Unisys today announced the immediate availability of a “Real Time Capacity” (RTC) series of its popular ES7000 servers – an industry first for customers running Intel-based servers on Windows or Linux, giving them the ability to scale their computing power as their business needs evolve. Each Unisys ES7000 RTC series server is shipped with surplus capacity that can be activated – and paid for – when and if needed.
The announcement is another shot across the bows of the company’s Unix-based competitors. Building on its heritage in the mainframe business and leadership in bringing enterprise capabilities to industry standard environments, Unisys is using the new series of servers to capitalize on a growing trend that sees dwindling popularity of Unix/RISC as a result of increased adoption of Intel’s microprocessors with both Microsoft’s Windows platform and Linux operating systems in the data center.
“Our clients now have the option to manage and prepare for peak usage or unexpected growth while minimizing the need to purchase equipment that does not provide an immediate and significant return on investment,” said Leo Daiuto, president, Systems and Technology, Unisys. “With ES7000 Real Time Capacity series servers, we are changing what people expect of Intel-based servers in the enterprise by providing clients the ability to manage their purchasing, and their processing, more efficiently than ever before possible in the open computing space. It is server capacity when you need it, not when you don’t.”
Unisys ES7000 RTC series servers are a key part of Unisys strategy to help its clients build real time infrastructures—infrastructures with the flexibility and responsiveness to adapt to changing business demands efficiently and cost-effectively. The new series of servers adds to a growing portfolio of technologies and services at the heart of the company’s 3D Visible Enterprise strategy, which is designed to give clients greater visibility into the cause-and-effect relationships between strategy, process, applications and infrastructure.
“Businesses have a critical need for IT infrastructure solutions that help drive growth while controlling costs, which becomes a more difficult challenge in the face of change,” said Simon Witts, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Enterprise and Partner Group. “In bringing capabilities like ‘capacity on demand’ to Windows Server, Unisys will help customers operate highly efficient data centers under any circumstances and meet their business objectives.”
Traditionally, IT managers have been required to place expensive up-front bets to meet unpredictable processing demands by building IT infrastructures that are large enough to handle occasional peak usage requirements and to accommodate anticipated, yet uncertain business growth. Underestimating capacity often requires a disruptive and expensive fix, easily causing a catastrophic interruption in the business. Overestimating computing demand requires a company to invest in expensive capital equipment that may never be needed. Unisys ES7000 RTC series servers overcome both of these problems by allowing customers to build an IT infrastructure that is optimized for their current needs, yet ready to scale in a matter of minutes if increased demand dictates.
In addition to providing a better solution for managing computing capacity, Unisys ES7000 RTC series servers allow budget flexibility by reallocating incremental growth-related costs from capital investment to operating expenses—a major benefit for CIOs and CFOs constrained by arduous budgetary processes.
According to Gartner, Inc., “By 2007, organizations with more than 200 servers will waste between $500,000 and $720,000 annually supporting underutilized application/server combinations (0.8 probability). One way to reduce this baseline cost is to eliminate poorly utilized hardware and software associated with older, seldom-used applications. Gartner estimates that this practice can reduce the IT budget by as much as 20 percent.” ∂
Self-service Capacity Management
Some increased demands on a company’s IT infrastructure – such as seasonal business peaks experienced in the retail, financial services, transportation and healthcare industries, as well as the public sector – can be easily anticipated. Other events, such as the impact of the launch of a new ERP or CRM application or even an acquisition or merger, are more difficult to plan for accurately. Unisys ES7000 RTC series servers are designed to help clients deal with any of these situations – by sharing the financial risk between Unisys and the customer.
“Ruesch International is growing and expanding. The Real Time Capacity offering from Unisys provides a cost-effective way to scale up high-end servers and to rapidly respond to changes in the marketplace,” said Radomir Zamurovic, chief technology officer of Ruesch International, a leading provider of international payment and global currency services. “With this server, we can bring just the right capacity online exactly when we need it, and pay for the excess capacity when and if we use it.”
Unisys Sentinel management automatically alerts a user when extra capacity is needed. With a single mouse-click, Sentinel then allows the ES7000 RTC series system operators to put the necessary capacity online in an average of 15 minutes. Customers can choose to activate additional computing capacity depending on anticipated need. Through experience gained with the innovative Capacity on Demand characteristics of the Unisys ClearPath family of Enterprise Servers, uniquely encrypted authorization ‘keys’ make the additional hardware and the necessary operating system software available in ‘real time.’
Standards-Based Open Platform
“The ES7000 RTC offering from Unisys provides a capability to the Intel-based enterprise that, before now, was simply not achieved,” said Phil Brace, general manager of Intel’s Server Platforms Group Marketing. “With its ES7000 RTC servers, Unisys is eliminating yet another barrier in the migration from expensive, proprietary Unix/RISC platforms to open, standards-based Intel architecture environments. Customers accustomed to similar, but less flexible, capabilities with Unix/RISC can now realize the same benefits throughout the enterprise—from the front office to the back office.”
Pricing and Availability
The Unisys ES7000 Real Time Capacity series is available immediately. Each model contains four inactive Xeon MP or Itanium 2 processors along with four, eight, or 12 active processors for use in Windows or Linux operating environments. Each inactive processor can be permanently activated and bought. Later this year, Unisys will enable temporary processor activation of up to four times for a nominal fee. After the fourth temporary activation, it remains activated permanently and the capacity purchased. When all processors are permanently activated in an ES7000 RTC server, the total cost for the unit will not exceed the price for purchasing all capacity upfront.
