NEC's SQL Server Solution Simplifies Migration

Enterprise Networks & Servers, Nov 2003

NEC Solutions America has announced the NEC SQL Server Solution, a 64-bit server solution for adopting Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition (64-bit) for data warehousing, data mining and transaction intensive applications. Comprised of server hardware, server management software, SQL Server 2000 (64 bit) training and installation services, the solution will help users of the Microsoft SQL Server database software to consolidate server farms and migrate from 32-bit computing to 64-bit computing.

NEC Express5800/1000Xd Series servers incorporate the new, second-generation Intel Itanium 2 Processor (code named Madison) along with NEC's own GlobalMaster Professional server software. The provisioning and failover features of Global Master Professional enable dynamic reconfiguration of processing elements as well as hardware-enabled high availability features. With a capacity of up to 32-processors, the NEC server can potentially consolidate hundreds of 32-bit servers while offering failover protection to ensure that processing continues in the event of hardware failure.

"The raw speed performance of 64-bit computing can be a critical competitive advantage for any size company," said Stan Sorensen, director of product management for SQL Server at Microsoft. "With its comprehensive package for SQL Server 2000 (64-bit), NEC makes the migration process that much more simple. With SQL Server 2000 (64-bit), companies get greater performance at a fraction of the cost. NEC takes it one step further by removing additional barriers for every enterprise."

NEC's SQL Server solution will be offered with a 32-processor server, 16-processor server or 8-processor server. All 8- and 16-processor servers can be upgraded to 32-processor systems.

The NEC SQL Server solution kicks off the company's new Xd server models, which use the Intel Itanium 2 processors running 1.5 GHz with 6GB of addressable memory.

The servers also utilize NEC cross-bar architecture taken from the NEC TX Super Computer architecture, currently used in the Earth Simulator, the fastest computer in the world. This key super computer feature will allow the new 1000Xd Series servers to take advantage of all capabilities offered with the next generation of Intel processors with only a chip upgrade.