White Paper | www.itaniumsolutions.org
Virtualization, Choice and
Performance Drive More Efficient
and Flexible IT Consolidation
Table of Contents IT consolidation is becoming a preferred strategy for corpo-
Consolidation is an Effective Strategy
rations looking to boost the efficiency of their IT infrastruc-
for Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 tures. But often, legacy mainframes with closed operating
Virtualization Multiplies the Capacity systems, proprietary software and high maintenance costs
of Available Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
stand in the way of consolidation plans. An open-architecture
Range of Operating Systems and Intel® Itanium® processor-based system provides a more flex-
Applications Simplifies Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
ible, cost-effective platform for IT consolidation. The Itanium
Massively Scalable Architecture Supports
Any Level of Consolidation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
architecture supports multiple approaches to virtualization,
allowing companies to adopt a strategy most tailored to their
Mainframe-Level RAS and Security
Lowers Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 particular applications and goals. By supporting a choice of
Summary: Higher Returns and Better operating systems and over 14,000 applications, the Itanium
Business Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 architecture makes it easier to mix and match applications
with server and memory resources. Its scalability allows it to
accommodate any combination of workloads, from small Web
applications to the largest databases. Itanium®-based systems
have inherent RAS and security features once associated
only with mainframes, so companies can feel confident in
consolidating mission-critical services. Backed by an active
community of hardware, software and service providers,
open-system Itanium-based servers offer tangible value
and a flexible platform for growth and innovation.

Consolidation is an Effective Virtualization Multiplies the
Strategy for Efficiency Capacity of Available Servers
From a corporate-wide perspective, consolidation helps Virtualization is a powerful approach to workload
organizations optimize their business processes and consolidation already well established in the Itanium-
simplify their business and IT infrastructures. As a result, based server space. It provides the ability to run multiple
it reduces operational costs and improves the ability to applications while sharing physical hardware resources,
quickly and cost-effectively adapt to changes in the market. leading to reduced hardware and operating system require-
ments, easier administration and simplified manageability.
At the IT level, consolidation is essentially the process
IT staff can more easily manage, provision, and restart
of sharing hardware resources across several workloads,
and migrate applications on a shared pool of resources.
moving away from the “one application per server” approach
Virtual partitions can be sized and resized as required. IT
and thereby improving physical server utilization. Being
staff can configure large compute resources when required
able to bring several workloads onto fewer servers gives an
(e.g., end of the quarter), then scale down as needed,
organization several ways to reduce complexity and costs:
thereby optimizing overall server utilization. Moreover,
• Combining several similar or identical workloads unto a the time it takes to provision and deliver new or enhanced
single server to improve utilization and reduce software server resources drops from days with physical servers
and/or operating system costs. to hours with virtual ones.
• Centralizing workloads on one server that were distrib- Using virtualization, IT staff can run applications and
uted among physically dispersed servers due to the need services from older operating systems that are no longer
to access local data or overcome network limitations. supported and that can no longer run on today’s servers.
• Moving applications to newer, faster, more flexible Organizations can benefit from increased performance of
servers to improve efficiency and flexibility and to newer hardware without the cost of having to port the appli-
retire older, expensive hardware. cation off unsupported legacy operating environments.
Consolidation is an effective strategy for mainframe On Itanium systems, IT staff can choose from numerous
modernization because it provides a cost-effective, long- virtualization methods to isolate one workload from another
term alternative for existing applications or services in terms of memory, data, and storage resources. That way,
presently running on expensive mainframes. What’s more, they can avoid such problems as driver conflicts when two
consolidation helps prevent server sprawl, in which orga- applications are running on the same server. This partition-
nizations simply plug in a new server to satisfy every ing also provides better security and minimizes compliance
new application or performance requirement. As a result, issues while sharing resources across multiple workloads.
consolidation serves to minimize the cost and complexity A wide range of system vendors including HP (Virtual
required to meet IT responsibilities. This provides many, Server Environment* [VSE]), Hitachi (Virtage*), and Fujitsu
cascading benefits to the entire organization: (PRIMEQUEST* Virtual Machine), among others, offer virtu-
• Lower power and cooling requirements alization solutions for their Itanium-based servers. Other
virtualization solutions running on Itanium processors
• Fewer cabling and rack space requirements are available from independent software vendors (ISVs),
• Longer life for existing data centers including Virtuozzo* from Parallels (formerly SWsoft), Xen
Hypervisor Virtualization* from Red Hat, and Xen* from
• Lower maintenance staff requirements
the open-source community. These solutions provide new
All these benefits make the IT department more efficient opportunities for customers to run a mix of workloads on
and responsive to the needs of the entire organization. each Itanium server.
The following characteristics make the open-system
Virtualization on Itanium-based platforms can be accom-
Itanium architecture the ideal platform for IT departments
plished through physical partitioning, soft partitioning, or
pursuing a consolidation strategy.
a combination of both techniques. Soft partitioning through
a hypervisor enhances resource management providing
finer-grain, more dynamic resource control, thereby raising
enterprise IT’s efficiency in meeting peak demands. The
combination of physical partitions and soft partitions is
offered to provide maximum control, flexibility, and
high-availability.
2 White Paper | Virtualization, Choice and Performance Drive More Efficient and Flexible IT Consolidation

Figure 1: The Itanium vendor community offers several different approaches to virtualization.
Itanium processors use Intel® Virtualization Technology1 Range of Operating Systems and
(Intel® VT) to implement lower-level hypervisor functions,
which results in expanded guest OS support for existing
Applications Simplifies Choices
virtualization solutions and creates an architectural founda- With multiple approaches to virtualization, IT managers can
tion for new solutions. Intel VT provides hardware assists to accommodate a wide variety of application types. With the
the virtualization software, reducing its size and complexity, Itanium architecture, they are not constrained by operating
which results in lower-cost, more efficient and more power- system availability. Unlike mainframe or RISC alternatives,
ful virtualization solutions. Itanium-based servers provide native support for both
Windows* as well as Linux* from Novell, Red Hat and other
The inherent capabilities of virtualization on Itanium-based vendors. These operating systems have evolved rapidly in
systems are intended to help customers move beyond the last few years, and are increasingly being used by major
simple server consolidation and leverage virtualization corporations for new, mission-critical data center deploy-
capabilities for high availability and disaster recovery, as ments. In 2007, Saugatuck Technology noted that, “Over
well as security and physical isolation purposes for busi- the next 12 to 24 months, Linux and Windows will dominate
ness-critical and mission-critical application environments. new application deployment decisions [in the data center].
This approach provides a value proposition that can lead to: Our research has concluded that all other [operating
systems] — whether they be a variant of UNIX,* or Netware*
• Higher utilization
or even many of IBM’s core environments — will be in
• Faster and easier managed deployments decline, albeit slowly.”2
• Peak workload balancing What’s more, Itanium systems can run multiple operating
• Improved security systems on the same server, making it easier to consolidate
multiple environments and get the optimum utilization out
of all server investments.
White Paper | Virtualization, Choice and Performance Drive More Efficient and Flexible IT Consolidation 3

A wide range of Itanium systems for IT consolidation members of the Itanium® Solutions Alliance and deliver
are available today from leading computer manufac- extensive software and support to the architecture.
turers worldwide. For example, both Fujitsu’s mission- Itanium-based servers also support leading data integra-
critical PRIMEQUEST servers and Hitachi’s integrated tion, warehousing and business intelligence applications
BladeSymphony* blade server platform run Windows and from vendors such as Business Objects, Cognos, Hyperion,
Linux. Moreover, many server providers also offer propri- IBM, Informatica, Microstrategy and many others. As of
etary operating systems, optimized for particular applica- this writing, over 14,000 applications were available for
tions or industries, in addition to Windows and Linux. For the Itanium architecture.
example, HP Integrity* servers support HP-UX* and HP
* Overall, the open system approach offers many more
OpenVMS. The NEC Enterprise Server Express5800/1000*
* levels of choice and cost-effectiveness compared to
series run NEC’s mainframe ACOS. Bull’s NovaScale servers
consolidation on a mainframe (see Figure 2). For services,
also run that company’s GCOS.* This multi-OS support helps
solutions, operating systems and hardware vendors, IT
organizations to deploy and redeploy individual servers to
managers can select the right combination to consolidate
run workloads based on any of these operating systems —
their applications.
thereby increasing return on investment, reducing server
purchases, and improving server resource utilization.
During consolidation, many companies find the need to
Massively Scalable Architecture
replace legacy or custom code with off-the-shelf applica- Supports Any Level of Consolidation
tions. This choice helps them modernize features, improve While your existing operating systems and applications
performance, simplify integration, enjoy updates from ISVs may constrain the decisions about your consolidation, the
and provide a better environment for future growth. With capabilities of the underlying hardware should not. Ideally,
the Itanium architecture, the choice of operating systems your hardware should be able to scale up to the processing,
is amplified by a huge catalog of applications. Microsoft, memory and I/O needs of any and all the applications that
Novell, Oracle, Red Hat, SAP, SAS and Sybase are all charter you care to consolidate.
Figure 2: An open-system approach offers more levels of choice and cost effectiveness
than consolidation on a proprietary system architecture.
4 White Paper | Virtualization, Choice and Performance Drive More Efficient and Flexible IT Consolidation

Itanium-based servers provide the high-end scalability for some alternative architectures. As a result, an Itanium
consolidation onto fewer, more cost-effective servers for system can hold large data sets, or even entire databases,
even your largest, most critical applications. Itanium serv- in main memory to avoid the high latencies of disk access.
ers range from two to 512 Dual-Core Intel Itanium proces-
At the same time, the Itanium processor employs 24 MB of
sors and provide near-linear scalability for consolidating
on-die cache — more than any current RISC or x86-based
data warehouses, business intelligence and other mission-
server — so the processor’s computational engines can
critical workloads. Systems available today can run as many
access much larger quantities of frequently used data from
as 512 Intel Itanium processors under a single Linux image;
cache at internal processor speeds. This can substantially
and as many as 64 dual-core processors under a single
reduce the frequency of disk access, thereby reducing I/O
Windows Server* image.
requirements and minimizing one of the main barriers to
The Intel Itanium processor 9100 series also provides high performance.
unique capabilities for processing massive amounts of
Because of these and other advantages, Itanium-based serv-
data. Memory and cache are critical resources for acceler-
ers are delivering world-record performance for today’s
ating enterprise application performance. The Intel Itanium
most demanding, data-intensive applications. They provide
processor supports up to a petabyte (1,024 TB) of directly
businesses with a highly scalable platform for consolidating
addressable memory — orders of magnitude larger than
almost any combination of enterprise data and applications.
As a result, system performance becomes a non-issue
when consolidating on the Itanium architecture. IT organi-
zations can install the optimal amount of compute power,
CASE STUDy: at competitive open-system prices, for the applications
ITANIUM-BASED SOLUTIONS IN ACTION consolidated today. As these applications scale up, and/or
more applications are consolidated, the IT staff can grow
WellPoint, Inc. performance and capacity organically, simply by adding
• Consolidating up to nine heavily used processors, I/O and memory to individual systems, with
databases per server virtually no change to the software environment.
• Up to 10 million rows of data per server
(or 100,000 transactions per second) Mainframe-Level RAS
• Projected savings of $1.4 million over four years and Security Lowers Risk
If you determine that an existing application or service can
WellPoint, Inc., one of the largest health benefits be cost effectively consolidated on an open system platform,
companies in the U.S., is transitioning to Itanium®- you must also be certain that you can meet service expecta-
based servers to consolidate hundreds of SQL tions by your users. The Intel Itanium processor has been
Server* databases. The company’s preliminary tests designed from its inception to support sophisticated relia-
have shown the systems will provide linear scalabil- bility, availability and serviceability (RAS) features that give
ity for up to nine heavily used databases per server, it mainframe-like capabilities for detecting, correcting and
with the capacity to process more than 10 million containing threats to system stability or data integrity.
rows of data or 100,000 transactions per second. In addition, built-in support for advanced security now
They will also provide superior performance, utiliza- supports enterprise-class security features.
tion and service levels compared to the company’s
existing systems. Mission-critical applications require processors and systems
that are built to identify, manage, and where possible,
By consolidating more than 250 SQL Server correct any errors that may arise in the system’s compo-
instances on fewer servers, WellPoint expects to nents. Itanium architecture incorporates built-in error
save $1.1 million in support costs over four years, detection and correction circuitry, including the following:
with additional savings of $300,000 in SQL Server
licensing costs. With the ability to support up to • Machine check architecture (MCA). This feature
three eight-node clusters in Windows Server 2003, provides integrated capabilities for logging, reporting,
the company also has an archiectrue that will scale and handling errors. In addition, Itanium processor-based
easily to support its growing needs. systems support an advanced machine check architecture
Source: Itanium Solutions Alliance “Lower Cost, Less RISC For
that provides well-defined interfaces at the hardware,
Enterprise Databases,” http://www.itaniumsolutions.org/files/ firmware, and operating system levels.
resource_media/F81007E2-0FF1-8862-7AD40B4AA1778FC9.pdf
White Paper | Virtualization, Choice and Performance Drive More Efficient and Flexible IT Consolidation 5

• Core-level lockstep and socket-level lockstep in
Itanium-based systems, as supported by Intel CASE STUDy:
technology in Itanium microprocessors. These ITANIUM-BASED SOLUTIONS IN ACTION
features combine to improve the reliability of the
system and the availability of workloads running AVTOVAZ
on the system. • The leading auto manufacturer in Eastern Europe
• Data bus error checking and repair. Itanium systems • Manufactures three cars per minute in one of the
support parity or cyclic redundancy checking (CRC) on world’s largest factories
the data bus to detect errors. Systems also support error
correction code (ECC) and have the ability to retry trans- • Shipped nearly one million cars in 2004
actions. These features allow Itanium systems to both
To continue its rapid growth and meed the demands
detect and correct errors without downtime.
of an aggressive international auto market, AVTOVAZ
• Cache ECC coverage. Cache arrays are protected with needed to increase the performance, scalability, and
ECC, so a soft error (i.e., an error caused by transient accessibility of its core ERP application. According
environmental factors) in a memory cell can be detected to yuriy Katyanov, CIO of AVTOVAZ, “We needed
and corrected. Without this capability, the program would a system that could guarantee the delivery of our
have to be terminated, and the whole system might business-critical reports, as well as support wider
need to be reset. employee access to the portal-based applications.”
Leading hardware vendors from the Itanium Solutions To meet this need, the company consolidated 29
Alliance are taking advantage of the RAS capabilities of RISC-based servers onto just two Itanium®-based
the Intel Itanium processor to build fault-tolerant systems. systems. The new solution has accelerated data
Features vary by vendor and include: retrieval up to 250 percent, doubled the number of
concurrent users that can access the system, and
• Modular, cell-based designs for improved scalability
substantially reduced total cost of ownerhip. The
and availability.
business impact has been equally positive. According
• Extensive redundancy and hot-plug components for to Katyanov, “The new solution has given us the abil-
fast scaling and repair. ity to work much more efficiently and productively.
• Integrated monitoring, diagnostics and failure prediction. Staff are now able to create and deliver vital reports
in a fraction of the time it took before.”
• Rapid failover capabilities.
Source: Intel: “The End of the Proprietary Era,”
• System mirroring for operational redundancy http://cache-www.intel.com/cd/00/00/30/31/303119_303119.pdf
and data integrity.
• Static and dynamic hard partitioning for flexible
consolidation with complete workload isolation.
(and exclusively) for the advanced security architecture
In conjunction with RAS, Itanium system and software of Itanium servers. The resulting DNS server is not only
providers deliver a wide range of security capabilities to immune to malware and highly resistant to network attacks,
help IT shops maintain and extend existing security policies. but it is also extremely fast, able to support 100,000 DNS
The Intel Itanium processor introduces innovative hardware queries per second, even in the midst of high-volume denial
support for advanced security capabilities, such as four of service attacks.
privilege levels, more than 16 million memory protection
keys, compartmentalized memory and hardware authenti-
cation of firmware. Moreover, parallel processing through
multiple Itanium cores speeds the execution of encryption
algorithms. Features like these support enterprise-level
security on Itanium systems.
For example, the DNS application from Secure64 provides
a fundamentally robust approach to security for one of the
most critical and vulnerable applications in today’s corpo-
rate networks: the DNS server. It combines an open-source
DNS application and a high-security OS kernel — called
the SourceT* micro OS — that was written specifically
6 White Paper | Virtualization, Choice and Performance Drive More Efficient and Flexible IT Consolidation

Summary: Higher Returns
and Better Business Value
The virtualization, open-system, performance, RAS and
security capabilities of Itanium processors make it an ideal
platform for consolidation. IT departments can focus on the
requirements of the legacy applications and services as well
as the user, knowing that the Itanium architecture has the
flexibility and power to fit the needed consolidation.
An open-system architecture and large vendor commu-
nity also make Itanium systems much more cost-effective
than the mainframe and RISC alternatives. In addition to
lower initial purchase costs, Itanium servers do not have
burdensome operating system and software licensing fees.
A substantial ecosystem of available vendors and ISVs
ensures competitive pricing for the software and services
needed to support the new system. As a result, companies
consolidating onto Itanium systems experience a significant
reduction of TCO while taking advantage of the additional
flexibility and performance of a new architecture and plat-
form (see the WellPoint and AVTOVAZ examples).
White Paper | Virtualization, Choice and Performance Drive More Efficient and Flexible IT Consolidation 7

1
Intel® Virtualization Technology requires a computer system with an enabled Intel® processor, BIOS, virtual machine monitor (VMM) and, for some uses, certain platform software enabled for it.
Functionality, performance or other benefits will vary depending on hardware and software configurations and may require a BIOS update. Software applications may not be compatible with all
operating systems. Please check with your application vendor.
2
As reported by SearchOpenSource.com, by Jack Loftus, http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1237437,00.html
Copyright© 2009 Itanium Solutions Alliance. All rights reserved. Intel and Itanium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries
in the United States and other countries.
Printed in USA 0809/BW/OCG/XX/PDF Please Recycle
White Paper | Virtualization, Choice and Performance Drive More Efficient and Flexible IT Consolidation