News
Windows Takes Top Spot in SAP Benchmark
Striving for credibility in the datacenter, Microsoft Corp. and Unisys Corp. announced this morning a Unisys ES7000 server running Windows 2000Datacenter Server took the top spot in the SAP Standard Application Sales andDistribution (SD) benchmark. The previous champ was a Fujitsu-Siemens RISC server running Sun Microsystems Inc.’s Solaris.The ES7000 was able to support 24,000 concurrent userssessions, according to the benchmark. The benchmark measures how many users canaccess SAP AG’s R/3 ERP software atonce.
On the hardware side, the ES/7000 used 32 Intel Corp.900MHz Xeon processors with 2MB cacheand 12GB of RAM. Unisys positions the ES/7000 as an Intel counterpart tomainframes – the large system allows for comparable transaction performance andpartitioning features useful for enterprise consolidation.
Microsoft’s SQL Server 2000 served as the back-end forSAP R/3 and ran on Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. Datacenter Server is aspecial flavor of Windows 2000 designed for very stable enterprise systems.Only certified applications and drivers may run on the OS, if customers want tokeep their support contrasts – a departure from the sometimes flaky world ofWindows.
Unisys has assiduously posted scores on the SAP SDbenchmark, making five attempts this year. With the last benchmark, posted inJune, it took the second place spot after the Fujitsu-Siemens Solaris systemand above a Sun system. Both of the Solaris servers ran the Oracle 8i database server.
The SAP benchmark arguably has less credibility thanother transaction benchmarks. The TPC-C benchmark has broader acceptance as ametric of database performance and Unisys has struggled to bring the ES/7000within the range of RISC/Unix systems. In September, Unisys posted a score thatranks it ninth in single-server performance, but compares unfavorably totop-of-the-line Unix systems. –ChrisMcConnell