Blog Posts From The Data Stack Tagged With xeon

SAP and Intel Showcase Big Data Solutions at Sapphire 2013

webadmin@intel.com — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:22:08 GMT

Intel and SAP have worked closely together for years. But, our co-engineering has reached a new level of integration with the recent launch of our Big Data solution based on the SAP HANA^® platform and Intel^® Distribution for Apache™ Hadoop^® software. The joint solution will be demo’d at SAP Sapphire 2013, SAP’s flagship conference in Orlando, held May 14 – 16.

Stop by the Intel booth #3215 and experience our Big Data solution.

The Intel Distribution of Apache Hadoop running on SAP HANA represents more than a typical collaboration. It’s a great example of how co-engineering can result in a “more-than-the-sum-of-its parts” success that changes the game by vastly improving the speed and resilience of Big Data analytics.

HANA is SAP’s blindingly fast database platform that consolidates transactional and analytical workloads into a single, in-memory process. Combining OLAP and OLTP structures into a unified landscape eliminates traditional relational limitations that have restricted the development of real-time business applications, and in particular Big Data analytics.

Apache Hadoop is the industry’s open source standard for managing Big Data, but to ensure that Hadoop’s data-intensive workflows can provide real-time analytics on an enterprise scale requires a comprehensive computing platform with muscle and intelligence.

The Intel Distribution for Apache Hadoop is specifically optimized for the advanced features of SAP HANA and the Intel® Xeon® processor E7 family. Intel’s version of Hadoop can leverage SAP HANA in-memory technologies to accelerate data analytics and also tap into extra performance and scalability that the Intel processor E7 family is optimized for. In turn, SAP HANA’s in-memory processes help eliminate the latencies found in Hadoop’s underlying file system to enable on-demand data analysis.

Through joint-engineering, SAP and Intel have delivered a breakthrough Big Data solution that can store and analyze massive volumes of structured and unstructured data in real time. The underlying platform has the performance to scale to continued exponential data growth and deliver rapid-fire insights to help boost business productivity and profits.

For more information go to: http://hadoop.intel.com/resources

Transforming database technology for faster big data insights - IBM and Intel

tim.allen@intel.com — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:49:19 GMT

I started my career as a database administrator at Sequent computers, where I helped with the care and nurturing of the company’s Informix* database deployment. At the time, we considered it a real workhorse: It ran our corporate manufacturing database and ERP, plus supported our sales organization.

So it’s with many years of fond acquaintance that I note that Informix has just undergone a new release with version 12.1. Another foundational IBM database, IBM DB2*, has also just been re-released, in version 10.5. Additionally, IBM also upgraded IBM InfoSphere BigInsights* in their 2.1 version for Big Data. These new releases are more than incremental updates—each have been re-architected to massively accelerate analytic querying in particular, and information processing in general. This is particularly important news for IT organizations that face the challenge of spinning through mountains of data in search of hidden, business-changing insights and intelligence.

These new database releases from IBM build on close collaboration with Intel. Intel processors and software expertise, combined with IBM software co-engineered to make the most of Intel technology, have resulted in these truly revolutionary IBM database solutions.

Intel and IBM have worked together for decades to ensure that our customers get maximum performance and value from their investments. It’s never more urgent than now, when the challenges of big data require exceptional levels of processing power to extract intelligence from ever-growing mountains of raw data—arriving every day, faster, and from more diverse sources.

The new IBM DB2 release comes pre-integrated with BLU Acceleration, which adds the speed of columnar data processing to DB2’s traditional row/column-oriented data store. Columnar data processing is a much faster technology for scanning through massive data sets and performing analytical querying, while row store processing is faster for transactional computing. BLU Acceleration takes advantage of vector processing in multi-core Intel® processors to handle the column-based data, resulting in superfast analytics. What’s unique with the new release of DB2 is that the one database can perform both functions—in fact, you can draw on both row and columnar data at the same time to get answers that pull from both processing functions simultaneously, and at blinding speeds.

Columnar data is also much easier to compress, and the columnar format also enables unique in-memory technologies that stores frequently used data in RAM for instantaneous access, with less-frequently-accessed data stored on disk, where it remains compressed. It all adds up to speed-of-thought analytics and more cost-effective memory and storage systems.

In tests, query processing performance with DB2 10.5 with BLU Acceleration achieved 25x improvement over the previous release, DB2 10.1. To obtain these amazing gains in speed, IBM took advantage of the Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX/AVX2) instruction set on Intel® Xeon® processor E5-based systems. In addition, the new DB2 release uses the Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) instruction set in Intel® Xeon® processors to pack multiple data elements into a single register. A single instruction can act on several data elements at once, munching right through masses of raw information in record time.

For more information on the science behind DB2 with BLU Acceleration, check out the article Borrowing from Science to Revolutionize Business Analytics by Chris Young.

The performance gains made on the new release of IBM Informix is even more astounding. Tests achieved a greater than 60 percent hardware performance improvement in query processing performance using Informix v12.1 when scaling from four socket Intel® Xeon® E7-4870 to eight socket Intel® Xeon® E7-8870 on the IBM System* x3850 server platform. In addition, the IBM Informix team has achieved a more than 500 percent software performance improvement using a geomean of 15 operational analytics from Informix v11.7 to Informix v12.1.

These new IBM database releases aren’t just about scaling performance. These platforms deliver higher power at a lower cost per query—they reduce costs by making the most efficient use of your system resources.

That’s the kind of performance gain you can take to the bank.

Follow Tim on Twitter @TimIntel.

Fullerton India Saves Up to 45 Percent on Operations Costs with a Faster, More Efficient Platform

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 00:29:58 GMT

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Fullerton India needed to meet the high demand for loan processing uptime and availability and cut the cost of operations and platform maintenance. It decided to migrate from a RISC-based platform to Intel® architecture powered by Intel® Xeon® processor E7545. Higher storage capacity per server helped cut operations and hardware maintenance costs. Plus, the added processing power boosted the loan processing time, creating a competitive advantage by reducing the loan application time for customers. The new platform also delivers advanced reliability, availability and serviceability to support mission-critical applications like loan processing.

“Moving from RISC-based architecture to the Intel Xeon processor-based platform provided savings of up to 45 percent on operation costs, while offering easy availability of skill sets around the Intel platform," said Samir Khare, general manager and head of IT business solutions for Fullerton India. "The support environment and knowledge base available enhance the overall usage experience of the Intel platform and allow for easy maintainability.”

To learn more, download our new Fullerton India business success story. You can find more like this one on the Intel.com Business Success Stories for IT Managers page or the Business Success Stories for IT Managers channel on iTunes. And to keep up to date on the latest business success stories, follow ReferenceRoom on Twitter.

Invitel Builds a Secure, High-Performing Platform for Delivering Cloud Infrastructure Services

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 00:19:58 GMT

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Hungarian company Invitel needed to develop a new cloud infrastructure service to offer its enterprise clients a simple and high-performance way to enhance their IT hardware and software resources. The technology behind the service had to handle the simultaneous demands of thousands of clients and let Invitel guarantee the security and independence of customers’ data in a multi-tenanted IT environment.

The company chose servers from Dell powered by the Intel® Xeon® processor E5 family, running a virtualized computing environment based on software from VMware and Microsoft Windows* Server 2012. Intel® Trusted Execution Technology (Intel® TXT) ensures the integrity of the virtualized operating environment by protecting against intrusion attempts on BIOS, firmware, and other pre-launch software components. And Intel® Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (Intel® AES-NI), built into the processors, supports powerful encryption of data at rest, in applications, and when being transmitted--without impacting performance. The new secure, high-performance infrastructure has helped Invitel stay responsive to its growing customer base and get ready to expand outside Hungary.

“Basing our cloud offering on the processing performance of the Intel Xeon processor E5 family has enabled us to deliver the dependable service our business customers require, with data security protection in place to ensure compliance with Hungary’s laws and regulations," explained Gyongyver Gerlei, interim CSO for corporate business at Invitel. "The technology allows us to plan for the future expansion of the service, knowing that our platform offers the scalability and reliability to achieve this.”

To learn more, download our new Invitel business success story. You can find more like this one on the Intel.com Business Success Stories for IT Managers page or the Business Success Stories for IT Managers channel on iTunes. And to keep up to date on the latest business success stories, follow ReferenceRoom on Twitter.

*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

DuPont Increases Security with Intel-Based Encryption

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 00:49:30 GMT

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IT engineers from DuPont and Intel collaborated to explore the performance benefits of Intel® Xeon® processor-based servers with Intel® Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (Intel® AES-NI). In a proof of concept and extensive laboratory testing, the engineers saw performance improvements of up to 300 percent in encryption and decryption.

The Intel Xeon processor E5 and E7 families, with the hardware acceleration of Intel AES-NI, can dramatically reduce the overhead associated with encryption and decryption while making encryption stronger. These solutions can help companies like DuPont protect their information while maximizing the return on their hardware investments.

For the whole story, download our new DuPont white paper. You can find more business success stories like this one on the Intel.com Business Success Stories for IT Managers page or the Business Success Stories for IT Managers channel on iTunes. And to keep up to date on the latest business success stories, follow ReferenceRoom on Twitter.

China TravelSky and ICBC Credit Suisse Get Mission-Critical Performance and Cut Costs

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 00:39:30 GMT

The top-of-the-line Intel® Xeon® processor E7 family delivers record-breaking performance and scalability for mission-critical challenges. Here's how two companies are putting it to work:

China TravelSky Holding Company Optimizes Data Center, Boosts Aviation Tourism Business: China TravelSky needed more servers in each rack to improve data center utilization and ensure system stability and top performance. It also wanted to expand the power capacity of its servers for better energy efficiency. The solution was migrating from its RISC-based platform to Intel Xeon processor E7 family-based servers, which have helped it save up to 15 percent in power consumption, accommodate more servers to meet growing business demands, and improve data center utilization.
Private Cloud Enhances Business Vitality for ICBC Credit Suisse: ICBC Credit Suisse needed to optimize its computing resource allocation and shorten the cycle from development testing to normal business operation. It also wanted to improve its server utilization rate during non-trading hours and find a new IT resource management system to reduce the cost of managing physical servers. It built a virtualized enterprise private cloud platform with servers based on the Intel Xeon processor E7 family. Now its data center maximizes computing resources, improves IT management, saves energy, and cuts costs.

You can find more business success stories like these on the Intel.com Business Success Stories for IT Managers page or the Business Success Stories for IT Managers channel on iTunes. And to keep up to date on the latest business success stories, follow ReferenceRoom on Twitter.

RocKontrol and Waves Build Success with Intel® Xeon® Processor E5 Family

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 01:40:52 GMT

A great combination of performance, energy, and cost savings makes the Intel® Xeon® processor E5 family a perfect choice for your data center. In two new business success stories, you can learn how other companies are already putting it to work:

RocKontrol Boosts Internet of Things Services with Cloud: RocKontrol builds a cloud computing platform based on the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 and Intel® Node Manager, providing high performance and low power for its data center.
Waves Rides the Wave of Innovation: Audio processing innovator Waves sets a new standard and supports its customers' goals with a new Intel Xeon processor E5 family-based platform.

SuperCloud Improves PUE for its Data Center Solutions

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 01:45:24 GMT

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China's SuperCloud is a leading cloud server provider delivering low power consumption, high density, customization, and green power for its customers. For the low power usage effectiveness (PUE) it needed, SuperCloud turned to Intel® Data Center Manager.

Intel Data Center Manager is a power management solution stack for the data center that provides accurate, real time power and thermal monitoring and management for individual servers, group of servers, racks, and IT equipment.

"With Intel Data Center Manager, our new 9000 series is released and we will do it much better," explained King Tsui, chief technology officer for SuperCloud, "and I believe not only can it save much power, but also this will be the new data center architecture. I think this is a major, major big change and big step."

For the whole story, watch our new SuperCloud video. As always, you can find many more business success stories on the Intel.com Business Success Stories for IT Managers page or the Business Success Stories for IT Managers channel on iTunes. And to keep up to date on the latest business success stories, follow ReferenceRoom on Twitter.

MSC Software's Simulation Gets a Boost with Efficient Virtualized Data Center

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 01:15:24 GMT

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MSC software needed to manage six different hardware platforms delivering seven different simulation products while keeping business trends in mind for future product development. It was essential to boost the computation of CPU cycles, computing core, and memory capacity for better I/O throughput. MSC was also looking to reduce infrastructure and operating expenses while achieving better computation results with lower power and cooling requirements.

The solution was moving from the proprietary hardware it had been using to a more efficient X86 platform based on Cisco UCS* with Intel® Xeon® processor 5600 series. Adopting virtualization helped MSC shrink its data center footprint while lowering power usage and cooling requirements.

“We have significantly increased the efficiency of our data center by implementing the Intel Xeon processor 5600 series and Cisco UCS," explained Himanshu Shah, director of global IT for MSC Software, "enabling faster application response time to enterprise business applications and decreasing overall product build time by 10 percent and regression time by 70 percent.”

For the whole story, download our new MSC Software business success story. As always, you can find many more like this one on the Intel.com Business Success Stories for IT Managers page or the Business Success Stories for IT Managers channel on iTunes. And to keep up to date on the latest business success stories, follow ReferenceRoom on Twitter.

*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

From Video Games to the Human Genome, Intel® Xeon® Processor E5 Family Brings the Power

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 01:03:36 GMT

e5Servers, workstations, and storage solutions based on the Intel® Xeon® processor E5 family deliver the right combination of performance, built-in capabilities, and cost-effectiveness to make data centers more flexible and efficient. In two new business success stories, you can see how it's become the solution for industries as diverse as video game manufacturers and researchers unlocking the human genome:

It's Game On for Video Manufactures: Intel Xeon processor E5 family, Ultrabook™ devices, and Intel® Solid State Drives help video game manufacturers bring their products to the marketplace on time.

Diagnomics Analyzes the Human Whole Genome Sequence: Researchers are deciphering genome sequences faster than ever using Intel Xeon processors E5 family.

You can find more real-world business success stories like these on Intel.com and iTunes. And to keep up to date on the latest business success stories, be sure to follow ReferenceRoom on Twitter.

Strato Builds a Virtualized Cloud Storage Platform

webadmin@intel.com — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 17:33:36 GMT

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One of Europe’s biggest hosting companies, Strato provides a range of online services including HiDrive*, a subscription-based cloud storage platform for business users and consumers. To prepare the platform for future user growth and ensure the continued high performance of the service, Strato has enhanced its data center infrastructure with a new virtualized storage environment based on hardware including Intel® Xeon® processors E3 family, Intel® Solid-State Drives (Intel® SSDs) 710 and Intel® Ethernet 10 Gigabit Server Adapters. The new hardware platform offers a more cost-effective and flexible alternative to proprietary storage systems and provides the high performance, reliability, and scalability Strato needs as it looks to grow the user base for HiDrive.

“The performance we achieved with Intel’s technology in our benchmarking tests convinced us that it was the right choice for our new virtualized storage platform," explained René Wienholtz, CTO of Strato. "Our Intel-based deployment offers an ideal mix of speed, reliability and compatibility, and is more costeffective than the proprietary storage arrays we considered.”

For the whole story, download our new Strato business success story. As always, you can find many more like this one on the Intel.com Business Success Stories for IT Managers page or the Business Success Stories for IT Managers channel on iTunes. And to keep up to date on the latest business success stories, follow ReferenceRoom on Twitter.

*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

Stream Mind Enhances Financial Transactions across Europe

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 02:02:06 GMT

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Stream Mind was chosen by the largest French banks to provide software to support SEPAmail*, a new messaging network designed to efficiently and securely transfer supporting information and documentation relating to financial transactions across the Internet. To ensure its software can meet the requirements of all potential customers, from individuals to large financial organizations, Stream Mind collaborated with HP to offer a range of hardware and hosting solutions based on the Intel® Xeon® processor E5 family and HP ProLiant* Gen8 servers. By optimizing its software to take advantage of the processors’ capabilities, Stream Mind has strengthened its offering to customers ahead of the launch of SEPAmail.

“Optimizing our applications for the Intel Xeon processor E5 family and HP ProLiant Gen8 servers has enabled us to develop a higher-performing, more reliable and–crucially–cost-effective proposition," explained Nicolas Muhadri, founder and president of Stream Mind. "By supporting our offering with Intel’s technology, we can ensure the scalability of our offering, and its compatibility with our customers’ existing IT environments.”

To learn more, download our new Stream Mind business success story. You can find more like this one on Intel.com and iTunes. And to keep up to date on the latest business success stories, be sure to follow ReferenceRoom on Twitter.

*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

Intel Xeon Phi 5110P Now Generally Available - Time to make the right hand turn.

webadmin@intel.com — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 21:47:42 GMT

For 5 years.. Intel® has been playing the role of the in car navigations system or smart phone… we have been saying to the Technical Computing industry “Get in the right-hand lane, get ready to make a right hand turn --- parallelize your code, thread and vector your application, take advantage of the performance we have and be ready to take advantage of breakthroughs in the future.

Its time to take the turn.

Intel Sr. VP Diane Bryant announced our product line at Supercomputing 12

We are very excited today to announce that the Intel Xeon Phi™ Coprocessor 5110P is now generally available. The Intel Cluster Studio XE 2013 development software tools required to use it are ready, the platforms to support it are ready, and the product itself, shipping to a select few for 4 months or so… is now available to help bring insight to the toughest problems in the industry.

It brings along over a teraflop of peak performance on a chip, the architecture behind the #1 system in the Green500. 7 systems deployed and listed in the Top500 in mere weeks prior to SC12. Major achievements in performance, performance per watt and programmability.

(NICS Glenn Brook at SC12)

Now… I keep cars for a long time… I still have my 1985 Honda Accord … I am a little stubborn about sticking to the path I am on.. I like the confidence of knowing how I am going to get where I need to go… I know I probably would be better off with more airbags, a more powerful transmission, heck even a glove box that works…

So I sympathize with those who haven’t made the turn to parallelism…

You want to keep the car you know…

And That’s fine.. as long as you aren’t in a race..

Today’s technical computing is a sleak luxury sports car.. Parallelism enables HPC customers to not only open up the throttle, but use all of its gears…

If you are doing technical computing today, your imperative is to drive insight faster, gain ground on the solutions more accurately, find the finish line as soon as possible.

To compete, you must compute.

If you are Audi making cars, or Dreamworks making movies, or Intel making chips, or a researcher making new science… you probably wont win without taking advantage of all your data and using all the compute your systems allow. That requires exploiting parallelism…

At least get the best out of the Xeon Processor based Workstation or cluster you have… but If you have highly parallel workloads, its worth considering Intel Xeon Phi products as well. Dreamworks is finding that adding Intel Xeon Phi is speeding their movies into production faster. Customers like NICS are saying Intel Xeon Phi is delivering “unparalleled productivity”.

I get annoyed when my cell phone says “Please turn around .. if possible.. you missed a turn”

Derive Technologies Migrates Healthcare Client to Fully Virtualized Environment

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 02:00:06 GMT

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Jewish Home Lifecare (JHL) is a New York-based nonprofit that's been providing healthcare services and assistance for elders for more than 160 years. But recent changes in the healthcare industry had overwhelmed JHL’s existing IT infrastructure, pushing its legacy systems to the limit just to meet day-to-day requirements. Given the organization’s large-scale electronic medical record (EMR) initiative, as well as other plans for growth across three facilities, it was clear JHL needed to review and upgrade its IT infrastructure.

For help, JHL turned to Derive Technologies, which helps companies modernize their data center facilities, infrastructure, and applications. Derive helped JHL deploy a new systems infrastructure featuring storage area network (SAN) virtualization, systems virtualization, and unified groupware and messaging technologies. The solution included three VMware ESX* servers using an HP c7000* enclosure with HP BL490c* blades, powered by the Intel® Xeon® processor 5600 series.

“The Intel Xeon processors 5600 series provided the exceptional performance we were looking for and enabled us to reduce energy costs by adjusting performance to meet demand,” explained Darius Stafford, Derive's CTO.

To learn more, download our new Derive Technologies business success story. You can find more like this one on Intel.com and iTunes. And to keep up to date on the latest business success stories, be sure to follow ReferenceRoom on Twitter

*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

Computacenter Consults the Future

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 01:10:06 GMT

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Computacenter is Europe’s leading provider of IT infrastructure services. It advises organizations on their IT strategies, implements the most appropriate technology from a wide range of vendors, and, if required, manages its customers' technology infrastructures.

Computacenter introduced its SAP Procedural and Service Model* to help customers identify the best SAP HANA* appliance, based on the Intel® Xeon® processor E7 family, to suit their SAP platform strategies, together with a roadmap for installation. Several features of the Intel Xeon processor E7 family make it the ideal platform for performance, reliability, availability, and energy efficiency. Within the first month of launching its SAP HANA Procedural and Service Model, Computacenter had signed up three customers.

“Ultimately, we will be able to generate new revenue streams and develop much closer relationships with our customers,” explained Rene Stolte, solution manager for Computacenter.

To learn more, download our new Computacenter business success story. You can find more like this one on Intel.com and iTunes. And to keep up to date on the latest business success stories, be sure to follow ReferenceRoom on Twitter.

*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.