Performance & Scalability: 8-way Capabilities from a
4-Socket Server

Welcome to AMD Opteron™ Solutions, an e-newsletter designed to offer you valuable information on current products, partnerships, promotions and much more from AMD and third parties† that may help you make well-informed purchasing decisions.

Comments, suggestions, or story ideas? Let us hear from you.

2004 was a great year for solutions based on the
AMD Opteron processor. Thank you for your continued support and interest in the benefits of AMD64 and Direct Connect Architecture. Until next time, happy holidays and best wishes for a successful New Year!

Sabre Holdings Adopts AMD Opteron processor-based Solutions to Power Their Enterprise
When you're running the world's largest
electronic travel reservation system, and
have more than 50,000 global travel agencies and suppliers, Fortune 500 companies, and travel Web sites relying on you, one thing you can't worry about is whether your processor is up to the task.

So, when S&P (Standard & Poor's) 500 company Sabre Holdings experienced a dramatic increase in the processing demand on its global distribution system—its core mainframe application that connects approximately 400 airlines, 60,000 hotels, 37 car rental companies, nine cruise lines, 36 railroads and 220 tour operators—the company's IT department turned to AMD.

Sabre and its data-hosting partner, EDS, put AMD64 technology to the test using AMD Opteron processor-based ProLiant DL585 4-way servers provided by HP, an AMD partner. And after comparing the features, performance characteristics and reliability of the AMD Opteron processor against many of the other proprietary 64-bit platforms, they chose AMD to handle the Sabre system's more than 48 million transactions per day and a staggering 17,000 messages per second.

Sabre purchased more than 70 of the four-way HP servers, running Linux Red Hat 3.0 to replace their existing systems. "We found other 64-bit systems on the market to be expensive and not as fast as we'd hoped," said Craig Murphy, Sabre's chief technology officer. "We were blown away by the performance of the AMD Opteron processor-based DL585, finding that it significantly exceeded our expectations."

Sabre's IT project team was also impressed by the compatibility AMD64 technology offers with existing and legacy applications. "Sabre uses open standards, so moving between processor architectures and one version of Linux to another wasn't a concern," said Paulo Goncalves, technical manager, Product Development. "And the transition to the AMD Opteron processor-based systems was clean and smooth, taking only about a day."

The AMD Opteron processor-based servers make up the core of a system that will eventually replace the mainframe system, as part of a multi-year migration project. "The AMD Opteron
processor-based server farm in production today is handling as much as 50 percent of the transactions that the existing mainframe system had been able to handle," said Alan Walker, vice president of Sabre Labs.

Based on the success of the AMD Opteron processor-based systems, Sabre is currently evaluating other areas of the Sabre organization that would benefit from the performance gains that the AMD Opteron processor has already delivered to their search capability. "For the online consumer, travel shopping can never be too fast or too competitively priced," reports Murphy. "The
AMD Opteron processor is helping Sabre deliver customer value that exceeds customer expectations by providing unprecedented performance at competitive prices."

Learn more about the world’s highest-performing x86 4P server based on AMD Opteron processors>>>

Introducing the Appro XtremeBlade Solution: Optimized for High-Performance and High-Availability Enterprise Data Center Applications
Last year, Appro proudly introduced its HyperBlade Cluster Solutions based on the AMD Opteron processor. Throughout the past year, Appro's HyperBlade server has realized significant success, particularly in high-performance Linux clusters.

In Appro’s continuing effort to bring computing advantages to your business, they have launched their next generation blade solution called XtremeBlade. The XtremeBlade is the first blade server to provide mixing node configurations from 2-way to 8-way in the same rack cabinet offering greater scalability and flexibility for high-performance and enterprise computing. It offers an integrated Infiniband and Ethernet Gigabit switch for blade servers, providing a more efficient way for you to connect high-density blade clusters together. The XtremeBlade solution leverages performance advantages of AMD Opteron processors and the performance and high-bandwidth of Infiniband technologies. It also addresses many more of your important requirements, like high-availability by offering hot-swappable blades, redundant power supplies and cooling fans, as well as tight integration of key components such as network switches and centralized management. In addition, it delivers a next-generation of Appro BladeDome as remote server and system management.

Learn more about the features and benefits of Appro's XtremeBlade solution>>>

The Portland Group: Driving Application Optimization With High Performance, Production Quality Compilers
The Portland Group has been collaborating with commercial science and engineering application vendors, the authors of several key open-source technical applications, and AMD throughout 2004 as part of an ongoing effort to build the infrastructure of high-performance 64-bit applications available for AMD64 processor-based systems. The result is an emerging world of high-performance 64-bit versions of several of the most widely used commercial applications in science and engineering that have been developed using The Portland Group's popular suite of Fortran, C, and C++ compilers and companion development tools.

What this means to you is that many of the world's most demanding software packages are using the powerful combination of AMD64 processors and The Portland Group's tools technology to reach new levels of performance and efficiency. And this, in turn, translates into products and services that can help make all of our lives better - such as safer and more fuel efficient car designs, improved weather modeling and prediction, and better diagnostics and treatment of major illnesses.

Some of the commercial 64-bit science and engineering applications that are either currently available or being ported to AMD64 processor-based systems using The Portland Group compilers and tools include ADINA, ANSYS, GAUSSIAN, LS-DYNA, MSC NASTRAN and RADIOSS. In addition, you can access The Portland Group online to find links to using and optimizing PGI compilers and tools with many common scientific and engineering community applications, libraries, and benchmarks, including AMBER, ATLAS, CHARMM, GAMESS, MCNP5, MM5, Molpro, netCDF, OPENGL, POP, and WRF.

Visit The Portland Group for more information on their high-performance scalar and parallel Fortran, C and C++ compilers and tools for 32- and 64-bit AMD64 processor-based workstations, servers and clusters>>>

New from Jamcracker: On Demand Solutions for AMD64 Technology
Established in 1999, Jamcracker,
a pioneer in the ASP Aggregator,
has translated its wealth of experience in the Managed Service Business to build the industry's first fully integrated On Demand Delivery Platform, Pivot Path.

Pivot Path is a software solution designed to assist companies like yours in delivering services and applications, administering user profiles and provisioning tasks and tracking user access to services and applications in an On Demand delivery model. As such, the core functions of Pivot Path; Services Management, User Management, and Access Management, are integrated across a common administrative platform comprised of the following respective feature sets:

Service Management - Provides capabilities to package applications and services to maximize marketing effectiveness, administrative efficiency, and the distribution and syndication of services and applications.
User Management - Automates critical processes for managing users and their access to applications, services and other resources.
Access Management - Provides authentication, authorization and access control to applications, services and other resources and enables the tracking of user access to the same.
Administrative Services - Creates distributed process support through delegated administration, centralized control, workflow and worklist, reporting and billing, and role specific dashboards.
Architecture - J2EE Standards-based architecture and Java APIs for easy integration with existing infrastructure components such as portals and directories.

Today, Jamcracker is offering a way to rapidly migrate to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model and to offer products on a 64-bit computing platform that is future proofed. The On Demand Solution in a Box is fully integrated and combines Jamcracker's On Demand Delivery platform and AMD64 technology.
Jamcracker's On Demand Delivery Platform automates the administrative processes required to deliver SaaS from initial order to bill. Jamcracker will also provide consulting services to help software companies' work through the business planning, operational and technical issues that need to be addressed when planning for a SaaS business.

Sign up to learn more about Jamcracker On Demand Solution in a Box for AMD64 platforms and enter for a chance to receive an Apple Ipod from Jamcracker>>>

Processor for Servers: What's Your Perspective?
In our October 2004 issue of AMD Opteron Solutions, we told you about an opportunity from IDC, the premier global market intelligence and advisory firm in the information technology and telecommunications industries, to participate in an online survey regarding x86 processors for servers and workstations. Additionally, your responses to their survey automatically qualified you to win one of five gift certificates from Amazon.com valued at $100 each. The results of the survey have been collected and the winners of the gift certificates have been randomly chosen. Congratulations to the five winners; Robert Colatutto, Craig Finch, Chen Lihua, Gary Doan and Hank McKim!

For those of you were not able to take the short survey back in October, IDC is offering another chance for you to submit your opinions. Do so between December 15, 2004 and December 22, 2004 and you will be automatically entered to win one of five gift certificates from Amazon.com valued at $100 each from IDC.

Remember, the goal of this research project is to understand issues that are important to you concerning simultaneous 32- and 64-bit server computing. Help IDC and others in the industry continue to meet your server computing needs - provide insight today and tune into AMD Opteron Solutions in 2005 when we will report some of the findings of this survey and announce more lucky winners!

Contribute to the success of this important industry research initiative and enter to win a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate from IDC now>>>

Would you like to learn more about our 90nm SOI? Are you interested in additional information related to AMD64 technology as well? Now you can register for the AMDEdge program and receive access to exclusive content, great how-to features, promotions and contests, and more.

Sign up for AMDEdge now to read more about AMD and 90nm manufacturing and to get instant access to subscriber-only features that will help keep you on the leading edge of AMD64 technology>>>

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