Benchmarks can be invaluable when it comes to making a decision on whether to migrate mission-critical applications, especially those benchmarks that are frequently referenced by enterprise IT organizations when making decisions about which platform to use as their Oracle Database. The TPC-C benchmark is often referred to as the flagship server benchmark that measures online transaction processing (OLTP) performance by simulating a complete compute environment where a population of users runs transactions against a database. In many instances online transaction processing is critical to business operations and the systems that run these applications must have high performance and be reliable.
Cisco Unified Computing System™ (Cisco UCS™) servers, combined with Oracle Database software, recently delivered a result with outstanding performance and leadership price-performance versus 2-socket RISC/UNIX platforms. The Cisco UCS C250 M2 delivered more than four times better performance that an HP Integrity rx6600 with 78% lower price-performance and 16% better price-performance than the IBM Power 780.
In an era in which IT budgets are shrinking, the high costs to rollout and support applications based on RISC/UNIX systems becomes more and more unappealing. This new TPC-C result is just another example of how Cisco UCS can deliver performance that businesses require for their enterprise applications at lower costs.
I urge you to check out our RISC/UNIX Migration Program page for additional performance briefs, case studies, white papers, and migration guides.
Marthin De Beer, Senior Vice President of Cisco’s Video and Collaboration Group takes time at CES to share his thoughts on the service provider video market. He highlights Cisco’s video experience demos at the show, and discusses how we are helping customers through our end-to-end architecture, with strategies to bridge legacy infrastructure to future IP-centric architectures, including the emergence of home gateways. Read More »
Cisco recently sat down with Richard Creegan of Itron, Gary Murphy of BC Hydro and Dave Geier of SDG&E to discuss the current state of the smart grid transition and to get their perspectives on the new set of offerings in Cisco’s Connected Grid portfoli0. Through a host of new solutions, services and partnerships for utilities, Cisco aims to provide a common communications and network platform to help utilities move forward with grid modernization efforts.
We began with Itron, which joined with Cisco in 2011 in an effort to combine expertise and offer a fully-compliant IPv6 Field Area Network (FAN) solution to the industry.
Cisco: The alliance between Cisco and Itron has produced its first solution for the utility industry. Can you talk a little about why you felt this union made sense?
Itron: Both Cisco and Itron have their own unique expertise. When it comes to Cisco, information technology is core to what they do and it elevates the value of what we offer to customers. Combined with Itron’s proven expertise in delivering operational technologies that utilities use to run their businesses, this partnership established a vision to create a smart grid platform that will help move both companies forward.
Next we turned to BC Hydro and SDG&E, two utility companies who are both utilizing Cisco’s new FAN solution.
In January 2011, Internet companies around the globe announced they would come together to perform the largest test of IPv6 deployment the world had ever seen. Cisco was among the first to proudly announce its official participation in World IPv6 Day, and after several months of preparation and an intense 24 hours in June, it was clear that we had witnessed a watershed moment in the move towards global deployment of IPv6.
So what next after this? As reports came in and logs were analyzed over the days and weeks after, it became increasingly clear that we didn’t need just another global test. Instead, we needed to enable IPv6 once and for all. So, on June 6, 2012, the industry will again unite but not just for single day. This time, we turn it on and leave it on. We’re calling this World IPv6 Launch, and it is now the largest commitment to full-scale production IPv6 deployment the world has ever seen.
For websites, the commitment is similar to last year in that reachability via IPv6 will be advertised within the global Domain Name System (DNS). This time, however, the DNS entry will remain indefinitely rather than disappear after a single day. In addition to websites, the Internet Society has setup requirements for participation by residential Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and makers of home networking equipment. The rationale for expanding to these two specific areas is that while IPv6 has been available in some models of consumer-grade networking equipment and from some ISPs for a number of years, it was very rarely enabled by default and as such very rarely in use despite the majority of internet devices being capable of IPv6.
In order to tackle these remaining barriers to deployment, new Internet subscriptions and consumer-grade home routers will begin to appear with IPv6 enabled by default as the normal course of doing business. Specifically, participating home networking equipment makers are committing to include IPv6 enabled by default through a wide range of their products (both “low end” and “high end” home routers) by June 6. For ISPs, websites will be measuring what percentage of users have IPv6 enabled, with a target of no less than 1% before the World IPv6 Launch deadline. The 1% is a “running start”, such that after June 6 we’ll be on a path of sustained growth in IPv6 deployment going forward.
Cisco is again pleased to announce its full participation and support, both by enabling IPv6 on www.cisco.com indefinitely and by enabling IPv6 by default in our new line of E-series home routers. In addition, we will be working with our customers, Cisco Services and development teams to ensure that as many companies as possible can participate and those that do are successful.
June 6, 2012. This is the year we Launch a new Internet Protocol.
