Application performance improvement

Increase application performance and responsiveness with dynamic infrastructure

Your application and database workload demands are exploding. Your IT budget is shrinking. Meanwhile, your infrastructure is not up to the task of running the latest applications. IBM has a plan for IT managers facing these challenges with unique solutions that are "fit for purpose", allowing businesses to do more with less. IBM systems have advanced capabilities to help companies increase application and database workload support and performance while actually using fewer servers and greatly reducing costs.

With dynamic infrastructure from IBM, you get a highly optimised, agile, responsive, and automated system with the ability to move workloads securely in datacenters to enhance performance, scalability and routine maintenance of physical and virtual servers, all while minimising interruption to business operations and reducing cost for IT.

Enhance application performance with IBM Systems

Optimise your system to manage growth and improve service

It's no accident that IBM servers and storage are so well optimised for the latest application releases: we work closely with ISVs on an ongoing basis. Thousands of IBM professionals toil away in joint ISV competency centres and development labs with our counterparts from SAP and Oracle to develop optimised systems so you can manage your growth far into the future.

Like most IT managers, you're probably feeling a little nervous about application migration. Not to mention data migration. That's why we have assembled some of the foremost experts - IBM's Migration Factory - to guide you through the entire process, from planning through implementation.

Perhaps the biggest leap forward when managing growth will come when you virtualise your infrastructure. So it's important to know that IBM offers a broad set of virtualisation capabilities. You can choose from specific offerings or complete end-to-end virtualisation solutions for single servers, multisystem heterogeneous environments and storage.

You might notice that other companies are keen to talk server virtualisation but can't help you with storage virtualisation. IBM's got you covered. With the SAV Volume Controller, you have a unique solution with a large install base that allows you to virtualise and effectively manage mixed vendor storage environments,

Learn more. Download a copy of the IBM Manage Growth e-kit (US)
Do more with less

If it takes you days - or weeks - to accommodate demand, it's time to take action. Flexible, responsive IBM Systems have the headroom to accommodate more demand more quickly. We're talking minutes and hours, not days. That's because IBM Systems are designed to let you "scale right," according to your demand, with minimal expense and disruption. IBM System x 3950 M2 is the industry's only x86 server that lets you "pay as you grow" by scaling from four cores to 64.

IBM's higher performance per core and integrated virtualisation technology let you cut down on the number of servers you need. This equates to lower software license fees, lower energy costs and less floor space. For example, IBM System p 550 delivers 29 percent more performance than PA-RISC Superdome, for lower energy, maintenance and software costs.

The IBM BladeCenter® accommodates Intel, AMD and IBM's Power processor-based blades. So you can put almost any environment and business application - including HR, sales, payroll and e-mail - on one machine.

Think 1,176 TB of raw storage capacity might tide you over for a while? IBM N series storage systems feature thin provisioning, which lets applications automatically add storage capacity and utilise it efficiently without IT staff intervention.

Learn more. Download a copy of the IBM Do more with less e-kit (US)
Deliver increased Datacenter efficiency

Chances are IBM Power and System x enterprise servers could support more users and greater workloads per server than your current servers, producing significant savings.

With Power servers with Capacity on Demand and PowerVM virtualisation, you could gain the ability to deploy and service your applications faster than ever.

Imagine you had a single interface for both server and SAN/LAN administration. That's exactly what BladeCenter Open Fabric Manager provides, reducing many users' server, data and storage deployment time from weeks to minutes. It works with all BladeCenter Ethernet and Fibre Channel switches and fabrics from vendors such as Cisco, Nortel Brocade and QLogic.

IBM also extends virtualisation beyond the UNIX environment, allowing you to put multiple applications and operating systems on the same server and easily move them from one server type to another.

Virtualisation doesn't stop with servers. IBM SAN Volume Controller provides a single point of management over your heterogeneous server and storage systems, bridging those differences that take a lot of administration time.
Manage business risk
You're responsible for keeping the business up and running - and there's no longer any acceptable level of downtime for your applications. IBM knows the territory well:
- Respond to new business opportunities in hours by firing up a new virtual server, versus days or weeks to install new physical servers. PowerVM enables multiple independent partitions per physical server, with the ability to dynamically reallocate CPU and memory between partitions as business requirements change.
- Turn to our PowerHA (High Availability) solutions to enhance the uptime of your critical applications and infrastructure workloads. From the network server operating systems to applications, HACMP monitors the entire system and can quickly and automatically restart an application on backup hardware in the event of failure or application performance degradation.
- You can finally demand higher resiliency standards for your storage system, with IBM System Storage DS4000 platform, the only mid-tier open-systems storage platform that can "call home," making its own service calls.
Do a better job of managing planned and unplanned downtime, with IBM Power Systems' Live Partition Mobility and Application Mobility.
- Live Partition Mobility lets Power servers move live logical partitions - including the entire operating system and all its running applications - from one server to another all while the applications are running. Workloads running on servers that are indicating a predictive failure can be moved to other servers so repairs can be made. This avoids a scheduled outage and a potential unscheduled one. You can also dynamically consolidate workloads, including applications, onto fewer servers during off-peak times, turning off unutilised computers and saving energy.
- With Live Application Mobility you can move applications across partitions within a Power server with minimal disruption to service. This helps increase application performance and availability and performance through workload balancing, improved utilisation and easier planning for systems maintenance.
Cut the risk and cost of migration, with the help of IBM Makeover Services and IBM Migration Factory and the depth of experience of over 1,600 successful migrations.

Learn More. Download a copy of the IBM Reduce Risk e-kit (US)
Why IBM for SAP

For over 30 years, IBM and SAP have seen thousands of customers through successful implementations. Our ongoing relationship extends beyond mere compatibility. We work closely together to be sure each new IBM system is optimised to run the latest SAP releases. That translates into real-world advantages for you.

Performance and Scalability
The 64-core IBM Power 595 delivers 35,400 concurrent SAP users. It's also twice the number of SAP users per core of Sun or HP. So you'll be able to scale with precision, according to your demand.

Don't have that many users? The IBM Power 16-core p 570 system supports up to 8,000 SAP users. This even surpasses competitive systems such as the Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 with 2-3 times the number of cores. In addition, performance is linearly scalable from 4-core to 8-core and even 16-core systems, proving once again that IBM's modular SMP system design provides sustained performance advantages, regardless of how large business needs grow².

Reduce risk
IBM servers and storage are optimised for the latest SAP application releases. Joint ISV competency centres, development labs and services teams staffed by thousands of professionals mean that applications are tuned to run at optimal levels on IBM systems and storage, and that highly skilled resources are available to help customers move to IBM.

Only need four sockets for now? The System x3950 M2 is an affordable, 4-socket, 3U modular building block. It's optimised for database processing, enterprise applications and consolidated virtual-server environments. Its high-speed interconnects allow you to expand seamlessly from 4 to 16 sockets (96 cores). You could then transition to 64-bit applications, or add capacity when you need it - without costly up-front investments.

The new line of Power Systems combines System p, System i and three operating systems - UNIX, Linux and i (formerly i5/OS®) - into one server platform, offering greater application choice, simpler pricing and reduced energy and administration costs.

Case study

Energen saves by migrating Oracle and SAP to System p (US)

White papers

"Increasing Business Performance: Using Virtualisation for SAP Applications on IBM System p Servers," an IDC whitepaper (481KB)

IBM Insight Tool for SAP Application Workload Analysis (US)

IBM Migration Factory - Application and Server Migrations
Why IBM for Oracle

Did you know that today's increasing database workloads occupy 80% of commercial server capacity? It is a trend that has forced many IT managers to add servers simply to keep up. But additional servers mean more software licenses, more systems to manage and higher costs. That's a real challenge especially as IT budgets continue to shrink. IBM Systems offer leading performance and the highest scalability. So you can handle your Oracle DB workloads with fewer servers, helping to lower your licensing costs.

IBM System x for Oracle DB
IBM System x offers speed and flexibility, making it the ideal platform for Oracle workloads. Since it's designed to scale up, System x is a smart investment for today's workload needs, and tomorrow's. The IBM Enterprise System x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 servers can scale from 4- to 16-socket configurations and up to 1 TB of memory. The IBM x3850 M2 with the Intel® Xeon™ 6 core 7470 processor architecture sets the top result for Oracle E-Business R12 payroll batch processing running on Oracle Database 10g R2 and RHEL 4. This new technology combination can drive a payroll update for 10,000 employees in only 5.37 minutes, which equates to 111,732 employee payroll updates per hour¹. IBM System x is also built for the future, with a seamless roadmap from the 4-socket x3850 M2 to the 16-socket x3950 M2.

IBM BladeCenter for Oracle DB
The IBM BladeCenter provides a fast, flexible database platform with less cost and complexity than your current systems. With backward and forward compatibility, it's a great investment for today and the future. IBM BladeCenter comes in a variety of 1-, 2- and 4-socket configurations and can be deployed in any of five chassis models. When you consolidate your database workloads onto an IBM BladeCenter infrastructure, you will see immediate results - including savings of up to 93% on energy costs and a complete ROI in as few as three months. Plus, you can reduce your IT footprint by up to 95% and achieve an 11:1 server consolidation ratio - all with equal or better database performance².

IBM Power Systems for Oracle DB
IBM Power Systems have advanced virtualisation capabilities that allow you to do more, with less. You can reduce the number of servers needed to run your Oracle database workloads, which can lower your energy costs. These virtualisation capabilities make IBM Power Systems a highly scalable platform with higher performance per core. In fact, you will need as little as 1/3 the number of processors to handle your current database workloads. IBM Power Systems 570 8 core also features the industry's #1 performance across the leading database applications (Oracle on UNIX)³.

IBM System Storage for Oracle DB
IBM System Storage with SANVolume Controller provides an ideal platform for Oracle database workloads. By virtualising your heterogeneous storage servers you can reduce the number of physical servers you need, leading to lower energy and management costs. In addition, the SANVolume Controller's volume copy and snapshot features allow you to create remote or local back-ups of your data in real time, so you can keep data highly available, with no downtime. IBM System Storage helps you improve business continuity and resilience, while also controlling costs.

IBM can work within your budget to provide you the systems technology and world-class expertise to set you on the right path for years to come. IBM Global Financing project financing can help with funding services that fit your needs and get you started with your application and data migration. And when you need to dispose of your old equipment, IBM Express Asset Recovery Solutions (ARS) offers a comprehensive range of reasonably priced buyback and disposal services.

Featured article

This article explores how migrating to IBM Servers and Storage can help IT managers build an optimal architecture for critical business applications.

Clabby Advisory Report

Consolidation and Virtualisation Are NOT Enough: Optimising Application Performance in the New Enterprise Data Centre

Download application performance report (US)

¹ Source; 2 x 2.66GHz Intel® Xeon™ Six-Core X7470, with 3 x 3 MB of Level 2 cache and 16 MB of Level 3 cache, total Memory: 64 GB, RHEL4=Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4. *http://www.oracle.com/apps_benchmark/html/white-papers.html (link resides outside of ibm.com)

² Based on IBM actual, public results on HS22 & Intel internal analysis. 1Urack server configuration: 2S 1C Xeon (3.80GHz 2MB cache) with 8x 1GB memory and 1 HDD - total power: 382W under load, SPECjbb2005 = 50,970 bops. HS22 blade server configuration: 2S 4C Xeon X5570 (2.93GHz 8MB cache) with 6x 2GB memory and 1 HDD - total power with chassis burden = 317W under load, SPECjbb2005 = 604,417 bops. Power cost estimate used is US$0.10 kW-Hr. New hardware cost estimate based on projected US list pricing for the HS22 and chassis infrastructure, including 14 blades, BladeCenter E chassis with redundant power and redundant advanced management module. servmodule. Software license cost for operating system & application estimate used is $1,000 per server. Datacenter floor space cost estimate used is $500 per square foot, average 8 square feet per standard enterprise 42Urack. IT footprint compares 1Uper rack server vs. 0.5Uper HS22 blade-14 HS22 blades in 7UBladeCenter E chassis provides equal or greater performance than 137 1Urack servers. ROI calculation solved for power cost savings + license cost savings + floor space cost savings = new hardware acquisition cost. IT footprint assumes standard 42Urack.

³ Source: www.tpc.org (link resides outside of ibm.com)