A performance comparison between IBM VM-CMS main-frame,IBM SP1,and IBM SP2. Linear algebra problems

In the past year our computer service migrated from the main-frame IBM to the IBM SP1. A further migration from SP1 to SP2 was made in the spring 1995. We present here a brief comparison of the performance of the three IBM systems, main-frame, SP1, and SP2.The comparison was made to offer to our users a first idea of the performance they can expect after the migration on the new architecture. Therefore the reported data concem a multiusers environment with a a heavy load on each node, which is the common operational situation of our computer service. We choose for the comparison three problems of the linear algebra: the matrix product, the solution of a system of linear equations, and the calculation of eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a square matrix