Teradata Platforms

Physical Configuration Overview (How data is stored)

5100 System Overview - The degree of parallelism is determined by the number of VPROCs configured during the installation and the number of CPU chips on the Node to support the VPROC.  Each table is distributed over each VPROC's dedicated disk drives.  VPROCs run as collections of UNIX processes under the control of the Parallel Database Extentions (PDE).

The YNET

The YNET on the DBC 1012 and the 3600 was a hardware solution.  Each IFP, COP, and AMP was linked to the others through the YNET with circuit boards and cables.

The BYNET

The BYNET replaced the YNET in the 5100.  The BYNET is a dual redundant, bi-directional multistage interconnection network that enables the SMP nodes to communicate in a high-speed, loosely coupled fashion (wheew, that's a lot of computer lingo).  It uses shared memory to handle the communication from VPROCs to another and between VPROCs and PEs within the same Node.  The BYNET does not really move data when it messages or redistributed the rows.  Instead, it changes the owner of the memory location to that of the destination VPROC.  Memory locations are assigned to one VPROC at a time, and they never share memory locations.  With the BYNET, one VPROC may communicate with another VPROC.  This was not possible with the YNET.

The PE will write information into memory.  The BYNET then changes the owner of the memory location to that of the required VPROC.   The VPROC then has access to the information that was written by the PE.  When the VPROC has data to send to the PE, the BYNET changes the owner of the memory location once again.  The PE now has access to the data being sent by the VPROC.

Teradata System Sizes

The system sizes are described by representing the number of COPs and IFPs, the number of AMPs, and the number of DSUs.  For example, if a Teradata system was described as

2 / 4 * 12 * 24

the system size is 2 COPs, 4 IFPs, 12 AMPs/VPROCs, and 24 DSUs.  Just as a reference Wal-Marts biggest Teradata system is a model 5100M and is described as 16 / 96 * 768 * 3840 (by their own claim it is the biggest Teradata system in the world).