Unisys ES7000 scores first TPC-H benchmark result based on Itanium 2

EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, Oct 21, 2002

The Unisys Enterprise Server ES7000 demonstrated the record-setting power of the Intel Itanium 2 processor recently, delivering the first Itanium 2-based system performance results ever published with the TPC-H benchmark.

This is the best TPC-H performance ever recorded for a non-clustered 16-processor server in the benchmark's 300GB database category. It beats IBM's 32-processor result, at 54 percent of the system cost, reflecting the superior enterprise economics of the Unisys ES7000 with Intel and Microsoft technology.

The TPC-H benchmark is the computer industry's standard method of measuring the performance of business intelligence solutions, which help executives analyze data to support effective decision-making.

The results show that for large business intelligence solutions, the combination of the Unisys ES7000, Intel Itanium 2 processors and Microsoft software delivers mainframe-class performance and scalability without the cost and complexities of proprietary UNIX-based systems.

The combination of the Unisys ES7000 server, the Intel Itanium 2 processor and Microsoft .NET Server 2003 with SQL Server 2000 is achieving top database query performance today, yielding better business information at lower total cost.

In the test, the Unisys ES7000 with 16 Intel Itanium 2 processors achieved 4774 queries per hour on a 300 GB database (QphH@300GB)--the first such test using Microsoft operating system and database software. At a price per query of $218/QphH@300GB, this is also the best price/performance of any 16-processor system tested under TPC-H at any scale factor, clustered or non-clustered.

"For enterprises with large decision-support databases, two key revelations emerge from this latest TPC-H benchmark," said Don Montgomery, Unisys director of Business Intelligence Programs. "First, the much larger amount of memory addressed by the Itanium 2-based Unisys ES7000 means faster builds of OLAP cubes and much faster query processing. Second, the low cost per query achieved in the benchmark speaks to the cost-of-ownership advantages of scale-up, Microsoft- and Intel-based computing, which reduces the administrative and operational complexities associated with clustered server configurations."

Key to the benchmark achievement was the Unisys ES7000's support for "vertical scaling"--running applications in a single, scalable environment instead of on many clustered commodity servers. Such an architecture lends itself to high performance for applications with data structures that cannot be partitioned easily, such as business intelligence solutions.

The elimination of the complexities of manual, labor-intensive load balancing made possible by scaling up on the Unisys ES7000 contributed to the superior price/performance metric recorded in the benchmark.

The TPC-H benchmark illustrates decision support systems that examine large volumes of data, execute queries with a high degree of complexity, and give answers to critical business questions. It consists of ad-hoc business queries chosen for relevance to a broad selection of industries.

"The Itanium 2 processor was architected for the complex and demanding enterprise applications such as large-scale decision support," said Mike Graf, product line manager, Intel Itanium processor family. "As this record-setting benchmark result shows, the Unisys ES7000 server delivers the performance, scalability and economic advantages of the Itanium 2 processor for customers with demanding requirements for the analysis of large volumes of enterprise data."

The benchmark was performed on a Unisys ES7000 Orion Model 130 running the Microsoft Windows .NET Server 2003 Datacenter Edition (64-bit) operating system, equipped with 16 Intel Itanium 2 (IA-64) processors and 64 GB of memory. Queries were performed against a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 (64-bit) database, delivering very high levels performance and scalability.

The availability date of this system configuration is March 31, 2003.

"This benchmark showcases how SQL Server 2000 (64-bit) delivers single-system scalability for memory-intensive data applications, such as large-scale business intelligence and analytics," said Stan Sorensen, marketing director for SQL Server at Microsoft Corp. "SQL Server 2000 (64-bit) takes maximum advantage of the vertical scaling of the Unisys ES7000, and the unparalleled performance of the Itanium 2 chip, providing customers with outstanding performance at a low total cost.