News

Unisys Runs Itanium 2 on Industry Standard Benchmark

Unisys ran its first TPC benchmark with one of its 16-processor, Windows-optimized systems using the 64-bit Itanium 2 processor, the company revealed Thursday.

The test was on the Transaction Processing Performance Council's TPC-H benchmark, which is a measure of the performance of systems for business intelligence applications.

Unisys ran the test on one of its new ES7000 Orion 130 models with 64 GB of RAM running Windows .NET Server 2003 Datacenter Server and 64-bit SQL Server 2000.

Unisys produced a middle-of-the-pack performance result in the 300 GB database size category. Its 4,774 QphH result was well behind the best non-clustered result, 7,334 QphH from a two-year-old, 64-processor IBM NUMA system. It was even further behind the best clustered result -- a 12,995 QphH result posted in April by Compaq-HP on ProLiant servers running Pentium III Xeons, Windows 2000 Advanced Server and IBM DB2. Clustered results are highly controversial in TPC circles.

Unisys argues the result shines because of its price-performance superiority to NUMA and Unix and simplicity advantages over clustering configurations.

"The low cost per query achieved in the benchmark speaks to the cost-of-ownership advantages of scale-up, Microsoft- and Intel-based computing, which reduces the administrative and operational complexities associated with clustered server configurations," Don Montgomery, Unisys director of business intelligence programs, said in a statement.

The Unisys system came in at $218/QphH, compared with $616/QphH for the IBM system. The ProLiant cluster cost $199/QphH.

Total system cost for the Unisys configuration was a little over $1 million. The company provided a system availability date of March 31, 2003.

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

Featured

  • Microsoft Offers Support Extensions for Exchange 2016 and 2019

    Microsoft has introduced a paid Extended Security Update (ESU) program for on-premises Exchange Server 2016 and 2019, offering a crucial safety cushion as both versions near their Oct. 14, 2025 end-of-support date.

  • An image of planes flying around a globe

    2025 Microsoft Conference Calendar: For Partners, IT Pros and Developers

    Here's your guide to all the IT training sessions, partner meet-ups and annual Microsoft conferences you won't want to miss.

  • Notebook

    Microsoft Centers AI, Security and Partner Dogfooding at MCAPS

    Microsoft's second annual MCAPS for Partners event took place Tuesday, delivering a volley of updates and directives for its partners for fiscal 2026.

  • Microsoft Layoffs: AI Is the Obvious Elephant in the Room

    As Microsoft doubles down on an $80 billion bet on AI this fiscal year, its workforce reductions are drawing scrutiny over whether AI's ascent is quietly reshaping its human capital strategy, even as official messaging avoids drawing a direct line.