AMD Boosts Datacenter Efficiency With Best
Performance Per Watt For Microsoft
SQL Server 2005 And Visual Studio 2005
AMD Opteron processors and Microsoft’s 64-bit software
technology offer customers large and small increased
performance, efficiency and cost savings
SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- November 8, 2005 --AMD (NYSE:
AMD) today announced a variety of customers are embracing the powerful
combination of Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors, Windows Server 2003
x64 Editions, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, and Visual Studio 2005 to
improve business processes. Customers who demand leading-edge
performance are rapidly recognizing and embracing the speed, price and
efficiency advantages offered by AMD64 and Microsoft x64 innovations.
“As evidenced by AMD’s growing market share and record-setting
benchmarks, AMD Opteron processors provide the highest level of
performance that businesses can buy today,” said Ben Williams, vice
president, Commercial Business, AMD. “Together with allies like
Microsoft, AMD is enabling solutions that can help customers realize
new-levels of performance, efficiency and cost savings. This is
enabling businesses large and small to use AMD technology to gain a
competitive advantage in the market.”
As indicated by top scores in industry standard benchmarks and
testimonials from numerous users, AMD64 technology helps Microsoft SQL
Server 2005 customers gain a competitive advantage when handling
critical business functions. In fact, HP ProLiant DL585 server, powered
by Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors Model 880, is the only currently
shipping server to break the TPC-C 200K transaction score for four-way
x86 servers. Additionally, Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors with Direct
Connect Architecture offer these significant performance gains while
delivering the industry’s best performance-per-watt. Together with
Microsoft SQL Server 2005’s advanced performance and scalability
features, companies can rapidly conduct transactions, serve information
and move data quickly due to the memory addressability provided by
Microsoft Windows x64 Edition operating systems and the memory
bandwidth of AMD Opteron processors.
“64-bit technology enables multi-gigabyte main memory configurations
that in turn enable huge performance gains for database management
software,” observed Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64.
“Until recently, these performance advantages were available only to
users of systems based on proprietary processors and operating systems.
Today’s release of SQL Server 2005 for x64 systems, combined with
April’s release of Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition, allows users to
retain the economic benefits of systems based on industry-standards
like the AMD Opteron processor and still gain the performance benefits
of 64-bit DBMS software operation.”
Agnostic Media
Agnostic Media, Inc. offers an integrated, comprehensive, and cohesive
platform for managing and distributing digital media. One of its
specialties is transcoding video and film—converting data into a
variety of different formats in order to be distributed and viewed
within different mediums such as televisions, PCs and mobile devices.
“Transcoding is a time, storage, and CPU-intensive process; with
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and the Dual-Core AMD Opteron processor as
the core of our systems, we can transcode a two-and-a-half hour movie
in 10 minutes, which makes our customers ecstatic” said Jason Turner,
chief executive officer, Agnostic Media. “We have also seen outstanding
database performance running SQL Server 2005 on AMD64. We’re
experiencing no less than a 2x performance increase in SQL Server 2005
running on 64-bit dual-core AMD processors. These performance gains
allow us to differentiate our services from the competition and are
helping us secure new business at an extremely rapid rate.”
Microsoft Corp. Volume Licensing Business Tools and Analytics Group
Microsoft Corp. Worldwide Licensing and Pricing group is responsible
for creating the tools and analytics that support the company’s sales
representatives in the field and the executives who make decisions
about the pricing and licensing strategies. The group, which handles
Microsoft’s largest customer relationships, was responsible for driving
$15 billion (U.S.) of business in 2004—about half the company’s total
revenue. To handle this volume of business and offer flexible programs
across a broad range of products, they developed the Easy Pricing and
Estimation Tool (EZPET). This solution enabled Microsoft to gain
unprecedented visibility into sales data.
“The power of 64-bit computing is helping us deliver the best customer
and partner experience,” said Brent Callinicos, corporate vice
president, World Wide Licensing & Pricing, Microsoft Corp. “Prior
to Microsoft’s investment in 64-bit tools, processing the large volume
of data to generate a comprehensive price quote could sometimes take
hours. To remedy this, we developed EZPET with Visual Studio 2005,
running on AMD Opteron processor-based servers with 64-bit SQL Server
2005. The application improved performance by 99 percent and saved the
company $27 million in six months. The results were so strong that we
enhanced the application with deal tracking and reporting capability
running on Dual-Core AMD Opteron processor-based servers.”
MySpace
MySpace, a leading social networking and music site, experienced an
astounding growth rate which quickly taxed its 32-bit architecture.
“MySpace was a victim of its own success: the company’s user base
rapidly grew to thirty-two million users and our 32-bit solution
quickly became overwhelmed,” said Aber Whitcomb, chief technology
officer, MySpace. “Since deploying the Dual-Core AMD Opteron processor,
Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition and SQL Server 2005 we have
experienced dramatic improvements in performance and stability,
allowing us to sufficiently handle 15 billion transactions per
day—thereby keeping current customers happy as well as admirably
servicing and retaining new users.”
For more information on how companies such as Agnostic Media,
Microsoft’s Volume Licensing Business Tools and Analytics Group and
MySpace are benefiting from AMD64 systems and Microsoft technologies,
please visit www.amd.com/enterprise.
News Source: AMD Press Release
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