Unisys has recorded the best price/performance ever achieved in TPC-C benchmarking tests by any high-end server. It has also achieved the best price/performance of any server in the over-200 000 transactions per minute (tpmC) class. The benchmark was achieved on a Unisys ES7000 server running Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition. It is evident that Unisys is leading the way in making true enterprise performance available on Windows. For users of large-scale enterprise database systems, the achievement highlights the ease with which the ES7000 leverages 64-bit Windows technology to enable organisations to obtain the high performance they require without the economic penalties of proprietary technologies. The 16-way Unisys ES7000 Aries 420 Enterprise Server used for the benchmark recorded 291 410.61 transactions per minute (tpmC) at $5.28 per tpmC. The server was equipped with 16 Intel Itanium 2 processors running at 1.5GHz, each with 6MB of Level 3 (iL3) cache and 128GB of memory. It ran the Oracle Database 10g on Microsoft's Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition 64-bit for Itanium-Based Systems operating system. The TPC-C benchmark is the computer industry's most widely consulted measure of server performance and price/performance. The benchmark demonstrates the value Unisys brings to organisations that need the Oracle database as a key component of their enterprise information infrastructure. It is the result of close collaboration between Unisys and Oracle engineers to optimise Oracle Database 10g on the ES7000 for the best possible performance. The Unisys ES7000 system is available now and is in use at leading organisations around the world. "The ability to apply the power of Itanium 2 to large transaction processing workloads promises to yield economic advantages for Oracle database customers who have standardised on Windows as their enterprise database environment," says Andrew Mendelsohn, senior VP, Oracle Database Server Technologies. The 16-processor ES7000 Aries 420 Enterprise Server distinguishes itself in the world of Intel Itanium 2-based systems as the only server specifically targeting the realistic workload requirements of today's global company. All other Intel Itanium 2-based systems either lack the scalability needed to handle growing transaction volumes and database sizes, or they carry such a large financial footprint that the economics of the platform are untenable in today's price/performance-driven world. "The TPC-C benchmark demonstrates the performance benefits of using Unisys, Intel and Microsoft solutions to run the most demanding applications," says Bernard Donnelly, technology consultancy services manager, Unisys Africa. "The results show that customers using Oracle can realise terrific benefits from running their critical workloads on this Windows Server 2003-based platform." The test was conducted using the Transaction Processing Performance Council's "C" methodology for measuring online transaction processing (OLTP) performance. The benchmark is modelled after actual transaction-intensive production environments and features multiple transaction types against a complex database structure that is typical of real-world, large-scale enterprise applications. "This benchmark shows customers what happens when you combine the power of ES7000, Windows and Itanium 2 to run large-scale Oracle databases," says Richard Dracott, GM of Intel's Enterprise Processor Group. "The Intel Itanium family addresses the growing needs in transactional databases, data mining and large-scale data warehousing for high performance at a manageable cost."