A UBM TECHWEB

Business Case Builder

MARCH 2012

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SMB Benefits

4 Bottom-Line

of Upgrading to Next-Generation Servers

Growing businesses seeking virtualization benefits are hitting the limits of their existing infrastructure. For many, achieving speed, agility and ongoing cost savings requires a server refresh. The timing couldnt be better: A new generation of servers is offering enterprise-level performance and optimized virtualization on an SMB-scale budget.

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4 BOTTOM-LINE BENEFITS OF UPGRADING TO NEXT-GENERATION SERVERS

A UBM TECHWEB BUSINESS CASE // MARCH 2012

heres never a time when IT leaders plates arent full. Responding to business requests for must-have applications, supporting shifting demands and resolving service reliability and availability issues on limited budgets is challenging enough; meeting the concurrent need to innovate in support of business goals hikes the difficulty even further.
alization projects. That may be one reason why only 41 percent of 463 respondents to a recent Enterprise Strategy Group survey have virtualized all the applications they see as a good fit for virtualization. The latest generation of servers takes the memory issue well in hand, providing much greater memory density (up to 768GB) than in the past. Coupled with power of the new Intel processors, the additional memory capacity allows more virtual machines and workloads per physical server without creating performance bottlenecks.

Virtualization is an increasingly popular step many growing businesses take to meet these challenges. Virtualization can help an organization alleviate time-intensive tasks, adjust to spikes in demand, provide cost-effective backup and recovery and keep services online despite hardware failures all without endlessly diverting IT personnel from deadline-sensitive and mission-critical business technology projects. For many businesses, the speed and agility required to adjust to fast-changing business demands depends on the quality of the underlying server infrastructure. Given the unrelenting pressure on IT budgets, several features and benefits of Dells 12th generation servers create a compelling business case for server-refresh projects.

1. Optimized Operational Costs

41%

Companies of every size see capital expense savings from virtualization, typically from reducing the number of physical servers they use and maintain. But, for growing businesses, virtualization really pays off when it comes to operating expense savings. Key gains come from reduced labor costs that result from decreased maintenance requirements, from higher availability and simplified disaster recovery, from faster application deployment, and from reducing power costs. In that light, server refresh in support of virtualization can be an effective way of keeping personnel and physical infrastructure maintenance costs from eating into the operational savings that virtualization is so capable of delivering. A server refresh thats built on systems tuned for operational efficiency from the start can drive operational expense value even higher, faster. The Dell 12th generation PowerEdge line, for example, enables seamless operation of dynamic infrastructures by automating tasks and enabling staff to monitor and remediate from anywhere at any time. The same tools and processes can be used across bare-metal, multi-hypervisor and multi-OS environments, simplifying management. Businesses also can benefit from not having to constantly turn security personnels time and attention to the virtual server infrastructure: The first wave of 12th generation PowerEdge systems will be Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 family-based systems, and that means they provide advanced security features, including Intel Advanced Encryption Standards New Instructions (Intel AES-NI), which reduces the performance penalties of encryption, and Intel Trusted Execution Technology (Intel TXT), which provides hardware-based resistance to software attacks that occur before the virtual machine boots.

Number of respondents who say theyve fully virtualized all the applications that they consider a good fit for virtualization, according to an Enterprise Strategy Group survey

3. Better Business Results with

Faster Performance and Access
When access to data is faster, productivity rises and customer needs are met more quickly. In addition to supporting a large memory footprint to accommodate more virtual machines and more demanding workloads, Dell 12th generation PowerEdge servers also increase performance through new technology such as solid state flash drives and CacheCade IO acceleration, which increases I/O for data sets such as databases. These features allow data to be turned into relevant information much faster, leading to better business decisions and results. One example of how new technology can boost business results: Dells 12th generation PowerEdge servers, which support up to 768GB of memory and PCIe SSD (solid state drive) for speeding access to data, which is critical given how much more demanding virtual computing workloads are than applications running in traditional environments. The Intel Xeon processor E5 family in the 12th generation PowerEdge systems offers Intels latest Turbo Boost Technology 2.0, which adapts to spikes in workloads, delivering up to two times more performance than the previous generation of turbo technology.1 2 And Dell 12th generation servers have been optimized for future versions of Microsoft Windows Server, ensuring integration and performance with future operating systems and Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization environments.

2. Agility Without Constraints

Servers that are even as little as three years old fall far behind the new generation of servers in their ability to provide optimal performance for enterprise application and data workloads, especially as they grow more complex. Indeed, many organizations that want to gain additional business benefits by virtualizing more critical applications, for example, are running up against hardware constraints in servers that are only a generation or two old. Older server infrastructure lacks the memory capacity to accommodate growing workloads and complex virtu-

Performance increase from Intels latest Turbo Boost Technology over previous generation turbo technology.

2X

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4 BOTTOM-LINE BENEFITS OF UPGRADING TO NEXT-GENERATION SERVERS

A UBM TECHWEB BUSINESS CASE // MARCH 2012

4. Greater Business Flexibility

Collaboration technologies such as Microsoft SharePoint 2010 are taking off in growing businesses. One of the ironies of collaboration technology is that the more popular and widely used it becomes within an organization, the slower document access becomes if the underlying technology isnt up to the task. Leading-edge capabilities in Dell 12th generation servers including PCIe-based SSD, CacheCade I/O acceleration, more flexible network connection options, and more support the expansive growth of key collaboration deployments, including SharePoint, and promote the efficient use of IT resources as collaboration workloads are virtualized, a sure step to accelerating business speed. An example of how Dell is supporting customer needs for flexible I/O is its 10Gb Ethernet Select Network Adapter, an innovation that makes possible switchindependent partitioning for maximizing bandwidth use across organizations and workloads. Collaboration isnt the only business application to flourish on a strong server foundation. ERP virtualization also benefits from advanced server technology. Memory density, the right balance of processing throughput, consolidated external and internal storage and I/O bandwidth are crucial to ensure that business peers get the benefits of boosted transaction performance, without tech-caused delays. With the Intel Xeon processor E5 product family, I/O latency can be reduced up to 30 percent with Intel Integrated I/O3, and support for the PCIe 3.0 specification improves I/O bandwidth up to two times4 over the current PCIe generation.

BEYOND VIRTUALIZATION:
The Case For A Server Refresh
The added demands (and benefits) of virtualizing more applications are a clear driver for server refresh decisions. Yet not every application can be virtualized. Why consider a server refresh for non-virtualized applications getting adequate performance on the existing server infrastructure? Performance. Part of the answer is that adequate is no longer good enough especially when it comes to competitive services such as business analytics and intelligence. In an age in which victory goes to those who are best-equipped to access, understand and leverage the data they accumulate, next-generation servers such as Dells 12th generation PowerEdge platform are the gateway to faster access to critical information. The Intel Xeon processor E5 family provides Dell PowerEdge 12th generation servers with up to 80 percent better performance than the previous generation.5 6 Network growth. Dell 12th generation servers also pave the way for future growth. Support for switch-independent network partitioning on Dells new 10Gb Ethernet Select Network Adapters means businesses can make the move from 1GbE as soon as more throughput is needed. Making the change involves simply swapping in a higher-capacity

57%

network card. Growing businesses may have a host of reasons for going from adequate to extreme performance from computational analytics to medical imaging. An advanced platform such

Percentage of SharePoint users who have already upgraded to SharePoint 2010, according to a Forrester Research survey.

as the new Dell 12th generation PowerEdge gives them an affordable way to get there, too.

Case Closed: Its a Virtual Refresh for Business Success

Cutting-edge technology found in Dells 12th generation server products pays off for growing businesses in terms of lower operational costs, increased IT and business productivity, and business agility. By enabling IT to move more nimbly, the business can make the most of opportunities as they present themselves.
Dell and PowerEdge are registered trademarks of Dell Inc. in the United States and other countries. Intel and Xeon are registered trademarks of Intel Corp. in the United States and other countries. Microsoft and SharePoint are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and other countries. 2012 UBM TechWeb, a division of United Business Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.

1. Internal Intel performance comparison using SPECint*_rate_base2006 benchmark with turbo enabled and disabled. Baseline scores of 393 (turbo enabled) and 376 (turbo disabled) based on Intel internal measured estimates as of 5 December 2011 using a Supermicro* X8DTN+ system with two Intel Xeon processor X5690, Turbo Enabled or Disabled, EIST Enabled, Hyper-Threading Enabled, 48GB RAM, Intel Compiler 12.0, Red Hat* Enterprise Linux Server 6.1 beta for x86_6. New scores of 659 (turbo enabled) and 594 (turbo disabled) based on Intel internal measured estimates using an Intel Rose City platform with two Intel Xeon processor E5-2680, Turbo Enabled or Disabled, EIST Enabled, Hyper-Threading Enabled, 64GB RAM, Intel Compiler 12.1, Red Hat* Enterprise Linux Server 6.1 beta for x86_6. 2. Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. Performance tests, such as SYSmark* and MobileMark*, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations, and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. 3. Intel measurements of average time for an I/O device read to local system memory under idle conditions. Improvement compares Xeon processor E5-2600 product family (230 ns) vs. Xeon processor 5500 series (340 ns). Baseline Configuration: Green City system with two Intel Xeon processor E5520 (2.26GHz, 4C), 12GB memory @ 1333, C-States Disabled, Turbo Disabled, SMT Disabled, Rubicon* PCIe* 2.0 x8. New Configuration: Meridian system with two Intel Xeon processor E5-2665 (C0 stepping, 2.4GHz, 8C), 32GB memory @1600 MHz, C-States Enabled, Turbo Enabled. The measurements were taken with a LeCroy* PCIe* protocol analyzer using Intel internal Rubicon (PCIe* 2.0) and Florin (PCIe* 3.0) test cards running under Windows* 2008 R2 w/SP1 4. 8 GT/s and 128b/130b encoding in PCIe 3.0 specification enables double the interconnect bandwidth over the PCIe 2.0 specification. Source: http://www.pcisig.com/news_room/November 5. Internal Intel performance comparison using geometric mean of SPECint*_rate_base2006, SPECfp*_rate_base2006, STREAM*_MP Triad, and Linpack* benchmark results. Baseline geometric mean score of 166.75 on prior generation 2S Intel Xeon Processor X5690 platform based on best published SPECrate* scores to www.spec.org and best Intel internal measurements on STREAM*_MP Triad and Linpack as of 5 December 2011. New geometric mean score of 306.74 based on Intel internal measured estimates using an Intel Rose City platform with two Intel Xeon processor E5-2690, Turbo and EIST Enabled, with Hyper-Threading, 128GB RAM, Red Hat* Enterprise Linux Server 6.1 beta for x86_6, Intel Compiler 12.1, THP disabled for SPECfp_rate_base2006 and enabled for SPECint*_rate_base2006. 6. Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. Performance tests, such as SYSmark* and MobileMark*, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations, and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products.

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