December 8, 2006

Rate Adjustment for New Titan Processor

Mainframe services provided by CIT are cost-recovered from customers based on system usage. A customer submitting a batch job, executing a TSO session, or accessing the computer for other services, will be charged based in part on how many CPU seconds are consumed.

When a mainframe is installed at CIT, it is imperative that the processor speed be examined to ensure that there will not be a revenue change for its services due to the upgrade. To gauge the relative speed of the new machine, we run a series of benchmark jobs that do identical processing on both the old and new processors.

When CIT's mainframe was upgraded from two 9672-RB6 processors to one z9-BC 2096-M03 processor in November 2006, our benchmark tests indicated that, on average, the new processor used approximately 25% less CPU time for a given workload. In order for the change to the new processor to be revenue neutral, we had to adjust the CPU rates by 25%. Details on the adjusted rates are available at the Data Center Rates page. The adjusted rates became effective when the production Titan systems were moved to the new processor on November 19th and will be reflected on the December invoices.

Questions?

If you have any questions regarding these adjustments, please contact the NIH Help Desk at 301-496-HELP (301-496-4357), 866-319-4357 (toll free), or 301-496-8294 (TTY) and ask to speak to a Titan consultant.