A thread performance comparison: Windows NT and Solaris on a symmetric multiprocessor
Fabian Zabatta, Kevin Ying · 1998
Manufacturers now have the capability to build high performance multiprocessor machines with common PC components. This has created a new market of low cost multiprocessor machines. However, these machines are handicapped unless they have an operating system that can take advantage of their underlying architectures. Presented is a comparison of two such operating systems, Windows NT and Solaris. By focusing on their implementation of threads, we show each system's ability to exploit multiprocessors. We report our results and interpretations of several experiments that were used to compare the performance of each system. What emerges is a discussion on the performance impact of each implementation and its significance on various types of applications. 1. Introduction A few years ago, high performance multiprocessor machines had a price tag of $100,000 and up, see [16]. The multiprocessor market consisted of proprietary architectures that demanded a higher cost due to the scale of econ...