Just because you’re a small or medium-sized business doesn’t mean you don’t deserve benchmark data that’s relevant to your environment. In fact, the right kinds of comparisons are critical for you and your decision-making. Why? Because those performance differences can mean the difference between good and great service to your customers, or cost savings that boost your bottom-line, or maybe even help you better use your scarce resources.

That’s why Intel brings you independent and reliable benchmarks that mean something for companies like yours. For example, for our latest entry-level servers, the new Intel® Xeon® processor 3400 series, Principled Technologies* Inc. conducted a benchmark based on applications that most small and medium businesses use to run their data, web, and email exchange servers. Now you have meaningful results that you can actually use to make an informed decision about transitioning from a desktop-based server to a real server or even upgrading from an older Intel Xeon processor-based server to this new generation.

Curious what Principled Technologies found?  Well, the Intel Xeon processor X3450-based server delivered 119% more performance than a desktop-based server. So, that means you can do things more than twice as fast. Plus, the energy efficiency was significant too – with an 87% increase in performance-per-watt compared to the desktop-based server and 136% more than a previous generation Intel Xeon processor.

So, whether you’re looking to transition to your first real server or it’s time to refresh your hardware, you can see what the business benefits will be – more productivity and increased energy efficiency (which can equate to utility savings and simply being a better environmental citizen).  And one more thing, the benchmark also showed that the Intel Xeon processor x3450 could do all of that using only 60 percent of its capacity. That means plenty of room for future growth. Now that’s big!

Check out the benchmark results for yourself here in the PDF document.  And, if you want to see more, you can visit http://www.intel.com/performance/server/

Talk to your Intel IT solution provider reseller about these results and what they can mean for your business: (http://premierlocator.intel.com)

     Remember that song from Meatloaf?  I always wondered, “What is that thing he won’t do?” I thought of it the other day when I was in Europe visiting several Intel® resellers.  What really struck me was that there is not a single thing these professionals won’t do to make sure they offer the best hardware and software solutions to meet their customers’ needs.  No matter what the size of your company, they make it a point to deliver. They just love providing the right solution for every situation.

We spent some time talking about the specific needs of the small and medium businesses. The Intel resellers were really enthusiastic about the recent launch of the Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series. Now they have even more options to offer their customers. For growing companies that are looking for a competitive advantage, the intelligent and adaptive performance of these new processors are just what they need.

     Whether you’re looking to transition to your first server or update your existing servers, it’s important to have the right resource guiding you. “An average small or medium company is totally dependent on their information technology these days. If their server is not working as it should or isn’t appropriate for their needs, they are in BIG trouble. Finding a reseller that can act as a trusted advisor in identifying the right equipment, installing it, and maintaining the device through things like Service Level Agreements (SLAs) is critical,” explained Olaf Pas, an Intel reseller in the Netherlands.

“We’re really excited about what the latest generation of Intel server processors can offer our customers. The virtualization capabilities allow us to aggregate our customers’ small business server, their SQL server and the terminal server in one machine. This can save them a ton on their electricity bill,” Olaf continues. And who doesn’t want to save?  Finding the right server solution to help customers save money and get more performance is what local resellers love.

     So, if your employees and customers are hungry for more data responsiveness and your business is hungry for more productivity and cost savings, perhaps it’s time for a little Meatloaf …and the expertise and attention of an Intel reseller – your local Techoloogy expert.

Learn more about the new Intel Xeon server processors:

• Talk to an IT solutions provider: http://premierlocator.intel.com/http://premierlocator.intel.com/
• Read this brochure for information about the advantages of Intel® processor-based servers for small and medium businesses.

In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore made a prediction, popularly known as Moore's Law, stating that the number of transistors on a chip will double about every two years. Intel has kept that pace for nearly 40 years. For IT, this translates into a roadmap that enables IT to buy new servers that cost roughly the same as the previous server but performs so much better. Compare Intel’s 4 Socket MP server performance introduced in 2006 (Intel Xeon processor 7000 series) to today’s server introduced in 2008 (Intel Xeon 7400): 3x more performance throughput as measured by SPECint*_rate_base 2000*, 2.4x more ERP users as measured by SAP-SD* and 2x more database transactions as measured by TPC-C*.

Now, introduce a global economic downturn into the mix and suddenly IT is forced to cut costs and projects (i.e. delay or cancel upgrades and non-revenue generating projects). New articles start popping up from magazines like the Economist that take Moore’s Law and propose flipping it on it’s ear: instead of products providing more performance at roughly the same price, provide products that offer the same performance as IT is already experiencing, but now at a lower price. Call it “inverting Moore’s law” where IT takes the dividend it provides in dollars vs. extra performance.

So here’s something to think about: You can also “invert” Moore’s Law by making new targeted IT investments today that offer attractive payback scenarios tomorrow - giving you similar performance but at a much lower cost. With mortgage rates dropping, you may have already benefited from a rapid payback in your personal life (i.e. I recently refinanced a house down from 7% to 5.25% 30-year fixed rate that I had continuously made additional principle payments for. The ~$5k up front investment (i.e. closing costs) will be “paid back” to me after 5 months due to monthly mortgage payment savings.

Here is a server refresh example that explains how you can also get an attractive payback for your IT department.

Oracle Database Refresh: Let’s next look at a hypothetical example of an IT department running current Oracle Database Enterprise Edition on 12 servers purchased in early 2006 (dual-core Intel Xeon 7041 based servers introduced in 2005) and assess the total cost of ownership difference in moving to new servers.  We’ll assume the IT manager is paying per processor licensing fees for Oracle Database. We’ll compare the old server equipment to new 4-core Xeon 7440 based servers that offer up to ~3x more database performance (Xeon processor 7400 Series come in flavors of 6-core and 4-core versions).  This should enable consolidation ratios of 3:1, enabling the IT manager to reduce from 12 servers to 4 new servers. 

First the new investment: 4 New Xeon 7400 based servers at roughly $20k each = $80k.  Add another $5k for Network, Server Maintenance and Install Costs.  Remove ~$2k in tax implications associated with the expense in year 0.  Total investment ~$83k. 

Next, let’s look at the savings: The IT Manager is paying $41.8k yearly on Oracle maintenance/support costs x 12 dual-core MP servers today, that is $501k.  The 4 new quad-core servers will have larger Oracle database maintenance/support costs because of the core count ($83k x 4 servers = $334k) but this will still result in $167k SW savings each year (difference between $501k and $334k) which my calculations show about $669k savings over 4 years.  Moving from 12 to 4 servers also reduces about $72k in network, server maintenance, and utility (power/cooling) costs over 4 years as well. In addition to all of these costs savings over 4 years, my calculations show that the original investment of ~$83k has a payback of 9 months.

Targeted IT investments today can offer attractive payback scenarios and cost savings tomorrow - giving you similar performance but at a much lower cost.   Let me know what you think?