One of the most arduous parts of business travel is getting the trips approved, booked and then, finally getting paid back through your expense reports.

Concur is a leading provider of integrated travel and expense management solutions for businesses and they chose HP ProLiant servers based on AMD Opteron™ processors to help consolidate their IT environment.

Concur needed to drive more performance out of less hardware, and obviously virtualization is a great way for businesses to get more out of their IT investments.  Through the use of both VMware VSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V software, Concur was able to reduce their server footprint and get better utilization in their data center. Initially they started with a few servers, and eventually worked their way up to 70% of their environment virtualized.  And according to their statements, Concur expects to get to 80 or 90% virtualized in the future.

Some of the improvements that they saw included reducing the number of servers by 40%, making it easier to manage their environment. In addition, the virtualized environment allows them to increase data by 30% but still maintain the same number of virtualized host systems. Instead of taking four weeks to deploy a new server, they can now do it in 6 hours, helping IT react more quickly to the needs of the business.

All of this resulted in a 10% reduction in their total cost of ownership, a clear business benefit that anyone, especially in these difficult times, can appreciate.

For more details, you can check out the case study on HP.com:

http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=4AA3-4346ENW&cc=us&lc=en

Now, if someone could just figure out how to beam me from Austin to Tokyo, I’d be so appreciative. 

John Fruehe is the Director of Product Marketing for Server, Embedded and FireStream products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only.  Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

I used to spend hours in the resource center at school, just like I spent hours at the public library down the street from my house.  The resource center was where you went to learn things, and in those years, I think I learned a lot.  I can’t say as much for college, luckily I got the learning taken care of early in my life.

Today’s resource center is where you can go to find out all about AMD Opteron™ platforms.  So, if you are in the IT world and not familiar with our products, here are a few things that you can use to educate yourself or your team.

• AMD Opteron 6100/HP ProLiant podcast on virtualization: http://whitepapers.techrepublic.com.com/abstract.aspx?docid=2361343&promo=100503
• AMD/Cray/NERSC Web Event – find out how some of the world’s biggest supercomputers are planned and built:  http://whitepapers.theregister.co.uk/paper/view/1780/
• You may think that HPC for Dummies is an oxymoron, but for so many organizations building HPC clusters, the challenge of explaining and describing the world of HPC to their bosses and coworkers can be just as big as building the clusters: http://sites.amd.com/us/atwork/promo/Pages/hpc-for-dummies.aspx
• Linux Magazine webinar on HPC with HP; lots of information on the design and optimization of HPC clusters: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7882
• The AMD/HP/VMware virtual infrastructure site, with plenty of information on how to optimize and deploy virtualized solutions: http://www.yourvirtualinfrastructure.techweb.com/
• Podcast on the future of AMD Opteron processors, including our upcoming 16-core “Bulldozer”-based processor:  http://insidehpc.com/2010/12/15/podcast-a-sneak-peek-at-amds-16-core-bulldozer/
• AMD and HP; technology innovation from the desktop to the data center: http://go.techtarget.com/r/13061358/10071344/1
• Dell and AMD server purchasing guide.  Do you need help trying to navigate through all of the choices?  This will definitely help: http://go.techtarget.com/r/13061787/10071344/5

So as you plan out your IT directions for 2011, there are plenty of places for you to learn more about our award-winning products and leading partner solutions.  Enjoy.

John Fruehe is the Director of Product Marketing for Server, Embedded and FireStream products at AMD.  His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

It’s not just curriculum that’s moving online.  Students are connected to the Internet on campus for browsing and social networking; they’re researching papers, sharing photos and even buying books.  In some cases, campus book sales are losing so much ground to the Internet that bookstores are turning to alternative services to keep afloat – offering everything from dry cleaning to flu shots.

The need for technology to enhance education is so evident that textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) recently announced a $100 million fund aimed at supporting emerging education initiatives including technology development.  Similarly, the US Department of Education is demonstrating its commitment to tech-enhanced education through the Investing in Innovation Fund, which was part of the American Recovery Act.

Technology resources are not only needed to keep pace in the classroom, but also to inspire today’s students to enter the fields of study that contribute to and create tomorrow’s advanced technology. AMD, along with our OEM partners, has seen opportunities for schools to build educational programming to ensure we bolster the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills of our future leaders. Have a look at this inspiring video about AMD engineer Brad Burgess in the “change the Equation” online contest. (Vote with your “like” on Facebook if it inspired you.)

Through programs that encourage the use of technology in the classroom, educators can now offer a curriculum that utilizes the best available technologies – from hardware and software to online solutions.  Students can expand their education and their imagination by taking advantage of visually intense, multimedia content that literally makes the subject jump off the page.  In our work with schools through OEM partners including HP, we’ve seen educators using everything from distance learning applications to educational gaming.

For example, Alexandria City Public Schools have distributed AMD-based HP laptops to each student, demonstrating that the 1:1 student:technology model can positively support the educational systems already in place and help youth gain the STEM skills needed for success.

HP’s Thomas Kenny, Vice President of Public Sector Sales for the US, spoke to this idea when he shared his experience of providing computers to youth and educators in Alexandria.

“We received extremely positive feedback from the program in Alexandria.  Today, their teachers are offering a truly 21^st century education that will equip them with the tools they need prior to seeking higher education.  With programs like these to build tech proficiency, our youth will be able to contend on a world-wide level with the basic skills needed for jobs in the future,” said Kenny. “AMD has been a tremendous partner to us in Alexandria – and in other projects around the country – in helping foster tech education in schools.”

You can find additional information on AMD’s efforts in education by visiting: AMD Changing the Game.

Steve Kester is the Director of US Government Affairs at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/2240025618/Processor-technology-for-Unix-systems-AMD-or-Intel

Some highlights include:

“Magny-Cours was a big step for AMD, and server manufacturers have responded. Dell, for example, released the PowerEdge R815 rack server geared toward lowering hardware costs and attracting Unix administrators. With AMD processors installed, the server is designed to deliver up to 48 processor cores (using four 12-core processors).”

“HP also released its new line of ProLiant machines that utilize the new 12-core AMD line. The ProLiant DL585 G7 and ProLiant BL465c G7 server blades come with the 12-core processor installed. The server blade is capable of handling two 12-core AMD 6100-series processors with up to 256 GB of allocated RAM. By comparison, the DL585 uses up to four 12-core Opteron chips and can handle up to 512 GB of DDR3 RAM.”

“More memory is critical for supporting more VMs on a physical host system. AMD’s 6100 Opteron Series has four DDR3 memory channels versus three in Intel’s Xeon 5600, meaning a larger memory footprint. At three memory DIMMs per channel, for example, a Xeon can handle a maximum of nine DIMM slots per socket, but the new Opteron 6000 Series platform can handle 12.”

“With all of these additional cores and capabilities now at the administrator’s disposal, Unix environments and Windows shops can manage their data centers in a more efficient, blade-style environment. Admins initially hesitant to migrate or virtualize their Unix-based databases can now do so with more confidence. Data center administrators have the hardware resources available, giving them more control over data management and resource distribution.”

Have you followed all 10 days of the 12 Days of 12 Core so far? We’re about to unleash a Toshiba laptop on our winner. Check out the rules here.

Jason Deal is a PR Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

One of the many things I love about my job here at AMD is that I get to meet and talk with a very diverse group of industry leaders who are tasked with analyzing, planning and implementing the latest and greatest in IT solutions and technologies.  I’ve watched virtualization as both a technology and a strategy evolve and transform how datacenters and even desktops are managed.  I’ve watched the dramatic change in how we evaluate x86 server platforms in terms of performance, power efficiency and overall value and how virtualization has played a key role in this transformation.

The advancement in virtualization technology has now led us to cloud computing.  Recently, I was fortunate to contribute, along with Margaret Lewis, in the writing of the AMD sponsored Cloud Computing Clusters for Dummies book.  In the book we discuss cloud computing in general, what some of the unique server requirements are for cloud computing, and how AMD is driving the adoption of cloud computing as an IT infrastructure.

There is no question now that cloud computing is real – though I wonder sometimes if the real question isn’t “just what is cloud computing”?  It seems to me that the definition of the cloud depends on who you talk to.

Today it is difficult to open a trade journal, read a blog, or even watch TV without finding some reference to “the cloud”.  Mothers are creating, editing and sharing family pictures via “the cloud”.  Business men and women are collaborating on documents, spreadsheets and presentations all through “the cloud”.

We defined “the cloud” in our Cloud Computing Clusters for Dummies book as “the next stage in the evolution of the Internet;  the means through which everything – from computing power to computing infrastructure and applications, from business processes to personal collaboration – can be delivered as a service wherever and whenever needed”.  The cloud is a set of approaches that can help organizations quickly and effectively add and subtract resources in almost real time.  Cloud Computing is about both the business model and the technology.

Some would lead us to believe that in the near future everything will be in the cloud -that the cloud is in fact a replacement for today’s traditional data center.  Prominent industry leaders have predicted that in the future the traditional data center will be replaced by a small number of very large cloud-based datacenters.

Still others are more cautious and are voicing concerns about security, privacy, and regulatory compliance.

Traditionally, Cloud Computing is said to have two distinct models.  The public cloud, like those you hear about from Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others where services are offered on a per use basis and the underlying infrastructure is shared amongst all customers.  And the private cloud, the cloud infrastructure that sits behind the firewall but provides cloud-like services to its select set of internal customers.  More recently we have been hearing talk about a third model – a hybrid model, or the Hybrid Cloud.

According an Information Week interview of HP’s Russ Daniels, CTO for cloud computing and VP of Cloud Strategy, HP’s take is that “virtually every enterprise will operate in hybrid mode, with some of its operations on-premises and some in the cloud”.  Daniels went on to say that contrary to some theories put forth, cloud computing is not a replacement for the data center.

This seems to be a much more practical approach to me.  Yes, some small businesses may find it practical and cost-effective to move all of their IT processing to the cloud, and certainly all of us will use cloud-based services (think social media and email) at an increasing rate.

But the enterprise is a much more complex environment.

I found this definition from TechTarget’s website SearchCloudComputing.com:

A hybrid cloud is a cloud computing environment in which an organization provides and manages some resources in-house and has others provided externally. For example, an organization might use a public cloud service, such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for archived data but continue to maintain in-house storage for operational customer data. Ideally, the hybrid approach allows a business to take advantage of the scalability and cost-effectiveness that a public cloud computing environment offers without exposing mission-critical applications and data to third-party vulnerabilities.

Both Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Paul Maritz, president and CEO of VMware appear to agree on this concept.  In a recent interview with ITworld, Mr. Ballmer was quoted as saying “I think the new solutions that get pioneered in the cloud will also get retrofitted so they can be run on-premises by customers, because no customer is going to have everything in the cloud. People are going to have these kinds of mixed environments”.

Similarly, Mr. Maritz recently noted, “The new service based on VMware vCloud Datacenter enables enterprises to not only improve efficiency internally, but also be in a position to tap into external resources in a non-disruptive way when it makes business sense to do so.”

The cloud is indeed real, and my guess is that in the future most if not all enterprises will realize the benefits of some form of hybrid model.

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on cloud computing and the hybrid cloud model specifically.  Are you moving any of your enterprise applications to the cloud?

Tim Mueting is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only.  Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

The answer: Yes. And it has been done by The New York Times in 2007. How? Apache Hadoop, a software framework designed to support data-intensive applications.

AMD, along with companies like HP, IBM, and Yahoo!, was a sponsor of the 2nd annual Hadoop World conference last month, which was attended by a Who’s Who of the big data and cloud computing worlds. Companies ranging from financial institutions to large cloud providers to social network sites were there, united by one common goal: how to most efficiently and effectively manage today’s explosion of data and information.

For the uninitiated, Hadoop is the open source community’s answer to Big Data challenges. Administered by the Apache Software Foundation, Hadoop is designed to enable advanced analytics over large amounts of data in cloud environments. Exactly how much data are we talking about? Hadoop is designed to allow applications to work with thousands of nodes and petabytes of data – or one quadrillion bytes.

In my mind, Hadoop is a natural extension of both the shift to the Internet as the major data transport for web and cloud computing environments and the almost unfathomable proliferation of data. To support this trend on a hardware level, we’ve designed the AMD Opteron™ 4000 and 6000 series platforms to specifically address the rigors of these environments. Check out our latest whitepaper here on what AMD is doing in the realm of “big data.”

The Hadoop project also has support in high places, boasting an impressive array of collaborators including Yahoo!, Facebook, and Google. Major services firms such as NTT and IBM are building global practices around the Hadoop ecosystem.

Venture backed Cloudera, where Hadoop founder Doug Cutting now works, recently released an enterprise-ready commercial distribution solution for Hadoop. According to Ed Albanese at Cloudera: “We continue to innovate and expand the definition of what a Hadoop-based platform is, offering new and improved ways for enterprises to make sense of the extraordinary amounts of data they generate. The need for businesses to store, manage and analyze data quickly and cost-effectively is greater than ever in light of the exponential growth of information both online and off.”

For our part, AMD has long been a supporter of the open source community, and we’re happy to be involved in a project that represents a meeting of the minds of global software and cloud community. In fact, we are Gold Level sponsors of the Apache Software Foundation, which administers the open-source Hadoop project: http://apache.org/. Have a look at my blog from this past summer for more information on our involvement with Apache.

John Fritz is Director, Strategic Software Alliances at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only.  Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

I am excited for the transition from VMmark 1 to VMmark 2. VMmark 1 was initially released in 2007 when the focus of virtualization centered on the consolidation of infrastructure workloads.  The intent of VMmark was to give a look at the number of Virtual Machines (VMs) that could run on a particular server. To achieve this, VMmark would stack up many lightly loaded VMs until the server became saturated. With today’s multi-core technology, like the 12-Core AMD Opteron™ 6100 Series processor, a VMmark score may have hundreds of VMs on a server.

But here is the rub – in real life you are more likely to run 10 – 20 VMs on a server, not hundreds. From my point of view, “one VM per core” is a pretty standard “rule of thumb” for most virtual environments.

As virtualization evolves more focus will be placed on running “real world workloads” – applications like web serving and database that can carry heavy disk and network loads. The lightly loaded VMs of VMmark 1 just don’t do a good job of approximating this environment.

Benchmarks only provide a look at performance for a very specific environment.

One of the issues often raised about VMmark is the fact that it only evaluates raw performance and does not take into consideration system price or power consumption.  In my experience, end users evaluate more than just performance – they evaluate the the cost and power consumption of servers for their virtualized environments as well. How these parameter balance is often a key factor in the buy decision.

Let’s take a farewell look at some recent VMmark 1.1.1 results.

The VMmark score line in the chart above is the “raw performance” of the system, as determined by the WMmark testing (a full description of the testing and the systems can be found by clicking on the link above). I have added a cost for each system using HP’s and Dell’s on-line system configurators and server specifications listed in the benchmark submission documents. A price per VM was calculated by dividing the system cost by the number of VMs. Both the AMD-based HP ProLiant DL 385 G7 and the Dell PowerEdge R815 systems offer excellent system costs compared to competitive configuration. And even though the competitive systems posted higher raw performance scores, AMD-based systems really shine in price per VM.

Note how the Dell PowerEdge R815 showcases our concept of a value 4P. One the one hand, compare the PowerEdge R815 to the competitive 4P system (the PowerEdge R910).  The R910 provides about 20% more raw performance, but at more than double the system cost. At the same time, the R815 is also lower cost and higher performance than the competitive 2P system (the R810). And in terms of price per VM – the R815 has the lowest cost of any system. Now that is Simply Spectacular Virtualization!

We need to give VMware a lot of credit for taking a leadership role in addressing the challenge of virtualization benchmarking. The first generation of VMmark has taught us all a lot about benchmarking virtualized environments – and has made a good topic for many blogs. Looking forward to VMmark 2!

What are your thoughts on VMmark and benchmarking virtualized environments?

Margaret Lewis (@margaretjlewis) is a Product Marketing Director at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

¹ Pricing obtained from www.hp.com and www.dell.com, respectively, using their online configuration tools.  Systems specifications matched those described in the VMmark testing.  Pricing accurate as of August 18, 2010.

Virtualization has only added to this.  Consider just one part of the issue, what constitutes a relevant virtualization benchmark?  In our opinion, a relevant virtualization benchmark should include a combination of different workloads with differing characteristics running on an increasing number of virtual machines.  This approach will sufficiently stress the hardware and the software stack to determine what we think will be the optimal configuration for performance and efficiency.

Up until now, VMware’s VMmark benchmark has been the industry’s adopted standard for measuring performance of the VMware hypervisor.  I’ve shared with you before my assessment of VMmark and its limited application to real-world environments, and I’ve shown where different methodologies can and will produce vastly different results.  In the end, when analyzing performance, the answer is often the dreaded “it depends”.

We now have another viable option to assess and plan for our virtualization environment.  On Wednesday, July 14^th, SPEC released the first hypervisor-neutral virtualization benchmark for servers, which measures performance, power consumption and the relationships between power and performance.   According to SPEC, SPECvirt_sc2010 uses a realistic workload and SPEC’s performance and power measurement methodologies to enable vendors, users and researchers to compare systems performance across multiple hardware configs, virtualization platforms, and applications. The fact that SPECvirt is “vendor neutral” in terms of the hypervisor is a real plus for customers who are trying to evaluate all aspects of the virtualization platform. It also shows the maturation of the virtualization market to include competitive offerings from major software vendors like Citrix, Microsoft, Red Hat, and VMware.

SPECvirt_sc2010 was developed by the SPEC virtualization subcommittee of which AMD was a key contributor, along with many other of our partners like Dell, HP and VMware.  This new benchmark modified several existing SPEC workloads; SPECweb2005, SPECjAppServer2004, and SPECmail2008, all common targets of virtualization, to match a typical server consolidation scenario such as CPU resource requirements, memory, disk I/O and network utilization. 

AMD is proud to have been a part of the development and release SPECvirt_sc2010 and we look forward to seeing it evolve in the industry.  We believe the addition of a power metric and the ability to analyze power/performance relationships at both the server and the system level is big step forward in the area of virtualization benchmarking.

SPECvirt_sc2010 doesn’t come free.  A license can be obtained from SPEC for $3000. Membership in SPEC is open to any interested company or entity that is willing to commit to SPEC’s standards.  More information is available at http://www.spec.org/virt_sc2010/.   

So where does this leave VMmark?  Only time will tell.  Have you looked at SPECvirt_2010?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Tim Mueting is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

Dylan had it right in 1963 when he recorded this classic that some say captured the spirit of social and political unrest of the times.  Today, the times certainly are a-changin’, especially when it comes to the computing power of x86 servers.  The role of x86 servers in the world of enterprise IT continues to grow.  In fact, according to an IDC report, the first quarter of 2010 experienced the fastest year-over-year revenue growth for x86 servers in more than 10 years.  Virtualization, once a niche technology is growing more pervasive in today’s datacenters. 

Servers based on x86 technology are equipped with unprecedented amounts of I/O and memory capacity.  The latest AMD Opteron™ 6000 series platform (formerly known by the code name “Magny-Cours”) is based on the AMD Direct Connect Architecture 2.0.  The platform now boasts up to 12 cores per processor, supports up to two times the memory and I/O bandwidth of the previous generation Six-Core AMD Opteron™ processor and includes AMD-V™ I/O Virtualization technology in the chipset.  

With all the advancements in virtualization technology over the past few years, it appears we’re ready to tackle what some are calling the third leg of server virtualization – the network.  A great example of this is HP’s latest release of Virtual Connect Flex-10 networking adapters for the HP ProLiant BladeSystem, and VMware vSphere vNetwork Distributed Switch feature.  HP’s Virtual Connect Flex-10 is hardware-based I/O technology that enables you to partition a 10Gb Ethernet connection into four virtual connections and fine-tune the bandwidth of each of those connections.

Virtual Network Design

We’ve seen how virtualization has changed the way servers are designed, and we are now seeing virtualization change the way networks are designed.  In the world of virtualization, a physical server hosts many virtual servers, which can now communicate with multiple virtual network interface controllers (NICs).   Virtual switches contained within the physical server extend the network infrastructure beyond the physical NIC which creates a virtual network infrastructure – all of which must be managed and tuned.

Enter HP Virtual Connect Flex-10.  Virtual Connect Flex-10 defines a physical end-point to the network infrastructure and allows a server administrator to control the assignment of virtual networks (or VLANS) to the physical NICs inside the BladeSystem.  This Virtual Connect end-point clearly separates the role of the server administrator from the role of the network administrator. The network administrator provisions the network VLANs to the Virtual connect infrastructure and the server administrator connects the NICs to the appropriate network.

Virtual Connect works with VMware’s  vSphere 4.0 vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS).  vDS extends VMware’s legacy vSwitch technology with features that enable spanning multiple hosts with a single virtual switch.  vDS now treats the network as an aggregated resource. Individual, host-level virtual switches are abstracted into a single large vNetwork Distributed Switch that spans multiple hosts at the datacenter level.  While a vNetwork Distributed Switch can plug into any existing virtual infrastructure, HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 provides a mechanism for presenting consistent “networks” and VLANs to all hosts within the ESX cluster.

With vDS, VMware has also added a number of other new capabilities, not available with Standard Switches, that address emerging virtual network requirements.  A few of the more interesting features are:

• Private VLAN (PVLAN) enables users to restrict communication between virtual machines on the same VLAN or network segment which helps to address security concerns and help reduce the number of subnets needed for certain network configurations.
• Network VMotion tracks the virtual machine networking state as the VM moves from host to host on a vNetwork Distributed Switch providing a consistent view of a virtual network interface regardless of the VM location.
• Bi-directional Traffic Shaping helps users limit the traffic to or from a VM or group of VMs to protect a VM or other traffic in an oversubscribed network.

Software Licensing

With the introduction of vShpere 4.0, VMware introduced a new tiered licensing model.  Those of you looking at taking advantage of VMware’s vNetwork Distributed Switch will need to upgrade to vSphere Enterprise Plus. 

You can now enter into a new generation of Virtualization with technology like HP Virtual Connect Flex-10, vSphere vNetwork Distributed Switch and HP ProLiant BladeSystem servers equipped with AMD Opteron™ 6000 series processors – designed to deliver unprecedented price/performance, vastly improved manageability and decreased power and cooling costs.

 Are you considering network virtualization technology for your data center?

Also see John Fruehe’s blog “The Value 4P – Courtesy of the AMD Opteron™ 6000 Series Platform for an overview of the Magny-Cours platform, and check out my blog Understanding the Bigger Picture of VMmark Benchmarks for a review on the latest virtualization performance results.

Tim Mueting is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

HP has a vision for the future that includes a converged infrastructure, a pooling of resources that helps drive more flexibility and agility for your business.  If this sounds like someone’s definition of cloud computing (and trust me, there are thousands of definitions to choose from), you’re actually a lot closer than you think, but this is far larger.

In the past and even today, computing resources have been discrete.  That’s fine in helping keep all of your resources separate and accounted for, but the world is changing.  Applications rely on data from multiple streams.  People work on teams with other members from around the globe. Businesses never close.  And the rate of change is constant, if not accelerating.

Based on this, you need an IT infrastructure that is agile, flexible, and most importantly, adaptable to your business goals.  This is the vision that HP has, where computing resources are no longer silos.  Instead of a vertical view of servers, storage and networking, there are business solutions that span resources.  Need more processing power, network bandwidth or storage capacity?  How would you like to make those changes in minutes, or even seconds, rather than days, weeks or years?

How does AMD fit into this?  Well, if you are looking at pooling resources, harnessing virtualization and driving more compute flexibility, then AMD is a leading solution for your business in an HP Converged Infrastructure.

With up to 12 cores per processor, you can have more granular control on processing resources – more resources to flex, on the fly, to meet changing workload needs. This huge pool of resources, which can be confined to a small amount of rack space, can allow businesses to spread out their processing power without having to spread out their infrastructure.  The core density of the AMD Opteron™ 6100 Series processor with 8 or 12 cores can bring new levels of compute density to a Converged Infrastructure. 

Creating large memory pools for applications is another critical area for the data centers of the future, and with 4 channels of DDR-3 memory per processor, AMD helps HP servers reach a massive amount of addressable memory. And with four channels, getting data in and out of that large pool of memory is a snap.

New features like the Advanced Platform Management Link (APML) give network administrators remote control over processor P-states.  P-states are the different processor speed states; managing these allows you to cap speed to help reduce power consumption or turn it all the way up during times of high compute needs.

With our AMD-V™ technologies, AMD can deliver outstanding virtualization support. Virtualization is one of those underlying technologies that helps blur those vertical computing lines and create a pool of resources that customers can manage and assign on the fly based on need. 

You’ll see new networking features in AMD Opteron 6100 Series processor-based HP ProLiant G7 platforms that help aggregate and manage throughput, thereby providing more flexibility and responsiveness for network communications.

In addition to all of the technical goodness that AMD brings to the HP Converged Infrastructure, one of the most interesting benefits isn’t made of silicon, it’s made of gold.  Well, we don’t really use gold for currency these days, but you get the idea.  The new pricing on AMD Opteron 6100 Series processors has helped eliminate the “4P tax” out of the processor price.  By keeping the costs of 4P servers low, customers can think about deploying fewer 4P systems instead of multiple 2P systems.

In a Converged Infrastructure, having the core density of AMD Opteron processors helps optimize management by giving you high core density in fewer platforms.  This helps reduce management costs with fewer discrete silos to look after, but still gives you the flexibility and processing power that you need.

A huge pool of processor cores to build your Converged Infrastructure; it’s just the ticket for a hot summer day.  So, everyone in the pool, the water feels great!

Read more HP blogs here: http://bit.ly/ServerInsights 

John Fruehe is the Director of Product Marketing for Server/Workstation products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

At AMD, we constantly hear from customers about different issues they are grappling with. It’s not to say that all customers face the same issues, but we certainly see a few common themes come up time and time again. Because of that, we thought it would be useful to start a “Best Practices” blog series that helps customers navigate these issues and understand the nuances of the server market. Let’s start first with virtualization benchmarks. There’s a lot more going on than what we see at the surface.

For example, the VMmark score of HP’s two-socket DL 385 G7 VMmark score (30.96) is evidence of the value of the architectural enhancements that the AMD Opteron™ 6100 Series processors bring to the table for virtualization workloads.  This score certainly is impressive and highlights the performance benefits of “real cores” and additional memory channels (33 % more per processor than competitive 2P solutions). The  DL 385 G7 VMmark score slightly edges out the DL585 G6 – HP’s 24 core, 4P “Istanbul” processor-based server -   which received a score of 29.95.  In addition, the result of the DL 385 G7 is within 15% of Cisco’s UBS 250 M2 top score and within 10% of Fujitsu’s BX922 X2 score.  Both of these machines are based on Intel’s 3.33GHz, 130W Xeon model X5680 processors with 192GB of memory.  In comparison, the HP DL 385 G7 runs on a 2.3 GHz, 130 W AMD Opteron model 6176 SE with 128GB of memory.

But, like I said, this doesn’t quite tell the entire story. Take price, for instance (You can find AMD pricing here and Intel pricing here, as of May 13, 2010).  In this case, while we don’t have the retail prices of either the Cisco or Fujitsu systems, we can at least compare the price of the processors.  As you can see from the chart above, both of the Cisco and Fujitsu systems come with a premium of approximately $554 for the processors (2 processors x $277 more per processor).

Another issue to consider is that of memory.  The Fujitsu and Cisco systems use 33% more memory than the DL 385 G7 (192 GB for the Cisco and Fujitsu systems vs. 128 GB for the HP system.  Moreover, the memory used by the Fujitsu server maxes out the 12 available DIMM slots with 16GB DIMMs (a product which is not yet widely available, and can go for around $1500 per DIMM).

It’s also interesting to note how the Cisco and Fujitsu server scores varied even though they were based on the same processor and amount of memory.  I’m only speculating, but it may have something to do with Cisco’s proprietary Extended Memory Technology.

The folks at VMware have spent considerable time and effort in developing a virtualization benchmark that represents the relative performance of a server platform.  But as with many benchmarks, it doesn’t always represent real world scenarios.  VMmark, for example, was developed in 2006 when virtualization was focused on less robust applications.  We should also recognize that:

• VMmark VMs are very lightly loaded with minimal I/O.
• The VMs in VMmark are not very robust – using only 1 or 2 vCPUs per VM.
• The VMs in VMmark use very little memory – a maximum of 2GB for each VM.
• The goal of VMmark is to run as many virtual machines as possible on a single physical server.
• The individual workloads may not reflect what is typically running in the enterprise, nor do they stress the hypervisor.
• Customers still only run an average of 12 to 15 VMs on a single server as opposed to the 126 VMs used for the DL385 G7 publication. There have been many studies on this topic such as this one by SourceDataCenter, “The data center purchasing intentions.”

I’m sure a variety of OEMs will be posting more results very soon, but until then I think this gives us a great picture of where we are today.  Based on the results of the DL 385 G7, servers using the new AMD Opteron 6100 Series processors can offer customers up to twice the virtualization performance as the previous generation processors (codenamed “Istanbul”) and one of the best price/performance values in the marketplace today.

Does this help answer your questions about measuring virtualization performance? What other questions can we answer?

Tim Mueting is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. 

*The results stated above reflect results published on http://www.vmware.com/products/vmmark/results.htmlhttp://www.vmware.com/products/vmmark/results.html as of April 27, as of April 27, 2010. The comparison presented above is based on the two-socket servers using AMD Opteron™ processors Model 6176 SE and Intel Xeon processors Model X5680. For the latest results, visit http://www.vmware.com/products/vmmark/results.html.

*Configuration Information:

2 x AMD Opteron™processors Model 6176 SE (12-core 2.3GHz) in HP ProLiant DL385 G7 server, 128GB (16 x 8GB DDR3-1333) memory , VMware® ESX 4.0 Update 1, VMmark™ V1.1.1

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vmmark/VMmark-HP-2010-04-20-DL385G7.pdf

2 x Intel Xeon processors Model X5680 (6-core 3.33GHz 130W TDP) in Cisco UCS B250 M2 server, 192GB (48 x 4GB DDR3-1333) memory using Cisco Extended Memory Technology, VMware® ESX 4.0 Update 1, VMmark™ V1.1.1

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vmmark/VMmark-Cisco-2010-04-06-UCS-B250-M2.pdf

Cisco memory prices can be found at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/ps10265/ps10280/ps10300/white_paper_c11-525300.pdf

2 x Intel Xeon processors Model X5680 (6-core 3.33GHz 130W TDP) in Fujitsu BX922 S2 server, 192GB (12 x 16GB DDR3-1066) memory, VMware® ESX 4.0 Update 1, VMmark™ V1.1.1

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vmmark/VMmark-Fujitsu-2010-04-06-BX922S2.pdf

*Fujitsu memory prices can be found at http://www.stockinthechannel.com/p/S26361-F3284-L525-16GB-DDR3-1066MHz-Memory-Modul-Fujitsu-memory-modules/1698619.aspx

If you follow basketball you know that stats are at the heart of the March Madness – free throw accuracy, baskets made versus attempted, fouls per player/team, and even the number of fans attending a game. Same with our server processors – the industry is in the wild throws of comparing benchmarks, pricing, and power specifications of legacy to the latest server CPUs. So in this time of heightened madness let’s take a look at some interesting stats that have been posted.

A white paper published by HP, “Reducing the Power Consumption of HP ProLiant Servers in the Data Center,” shows how virtualization can help achieve power savings by consolidating several legacy servers onto a fewer number of modern servers.  The study evaluates a hosted-client workload comprised of Microsoft® Windows Server® 2003 x64 running with Citrix XenApp™ that is delivering multiple Microsoft Office user sessions.  The baseline for the study is a configuration of 16 first-generation HP ProLiant BL460c server blades running Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® processors and supporting 1,500 user sessions. The study evaluates the number of blades it takes to run the 1,500 user sessions when the workload is virtualized using Citrix XenServer™ on sixth-generation (G6) HP ProLiant blades. Two Six-Core AMD Opteron™ processor-based configurations are referenced – one using standard power processors and the other using more power efficient HE model processors.

The table below highlights some of the results of this HP study:

The results demonstrate that virtualization can be used to lower the number of servers required in a XenApp environment, which can help to reduce the physical footprint as well as power and cooling requirements within the data center. The results also showcase the advantage the Six-Core AMD Opteron processor-based servers bring over the competition in terms of price per user and power per user.  Compared to the legacy HP BL460c system both of the HP BL465c configurations offer nearly a 70% reduction in power per user, with nearly 25% to 30% lower price per user, depending on processor choice. Compared to the HP BL460c G6, the HP BL465c G6 configurations offer a reduction in power per user of almost 8% to 15%, with around a 20% lower price per user, again depending on processor choice.

So if you have been sitting on the side lines in terms of upgrading your servers – the time is now to join the game. The Six-Core AMD Opteron processor keeps racking up the points in terms of price/performance. And the new 12-Core AMD Opteron 6100 Series processor (known by the code name “Magny-Cours”) that is getting ready to launch is looking to deliver even more value.

What are your thoughts on hosted client computing? Are you virtualizing your XenApp configurations?

Margaret Lewis (@margaretjlewis) is a Product Marketing Director at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

One of the biggest challenges that high performance computing clusters face is the fact that they strive for 100% efficiency. Nobody will reach that level, of course, but seeing systems with efficiency in the 80-85% range is not unheard of. As a matter of fact, a great many of them are in that range. When you contrast that to the typical server, which can run in the 15-20% utilization range, it’s clear that HPC servers are in a different class.

But that does not mean that they don’t worry about power efficiency. One of the growing concerns with installing the largest HPC clusters is power consumption, because the new Petaflop clusters draw multiple megawatts.  These large systems need to be installed where they can get the power.  The “Jaguar” installation at Oak Ridge National Labs, for example, can draw between 5-10 megawatts.

Stuffing hundreds or thousands of servers into a small, condensed area (in racks, of course) leads one to wonder how you can make them more efficient.

Cray is doing significant work to make their XT systems environmentally responsible.  (There’s a “cool” video here on that topic.)

AMD and HP have also been working hard to deliver energy efficiency in the HPC world. Take a look at how AMD and HP can help you drive down power consumption in a highly efficient cluster.

We have engineered the AMD-P suite of power management features into our AMD Opteron^TM processors to help drive better power efficiency. Functions like our AMD CoolCore™ technology, which shuts down parts of the processor logic when they are not in use, help make sure that your systems are as efficient as possible, regardless of the utilization level. Even if you are running your application at 80% utilization, there are parts of the processor that don’t need to be “lit up” to run your applications, so shutting down that logic can help drive better power efficiency.

Part of the challenge that we face, as a processor vendor, is that we are only as good as the platforms that our technology partners bring to market.  Adding a feature to the processor that is not integrated by our server partners becomes the proverbial “tree falling in the forest.” Luckily we have server partners that care as much as we do about power efficiency, so their AMD technology-based platforms deliver a wide range of power efficiency capabilities.

As we move forward into 2010 and introduce both our AMD Opteron 6100 Series processor (codenamed “Magny-Cours”) and our power efficient AMD Opteron 4100 Series processor (codenamed “Lisbon”), we expect to see a host of new platforms designed around energy efficiency. Most importantly, we expect see energy efficiency without compromise on performance.

And don’t forget that even if you aren’t running an HPC cluster, there is probably a trick or two that we can show you to help overcome the problem of power in the data center.

Besides power efficiency, the HPC world is also giving virtualization a whirl. Take a look at a recent blog by my colleague Margaret Lewis to learn how the AMD processor-based Red Storm supercomputer is investigating the merits of virtualization.

John Fruehe is the Director of Product Marketing for Server/Workstation products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

With that in mind, NYSERDA, AMD, New York State, HP and GLOBALFOUNDRIES have all come together to address these issues head on, discussing them at the latest NY State Performance Computing Seminar on October 28.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), in collaboration with  AMD, have been instrumental in driving sustainable computing and business practices in New York.  Improvements in operating practices, coupled with installation of energy efficient systems, can enable significant energy savings and help reduce the strain information technology and data centers place on the electric grid while helping to ensure a reliable and affordable supply of electricity.  In addition, by improving the energy efficiency of data centers and working in synergy with NYSERDA and AMD, New York State and its IT businesses and data centers can make considerable strides toward achieving their respective energy and environmental goals, while supporting economic development in this growing industry.  More importantly, investments in energy efficient systems can help improve a data centers’ bottom line. 

NYSERDA’s Industrial and Process Efficiency program plans to invest more than $100 million over the next three years in new and existing manufacturing and data center facilities that help reduce energy consumption.  These funds can encourage sustainable load growth and help to significantly reduce the use of electricity and natural gas. 

For more information, visit www.nyserda.org

Sal Graven is a Technical Information Associate at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)

His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

Like many of you, I have a second job as the network administrator for a small network – at home.  The pay is non-existent but the working conditions are flexible. We all come home from our jobs, and as the de facto technical person in the house, it is my responsibility to keep it all running.

Over time I have managed to assign 16 different IP addresses on my home network. Consolidating print services on to a NAS allowed me to retire one print server this weekend, simplicity reigns supreme. When everything runs fine, it is a well oiled machine; but it generally always chooses the day I have just left for Asia to come tumbling down.

Here is what I grapple with when I get home at night:

The complexity of the network has grown over the years.  The first server was NetWare 3.11, followed by Windows NT Server.  Eventually it simply became Windows Vista on the server, again, in the need for simplicity and commonality with the other OS’s (and not needing an enterprise-class OS at home.)

What I have noticed about the network is that everything is purpose-driven.  There isn’t anything that has just been added for the heck of it.  I scrutinize IT purchases just like you, because they add complexity to my life.

Commonality is really important.  The 2 NAS devices (one for data, one as a mirror backup) are identical models with the same drive models. Disaster recovery is simply changing the IP from the primary to the secondary.

I shoot for commonality on the motherboards so that when I have to update drivers, I can take care of all of those chores at one time.  It’s funny that I talk to customers all the time who talk about the importance of commonality in their data centers, and even on a personal level, on a home network, it makes sense. They love the commonality of the platforms based on AMD Opteron^TM processors and I can see why. Being able to count on the same driver to update different generations of AMD-based servers is a huge reduction in the amount of time spent managing the update process.

This past weekend I decided to build up another system and load Windows Home Server to see how the experience was.  Deploying a new server, especially one with a new technology is always a challenge.

I am adding this server because I want to be able to allow my wife to have a universal file storage – with remote file editing (without having to deal with “upload/download.”)  If I can figure out how to enable this functionality on the current system, then I would probably want to consolidate some of the functions with an HP MediaSmart Server because I really love that compact form factor.

Working with the WHS software presented an interesting challenge when it came to power consumption.  The software is based on Windows Server 2003 but it was not very clear which drivers you need for power savings.  I have the whole system around 45W in idle (where is sits most of the day), which is probably about $.10 a day in power (it consumes roughly a kilowatt hour and we pay ~$.10/KwH here in Austin). While that might not seem like a lot, consolidating down to the HP system would hopefully drop the consumption even more.

Walking around the house with a power meter, and doing some quick math, it looks like the network is drawing ~$10/month in power (based on that rough estimate of $.10/KwH).  Sleep mode helps cut that number down a bit, but don’t let it fool you, even when sleeping, devices are pulling power.

The lessons I learned this weekend probably sound very similar to what you deal with:

1. Commonality is good

2. Consolidation reduces your management tasks

3. Software is never as easy as it appears

4. Power efficiency is very critical

Hopefully, by spending some time with WHS I can build the application that I need and then can consolidate some of the functions down to 1 box. Ah, the life of a network administrator.

John Fruehe is the Director of Business Development for Server/Workstation products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

Many of the improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2 are centered on Hyper-V, Microsoft’s hypervisor that ships with the product. Noteworthy is the support for Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI), a key feature of AMD-V^TM technology that is designed to reduce the complexity of memory handling and enhance performance for demanding applications like web serving and database. My colleague Tim Mueting has an  in-depth Q&A on RVI posted on the Doing It Virtual web site if you want a more detailed look at the technology.

In addition Windows Server 2008 R2 offers live migration capabilities. This long awaited functionality, which allows the migration of running VMs between physical hosts, is a standard feature of the basic Server 2008 R2 product as well as with the upcoming Hyper-V 2008 R2 Server.  This means you don’t have to pay extra for this key functionality. Hyper-V Live Migration is supported on up to 16 node clusters. AMD Opteron^TM processors have included Extend Migration functionality since 2005, designed specifically to enable live migration capabilities in virtualization software. Check out the video on YouTube that showcases Hyper-V Live Migration on AMD Opteron processor-based servers.

Windows Server 2008 R2 is also about scalability offering support of up to 64 processors cores and up to 384 VMs running concurrently per host system in Hyper-V. This provides seamless support for the HP ProLiant DL785 G6 8 Socket featuring Six-Core AMD Opteron processors.

So congratulations to Microsoft on another successful RTM. Check out Jason Perlow’s article for a more in-depth look at Windows Server 2008 R2.

And don’t forget Windows 7 – check out Nigel Dessau’s recent blog to read more about how Windows 7 combined with the upcoming DirectX 11-enabled ATI Radeon^TM graphics cards will help deliver what we at AMD like to call The Ultimate Visual Experience^TM.  Another good read is Matt Kimball’s blog on Windows 7 virtualization capabilities.

Margaret Lewis (@margaretjlewis) is a Product Marketing Director at AMD.

But customers care about it. Today, more than ever; but even in the crazy dot-com 90′s, people still gravitated to value. Who doesn’t want to get the best value for their IT investments? In the business world, people just don’t burn money; it never makes sense.

On the consumer side, people sometimes associate “value” with “cheap.” But that might be because consumers tend to buy one computer at a time. They research the purchase, they obsess, they compare. Nobody wants to go “cheap” because it is their one shot for the next few years.

However, in the enterprise world, server purchases are a constant fact of life, not a single point in time. Most companies, even in today’s environment, continue to deploy servers and look for the best value that they can get, usually with a price/performance or performance/watt metric. Rarely is the decision made just on raw performance.

I have been a critic of performance benchmarks as much as I have been a fan of them. One of the problems that we see in so many benchmarks is that they fail to comprehend the value of the solution – they only measure one vector. Typically that is raw performance.

Take VMmark for instance. If you take the results at face value, it shows you the approximate performance of different systems. But, it is showing the performance for a specific configuration. Perhaps a configuration that you may never actually deploy in real life.

We recently introduced our new Six-Core AMD Opteron™ processors, and along with those processors there were several new benchmark results introduced, including a VMmark benchmark.

Just looking at the raw benchmarks, one might conclude that a 2P Nehalem-based system is going to be a better choice because of the higher performance. However, Collin MacMillan points out in his Solution Oriented Blog that if you look at only one vector, raw performance, then you might miss the big picture. The reason is that, depending on configuration, the Six-Core AMD Opteron processor-based HP DL385 can be priced almost 2/3 less than the Nehalem-based HP DL380 server.

Just over one third of the cost. That is just stunning. Especially when you consider that the typical customer may be loading 5-10 virtual machines on a single 2P server.

Maybe I am going out on a limb here, but if I was trying to justify a virtualization project, I think that telling the CIO to replace 5-10 physical servers with a single server that costs nearly 3X as much as a competing product is simply a losing proposition.

My colleague, Margaret Lewis, takes a closer look at configurations and pricing of Six-Core AMD Opteron processor-based systems (“Istanbul”) and Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor-based systems (“Gainestown”) that have posted top VMmark scores.

In the enterprise world, value might not have the same stigma that it has in the consumer world, and that is why enterprise customers don’t seem to be afraid of it.

When you are lining expensive data centers with row after row of computing devices, someone is bound to ask you what all this is costing and where is the benefit. If you are buying servers based on our new Six-Core AMD Opteron processors you can rest assured that you are filling your data centers with a superior value – and that speaks volumes.

John Fruehe is the Director of Business Development for Server/Workstation products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

This week, Fusion-io, a leading provider of enterprise-class solid state technology, announced a major milestone.  You may already be familiar with the ProLiant DL785, the 8-processor powerhouse server from HP, which features eight AMD Opteron™ processors. Fusion-io reports it was able to pump out an astonishing performance level, more than 1 million IOPS using the fio benchmark. They also claim sustained throughput was over 9GB, or roughly the capacity of two DVDs, per second.

In the past, when you talked about the million IOPS performance level, you were always talking about mainframe-class systems.  Today, we are talking about industry-standard x86 servers.

The HP DL875 takes the AMD Direct Connect architecture to new levels, providing the high end systems expertise to bring enterprise-class database and virtualization to x86 levels of value. With 8 processors and up 512GB of memory, this system provides the scalability and capacity for even the most demanding workloads.

Fusion-io uses NAND flash memory in PCI Express slots to help bring data as close to the processors as possible, helping reduce latency and helping drive up the IO throughput per second.  HP also utilizes the Fusion-io technology in its BladeSystem products through a product called the HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator. Each BladeSystem server can support 2 or 3 of these IO accelerator cards to help drive greater performance while also helping hold power consumption down.

Yes, power consumption.  And before you start thinking that power consumption and 8 processor servers don’t generally correlate well, keep in mind that the larger the server footprint is, the more energy efficiency comes into play, helping hold down the power budget for the rack.

So what does this mean to you?  Several things.

As a Fusion-io customer it means that you can utilize state of the art solid state technology to break through the traditional system bottlenecks and reach entirely new levels of I/O throughput.

As an HP customer it means that you have platforms that can handle your most demanding enterprise applications.  And you can be confident that the engineering know-how that helped reach this unprecedented level of performance in an 8P system also helps drive outstanding levels of performance in the ProLiant BladeSystems as well.

As an AMD customer, you know it means that the AMD Direct Connect architecture is scalable enough to handle any of your workloads with exception I/O throughput through our use of the industry-standard HyperTransport™ technology.

And, as a customer or Fusion-io, HP and AMD, you can smile, confident in knowing that the combination of these potent technologies and platforms is delivering just what you need to solve today’s business challenges.

You’ve got a reason to smile, or, more accurately, a million reasons to smile.

John Fruehe is the Director of Business Development for Server/Workstation products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.