some good documentation against the thread


"Strange Windchill Server Behavior"


Wouldn't it be so nice if you can start your Windchill implementation ona good foundation instead of putting so much time and effort, resources constantly battling a poor server.


Important risk watch out for if you meet a vendor that goeswith Windows and clusteringwith only 2foreground method servers with 12 to16GIGsof ram per server and doesn't support Unix/Linux.You can instantantly tell there is lack of experience configuringyour servers torun like development laptops with a low scale implementation. Get ready for constant restarts and failures.


If you need help give mea call, I can set it up in a flash.


Good Luck,


Patrick



In Reply to Chris Collinson:



Gurus,


Anyone running Windchill 10.1 and Oracle on RH Linux,


We are currently running Windchill 9.1 m070 on WIndows platform and I have heard from several sources that Windchill and Oracle run better on Linux so am investigating if this is worth doing. We already have Linux and Oracle expertise on Linux in house but I wanted to get the feedback from this community.


Why did you choose to go for Linux?


Have you compared performance between Linux and Windows


Was this true prior to 64 bit Windows Server being available or based on actual performance over a Windows machines


Any information would be great on this subject


Thanks in Advance


CJ


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