Fujitsu SPARC servers

5 Reasons to consolidate your Solaris workloads on Fujitsu SPARC

There are two certainties in computing. First, the volume of data you hold will continue to grow exponentially. Second, your business will need to put that data to work to increase efficiency, develop new products and services, better serve your customers and strengthen profits.

For Solaris workloads, this will require new levels of scalability and flexibility, reliability and manageability and high performance. And this is where Fujitsu SPARC M10 and M12 servers can assist.

Features like the SPARC XII processor, Software on Chip architecture and a modular design will help businesses achieve more. But more than simply replacing existing hardware, M10 and M12 servers also offer opportunities to consolidate your Solaris workloads – but why would you want to?

1. Reduce running costs

Put simply, fewer machines means lower running costs. More efficient processor architecture means you can achieve more – and reduce power and cooling requirements. A smaller IT estate is also simpler to manage, requiring less intervention and support, freeing your engineers to focus on other strategic projects – or to reduce headcount if appropriate.

2. Reduce licensing costs

Every server requires a license of some kind – usually several – for OS, software and various client access rights. It makes sense that fewer servers, require fewer licenses, incurring fewer costs. Even if your new Fujitsu SPARC servers require additional per-core licensing, fewer physical machines are still easier to manage. This will make it far easier to ensure you have the correct level of coverage and avoid over/underspend – and to avoid fines for non-compliance.

3. Maximise ROI

Reducing operating, management and licensing costs all help to lower the total cost of ownership of consolidated Fujitsu SPARC servers. Which leaves plenty of potential to maximise return on investment moving forwards.

4. Maximise resource use

Consolidating servers encourages architecture design that maximises the use of available resources – and ROI. Carefully balancing workloads delivers superior performance and avoids unnecessary upgrades by using what you already have available in your Fujitsu SPARC servers – Oracle Solaris Zones are designed specifically for this purpose.

5. Simplify upgrade planning

Fujitsu M12 and M10 servers are specifically designed to be modular. As your Solaris data estate and processing needs grow, you can connect more SPARC servers to add additional capacity quickly and easily. This ‘building block’ approach to infrastructure offers a clear upgrade path for the future. And because the technology is already familiar, there’s no need to retrain – your engineers and developers will be able to hit the ground running.

Shrink to grow

Consolidating Solaris workloads with Fujitsu SPARC servers allows you to shrink your Solaris data centre footprint and grow your computing capabilities. We’ve outlined five good reasons to consider Fujitsu M12 and 10 servers here – but others may apply to your business – drop us a line to find out more.

IT server management Birmingham & West MIdlands

Oracle SPARC – not just another server

As we have discussed previously, Oracle SPARC servers are definitely not the lowest cost – but they do offer an exceptional return on investment . Here are three more factors to consider when planning the future of your Oracle operating environment.

1. Security on chip

Given that security is now a strategic priority, the CTO is under increasing pressure to ensure data is secured at every touchpoint. Oracle SPARC CPUs use the unique Software in Silicon technology to accelerate cryptography, reducing latency and overheads when dealing with encrypted data.

SPARC processors also offer Silicon Secured Memory, a capability for detecting and preventing invalid operations. The CPU monitors software access to memory, automatically identifying and blocking buffer overflows and similar malware attacks designed to exploit application vulnerabilities.

Operating at the very core of your server, SPARC CPUs will strengthen your overall security posture.

2.  More scalability, less complexity

Oracle SPARC servers offer exceptional potential for expansion as your computing loads increase. With support for up to 384 CPU cores and 48TB of memory, you can scale capacity without carrying out a full upgrade or replacement program.

By consolidating servers and workloads, you can also reduce the overall complexity of your data centre. Fewer physical units mean lower maintenance overheads and staffing requirements, offering long-term savings without compromising on the performance of your databases and applications.

At a time when the speed of operations is a competitive advantage, reducing complexity offers distinct benefits.

3. Guaranteed legacy application support

Even in the age of the cloud, legacy applications remain fundamental to operations. As such, they are an important factor in strategic infrastructure planning.

Oracle SPARC servers can help to reduce some of that uncertainty with the Oracle Solaris Binary Guarantee Program . This long-running commitment from Oracle ensures that current applications will run unchanged on new SPARC systems. You can be sure that upgrading your server hardware will not break your legacy applications – and you should realise a performance boost too.

Importantly, this guarantee means that software does not need to be redeveloped or recompiled; if it ran on a previous version of Solaris, it will run on the latest version too. If you do encounter problems with a legacy application on a new SPARC server, help is available.

Planning for a performant, secure, backwards-compatible future

Upgrading to the newest Oracle SPARC server family is an intelligent investment for the future. Fully optimised for Oracle workloads, SPARC systems offer unbeatable performance, particularly for Oracle database applications.

And with security integrated at the chip level, your operations are more resistant to hacking and malware. In this way, SPARC systems improve the overall resilience of your operations.

The value of the Application Binary Guarantee should not be underestimated either. Although the CTO would prefer to retire legacy applications entirely, this is not feasible in most cases. So being able to guarantee full compatibility with new hardware is an extremely valuable strategic benefit.

To learn more about the latest family of Oracle SPARC servers and how they will help your business achieve more, please get in touch.

Oracle Servers Return on Investment

Five Compelling Reasons to Consider Oracle Servers

In the age of virtual computing, hardware has become increasingly commoditised. Abstracting operations from the underlying hardware has helped businesses to reduce their hardware spend significantly.

Given that Oracle hardware is often perceived as as more expensive, why should your business consider increasing spend? Here are five reasons to look beyond the headline purchase price:

1. Optimised for Oracle software

Oracle software is built on Oracle hardware for Oracle hardware. Every application, particularly Java and Oracle Database, perform better on Oracle servers for this very reason.

It’s not just raw speed either. Oracle x86 servers offer improved uptime for Oracle applications too. You can consolidate, secure and scale mission-critical on Oracle servers.

2. Integrated, end-to-end security

IT security is now a strategic priority, placing the IT manager under increased pressure to ensure systems are properly defended against breaches. Running Oracle on Oracle allows you to control the entire tech stack, reducing the overlaps between technologies that offer hackers the best chances of breaking in

Oracle servers feature built-in encryption, application memory protection, Silicon Secured Memory (SPARC servers) and trusted boot capability to prevent undetected intrusions.

3. Complete solutions

Oracle software on Oracle hardware functions as a cohesive whole – everything you need to run mission-critical workloads is included in a single integrated stack. This simplifies management and helps to reduce your management overheads.

Built-in layered virtualisation capabilities are available at no extra cost, allowing you to achieve greater operational flexibility. There are no hidden costs or additional investment required for third party add-ons to perform activities that are included with Oracle as standard.

4. Maximum availability

Availability is critical for the data-driven business; Oracle servers are designed with this in mind. Redundant components and physical partitioning ensure that systems keep running in the event of a local failure for instance.

Oracle servers are also supplied with comprehensive real-time monitoring and fault management allowing your DevOps team to identify issues before they take your systems offline. And as you would expect from enterprise-class hardware, critical components can be hot-swapped with zero downtime when required.

5. Lower total cost of ownership

All of these factors combine to help reduce the total cost of ownership, easily justifying the initial outlay to purchase Oracle servers. Because the operating system and virtualisation technologies are included as standard, your business is already ahead.

Because Oracle virtualisation technologies have an unusually low-performance overhead, you can consolidate more workloads on each server. Similarly, Oracle operating systems (Solaris or Linux) are not only included ‘free’, but they have been optimised for maximum performance on the underlying hardware.

For any business running Oracle applications, Oracle servers are a no-brainer. The five advantages outlined here will quickly outweigh any headline cost-saving from purchasing commodity hardware. Over the longer term, low-cost hardware may actually cost more because of the missed opportunity of running Oracle on Oracle.

To learn more about running Oracle Database on Oracle hardware and the many advantages it offers your business, please get in touch.