Global Headquarters: 5 Speen Street Framingham, MA USA P F

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1 Global Headquarters: 5 Speen Street Framingham, MA USA P F W H I T E P A P E R O r a c l e x 8 6 R a c k S e r v e r s : O p t i m i z e d f o r R a p i d D e p l o y m e n t s a n d O p e r a t i o n a l E f f i c i e n c y Sponsored by: Oracle Corporation Jean S. Bozman July 2011 E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y Business-critical and mission-critical workloads demanding applications and databases require stable and secure environments. When these types of workloads are deployed on x86 servers, the need to ensure business continuity, maximum uptime, and consistent processing means that IT managers and business unit managers are looking at enterprise x86 servers in a new way: They realize that the business depends on these servers and that x86 server platforms for the enterprise are no longer expendable, as they might have been when servers were dedicated to a single application or when they were deployed as small Web servers that could be easily taken offline and replaced. Acquiring servers for IT infrastructure today is a study in balancing the need for capacity and price/performance with the need to reduce operational costs after the servers have been deployed. Power/cooling costs, efficient resource utilization, and raw capability must be evaluated as business managers and IT managers decide on next-generation IT deployments. Oracle addresses a range of computing requirements with its x86 server and SPARC server product lines supporting the full spectrum of enterprise workloads across those systems with Oracle technology stacks that include server hardware, system software, middleware, and applications. Oracle's designs are aimed at greatly simplifying the deployment, management, and support of IT infrastructure to deliver high levels of performance, scalability, and reliability. As this paper describes, Oracle's x86 servers are specifically designed to support enterprise workloads, and the combination of Sun hardware and Oracle software functionality has been optimized for performance and cost-efficient operations. Taken together, the features that are built into Oracle's x86 server models are designed to contribute to reduced operational expenses (opex) and improved return on investment (ROI). Oracle is leveraging Sun's Flash Storage technology, including solid state drives (SSDs), Sun Flash Accelerator PCIe cards, and Sun Storage Flash Arrays, in its x86 server line. The inclusion of these flash options, built into the servers, reduces IT staff time associated with adding flash components to a system, which is another contributor to reducing opex. These features are aimed at increasing business productivity and improving access to time-critical data by end users and end customers.

2 Customer spending ($B) S I T U A T I O N O V E R V I E W L e v e r a g i n g S e r v e r S o l u t i o n s t o S a v e O p e r a t i o n a l C o s t s After years of watching IT budgets shrink, companies have a sharp focus on operational costs, including IT costs associated with IT staff productivity, maintenance, and power and cooling, and they are striving to tie such cost savings into business productivity, which the IT systems support. It turns out that the rapid growth of x86 servers since the mid-2000s addressed capital expenses (capex) more than opex. Although acquisition costs decreased over time, due to competition in the x86 server hardware market and the resulting volume economics associated with the large x86 server ecosystem, operational costs related to maintenance, management, and power and cooling rose over time. As Figure 1 shows, the management and power/cooling costs associated with operating the hundreds of servers that populated many datacenters actually increased over time, prompting a new move to improve resource utilization for each physical server and efficiency. F I G U R E 1 W o r l d w i d e S p e n d i n g o n S e r v e r s, P o w e r a n d C o o l i n g, a n d M a n a g e m e n t / A d m i n i s t r a t i o n Server units (M) Server spending Management cost Power and cooling expense Worldwide server installed base Source: IDC, # IDC

3 However, the way in which these servers are deployed plays a key role in determining the amount of operational costs during a given week, month, or year. That is why server deployments that improve efficiency, while addressing resource utilization, are playing an important role in driving down operational costs at customer sites. M o r e S c a l a b l e S e r v e r s D e m a n d M o r e R e s o u r c e s As x86 processors are shipped with higher core counts and improved reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features, the types of business workloads that can run on x86 servers have come to include more demanding applications. As a result, x86 servers once associated mostly with Web servers and small servers for IT infrastructure are now taking on business-critical and mission-critical workloads, including applications and databases supporting hundreds, or thousands, of end users. Enterprise workloads need higher levels of security and availability because any disruption to end users launches a ripple effect throughout the organization. Downtime impacts end-user productivity and causes customers accessing applications to grow frustrated. As customers become impatient due to interruptions in system access, the result of downtime will be lost revenue to the business, impacting customer satisfaction. Figure 2 shows the types of workloads that are running across a range of servers by socket capacity (i.e., 1-socket, 2-socket, 4-socket, 8-socket, 16-socket, and 32+-socket servers) and running a variety of operating systems. This includes all types of server platforms, from mainframes to Unix servers to x86 servers, showing how workloads are distributed across that entire population of servers based on a survey of hundreds of IT sites in the United States. Clearly, the business processing workloads and decision support workloads become greater factors in the overall "mix" of workloads running on servers as the socket capacity increases. As defined by IDC, the workload types include business processing (e.g., online transaction processing [OLTP], ERP, CRM); decision support (e.g., data analysis, data warehouse, and business intelligence); collaborative (e.g., , groupware); IT infrastructure (e.g., support of network protocols, file/print); Web infrastructure (e.g., Web serving, proxy, and cache); application development; industrial R&D (including high-performance computing [HPC] and scientific/technical applications); and other IDC #

4 (% of servers) F I G U R E 2 U. S. S e r v e r W o r k l o a d s b y S o c k e t C o u n t socket 2-socket 4-socket 8-socket 16-socket 32+-socket Business processing Application development IT inf rastructure Industrial R&D Decision support Collaborative Web inf rastructure Other Source: IDC U.S. Server Workloads Multiclient Study, July 2010 O R A C L E ' S X 8 6 S E R V E R S T R A T E G Y : H A R D W A R E, S O F T W A R E, N E T W O R K I N G Oracle's Sun x86 servers are based on open industry standards utilizing the latest Intel Xeon processors, and they support multiple operating systems, including Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux, third-party Linux distributions, and Microsoft Windows. Customers can also deploy Oracle VM or VMware ESX as virtualization platforms that host multiple guest virtual machines (VMs). This choice in software environments allows Oracle x86 servers to be deployed into enterprise computing environments that support a variety of applications and databases and to deliver high levels of performance, availability, and manageability across all of the computing tiers of the IT infrastructure (Web serving, application serving, and database serving). Oracle continues to expand its Sun Fire x86 systems with new x86 rack, blade, storage, and network products. These enhancements help facilitate integration into existing datacenters and support new application-to-disk solutions that address customers' most challenging IT infrastructure requirements. The design point for Oracle's x86 servers is enterprise computing with a focus on supporting line-of-business applications and scalable databases. System-level differentiators leverage Oracle-specific builds of these servers to improve overall performance, scale, and efficiency. Examples include the addition of flash storage 4 # IDC

5 and high-speed networking (e.g., InfiniBand and 10 Gigabit Ethernet [10GbE]) and the use of high-speed I/O links to server nodes and storage/disk resources. For additional scalability, and the ability to add capacity for growing workloads, the Oracle servers can be clustered together to add capacity as demand increases and to scale up databases running on Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) configurations. For additional flexibility, they can be deployed in scale-out grids by using Oracle Coherence software. Oracle's optimization of the x86 hardware to run Oracle software products (e.g., database, middleware, and applications) delivers a tailored, optimized solution that reduces IT staff time and speeds time to deployment, thereby reducing operational costs following deployment. Oracle is providing unified support for these servers, covering servers, storage, networking, virtualization, and software components. The server systems are outfitted with a single console for monitoring and management that provides a consistent user interface for system administrators across the entire technology stack. This approach allows system administrators to be more efficient in their work by using a "single pane of glass" view of the workloads under management, reducing IT staff related operational costs. A d d r e s s i n g O p e x S a v i n g s w i t h O r a c l e S u n F i r e S e r v e r s Oracle's design of its server-based solutions and its approach to server deployments addresses the primary sources of opex by automating many of the manual steps normally performed by system administrators and by reducing the time associated with updating and maintaining the servers following initial deployment. With lower operational costs, the total cost of ownership will improve and businesses will see return on investment more quickly. Among the top causes of IT-related operational costs are the following: IT staff time configuration setup time, deployments, provisioning of workloads, and ongoing maintenance Power and cooling costs resulting from server power consumption and the associated cooling requirements Maintenance costs for equipment, including hardware repairs, updates to software, and security patches Unplanned downtime leads to IT staff costs as applications are recovered and production data is brought back online Real estate costs costs related to space utilization within the datacenter so that servers with a compact footprint will reduce operational costs N e w x 8 6 S e r v e r s f r o m O r a c l e One of the primary design goals for the Oracle x86 server systems now and in the future is to target these sources of operational costs. By engineering optimized server solutions, Oracle is reducing the amount of time that it would otherwise 2011 IDC #

6 have taken to set up and configure these x86 servers, adding layered software and ordering the correct amount of memory, storage, and I/O bandwidth to support the selected workloads. These servers are based on the Intel Xeon processor 5600 series (Westmere-EP) and the Intel Xeon processor E7 product family (Westmere-EX), so they are classified as industry-standard servers. However, Oracle has built-in differentiation in terms of system-level functionality, including system-level RAS features, flash storage and flash acceleration, automated system management via Oracle's Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM) technology, and the systems' highly efficient power and cooling design. These combined technologies reduce the amount of customer IT time spent configuring systems and they also enable rapid deployment of these servers to support complex and demanding workloads. The 4-socket and 8-socket Oracle Sun Fire servers deliver RAS capabilities with hot-swappable and redundant components that enhance overall reliability and availability. The hot-swappable I/O adds another dimension to the reliability story for these x86 servers, which are often deployed to run highly demanding enterprise workloads. Other aspects of these scalable x86 server designs include front-accessible and rear-accessible components, which simplify for IT staff the service and maintenance of these systems, and built-in component redundancy for high availability designed to increase system uptime. Oracle also offers multiple flash storage options to complete its x86 server portfolio. These options include SSDs, flash acceleration cards, and an optional flash array that is sold separately from the system. By combining these flash options with its server products, Oracle has produced dramatic speedups of workloads, even when compared with earlier Oracle Sun models. But it is the density of the computing resources that makes a very big difference in this product series. For example, some models, such as the Sun Fire X4270 M2, have more than 1TB of flash storage in a 2U footprint, allowing a database application or data analysis workload to process in-memory data without "fetching" data from rotating disk. That ability is responsible for speeding up performance on these x86 servers. Management of the servers is another key to reducing operational costs. Oracle's ILOM manages the x86 servers, whether they are online or temporarily offline, with the use of both in-band and out-of-band management protocols. This allows remote shutdown and remote restart, reducing IT staff time. IDC research shows that power/cooling costs are top of mind for datacenter managers and that actual power limitations, enforced by municipalities and cities, have prevented datacenter expansions in some cases. Cooling systems also draw power, adding to the total power requirements. In the Oracle x86 server systems, power and cooling is addressed by front-to-back cooling in the chassis that reduces system "hot spots." By isolating subassemblies within the chassis, cooling can reduce hot spots as they develop, preventing 6 # IDC

7 overheating for the whole system. Oracle adds efficient fans and power supplies to reduce power/cooling costs, which in turn reduces operational costs. In summary, Oracle's x86 servers are designed to address all of the major contributors to opex, as listed earlier in this paper: IT staff time, maintenance costs, downtime (planned and unplanned), datacenter "real estate" costs (related to space utilization and server form-factor density), and power and cooling. Because all of these areas are addressed, customers can realize IT benefits that reduce overall costs related to deployment and operation over time, which benefits the business. O r a c l e x 8 6 S e r v e r S o l u t i o n s Scale Up or Scale Out Grids and clusters are the types of deployments that leverage Oracle RAC and Oracle Coherence software to link multiple x86 servers together. The two Oracle products RAC and Coherence support different kinds of deployments. Oracle RAC allows multiple servers to be clustered together for purposes of scalability, capacity, and availability (through redundancy of resources within the cluster) and the workload is "aware" of the cluster's resources rather than the resources of the individual servers within the cluster. This means that, with Oracle RAC, the application or workload can tap the resources of all the linked servers, if needed. Oracle Coherence supports deployment of the servers in grids, or arrays, by linking the server nodes together and leveraging the caches on each individual server. With Oracle Coherence, the workload is shared across server nodes based on computing requirements. Workloads can be balanced across the entire array of servers as requests for service are directed to server "nodes" throughout the array. Because each server node is based on multicore, multisocket servers, more capacity is available now than would have been possible just a few years ago. The most scalable x86 server models have up to 10 cores per Intel Xeon processor E7 and two threads per core, resulting in 20 threads per processor. This means that the 4-socket servers provide up to 80 threads to run workloads, while the 8-socket servers provide up to 160 threads. The 4-socket Sun Fire X4470 M2 and the 8-socket Sun Fire X4800 M2 are outfitted with additional memory and server I/O to support scalable workloads and consolidated workloads gathered up from smaller servers. Oracle's Sun x86 servers support clustered configurations. The 4-socket and 8-socket systems can be "fat nodes" in an Oracle RAC cluster spanning multiple x86 servers. These large server nodes can be used to support extensible database workloads, tapping more server capacity in a scale-out configuration. Oracle RAC can run on Oracle Solaris or Oracle Linux. For scale-out deployments, Oracle RAC can have 4, 8, 12, or more server nodes to support applications and databases and migrate workloads across the linked servers to add capacity, as needed, using Oracle Grid and Oracle Coherence leveraging Oracle ASM storage management IDC #

8 Innovation on the Sun Fire Platform Oracle differentiates its x86 servers by including innovations that combine intellectual property (IP) on the hardware and software sides of an integrated system solution. It is investing to improve performance compared with other x86 servers and to demonstrate that performance and price/performance through a series of widely adopted industry benchmarks. Oracle Flash Technology Oracle integrates flash technology with standard hardware components and the Oracle software stack components. As a result, the overall throughput of the system benefits by having access to an optimized "channel" for server I/O. The mismatch between today's multicore processor technology and older, rotating disk is a stark one. Importantly, flash technology allows data to be "fetched" from disk and housed on fast solid state semiconductors, which bridges the gap between processor speeds and disk speeds. In this way, flash storage can be used as a fast cache for data so that the most important data can be kept close to the processor for rapid access. With less wait time for data fetching, the overall effect on system performance is to greatly improve throughput and to speed overall processing. Oracle Solaris and Oracle Linux Oracle offers customers the choice of having Oracle Solaris pre-installed on select Oracle x86 servers at the factory, before the server is shipped. Other operating systems are certified for use with the Oracle x86 servers, such as Microsoft Windows or Linux distributions. The choice of operating system is generally determined by customer preference and the types of applications deployed at the customer site. Some of the Oracle Solaris features/functions are not available in other operating systems, including the following: Oracle Solaris containers, a built-in virtualization capability that isolates workloads and prevents interference from other workloads; Solaris DTrace, which is a built-in observability tool that can be used to identify workload "bottlenecks" that are slowing system performance; and the ZFS file system, which is used for highly demanding workloads requiring very large storage spaces. Oracle Linux combined with Oracle's Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel delivers very high levels of performance as well as advanced scalability and reliability for enterprise applications. Oracle Linux now has more than 7,000 customers in 145 countries and more than 800 supporting partners. Both Oracle Solaris and Oracle Linux are available at no cost to Oracle customers who subscribe to Premium Support services. Oracle VM Oracle VM is a platform that is designed to support virtualization within an Oracle software environment, and it comes pre-installed on some of the x86 systems, before they are shipped from the factory. Oracle VM enables the deployment of operating systems (e.g., Oracle Solaris and Linux) and application software within a supported virtualization environment. 8 # IDC

9 Oracle VM has two major components: Oracle VM Manager. Oracle VM Manager provides the user interface, which is a standard Application Development Framework (ADF) Web application, to manage Oracle VM Servers. It manages the virtual machine life cycle, including the creation of virtual machines from installation media or from a virtual machine template. It also addresses the following functions: deleting, powering off, uploading, deployment, and live migration of virtual machines. Finally, Oracle VM Manager manages resources, including ISO files, virtual machine templates, and sharable hard disks. Oracle VM Server. Oracle VM Server is a self-contained virtualization environment that is designed to provide a lightweight, secure, server-based platform for running virtual machines. Oracle VM Server is based on an updated version of the Xen hypervisor technology, and it includes Oracle VM Agent. O r a c l e H I A T e c h n o l o g y Oracle Hardware Installation Assistant (HIA) is an Oracle technology that supports simplified and rapid provisioning of operating systems, fast setup of RAID storage, and quick updates of firmware associated with the system BIOS, NICs, and service processors to monitor system performance. Oracle HIA is available, via download, at no cost to customers. Equally important, it can be utilized physically or virtually via ILOM Remote Storage capability. It can also be booted over a network connection using the PXE protocol. The business benefits of this technology are clear: Customers can quickly configure and install new systems or repurpose servers that are already installed. Oracle HIA allows customers to quickly install a number of operating system images, including those for Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Novell SLES, and Windows Server There is no need to use Oracle HIA to boot Oracle Solaris because Solaris is automatically booted on Oracle's x86 servers with Oracle Solaris pre-installed in factory. Oracle supplies a Hardware Management Pack that includes an SNMP monitoring agent and Oracle Server CLI (command line interface) tools for developers working with Oracle Solaris, Linux, and Windows. The agent allows customers to choose between utilizing in-band monitoring of the servers or out-of-band monitoring via ILOM, reflecting different preferences for management styles. Out-of-band technology allows diagnostics processes to continue, even in the event of a hardware outage. IDC notes that other management agents are available from third-party providers. O v e r v i e w o f t h e S u n F i r e P r o d u c t L i n e Oracle is moving quickly to differentiate its x86 server products from those of other x86 server vendors. The company is outfitting these x86 servers with flash storage, and enough onboard memory and storage to allow most of the processing to occur very close to the processors, which reduces latency associated with wait times for access to spinning disks located across the network or across the datacenter IDC #

10 Oracle offers a complete x86 rackmount server product line, starting with the 2-socket Sun Fire X2270 M2, Sun Fire X4170 M2, and Sun Fire X4270 M2. These compact 1U and 2U servers are versatile building blocks for IT infrastructure applications. For more scalable server solutions, Oracle offers the 4-socket Sun Fire X4470 M2, an expandable 3U enterprise-class server, and the 8-socket Sun Fire X4800 M2 both of which are described in more detail later in the document. Table 1 shows Oracle's rack-optimized x86 servers: the Sun Fire X2270 M2, the Sun Fire X4170 M2, the Sun Fire X4270 M2, the Sun Fire X4470 M2, and the Sun Fire X4800 M2. T A B L E 1 O r a c l e x 8 6 R a c k S e r v e r s Model Sockets CPU Processors Maximum Memory Internal Disk Capacity Rack Factor Flash Capacity SSDs Sun Fire X2270 M2 2 Sun Fire X4170 M2 2 Sun Fire X4270 M2 2 Sun Fire X4470 M2 4 Sun Fire X4800 M2 8 Intel Xeon or 2 96GB 8TB 1 RU 128GB 4 Intel Xeon or 2 144GB 4TB 1 RU 448GB 8 Intel Xeon or 2 144GB 25TB 2 RU >1TB 24 Intel Xeon E or 4 1TB 3.6TB 3 RU 576GB 6 Intel Xeon E or 8 2TB 4.8TB 5 RU 256GB 8 Source: Oracle Corporation, 2011 S c a l a b i l i t y f o r O r a c l e x 8 6 S e r v e r s Given Oracle's approach to x86 servers, and the innovations supported within Oracle's x86 server product line, the deployments of its 4-socket and 8-socket servers the Sun Fire X4470 M2 and Sun Fire X4800 M2 show how Oracle is targeting demanding enterprise workloads with its approach to scalable server solutions built to run on these servers. Specifically, these servers support: Integrated, optimized solutions that leverage both hardware IP (flash storage, flash accelerators) and software IP (Oracle Database 11g, Fusion middleware, and a range of Oracle applications). Customers can deploy clustered configurations in which the 4-socket and 8-socket systems can be "fat nodes" in 10 # IDC

11 an Oracle RAC cluster that spans multiple x86 servers. These large server nodes can be used to support extensible database workloads, tapping more server capacity in a scale-out configuration. Both the Oracle Solaris and Oracle Linux operating systems support Oracle RAC. Virtualization/consolidation projects, scalable databases, and applications with large numbers of end users. The workloads for these 4-socket and 8-socket servers are in step with the types of workloads that once ran on minicomputers or, more recently, midrange enterprise servers costing $100,000 or more. The strong support for business processing and decision support workloads allows these more scalable servers in Oracle's x86 server line to address highly demanding requirements for high availability, security, and "headroom" for growing applications and databases. 4 - S o c k e t a n d 8 - S o c k e t S e r v e r s Many of the workloads that have been running on x86 servers are growing in a number of dimensions; they have become more demanding and more mission critical, and larger numbers of end users are accessing them. Importantly, the process of server consolidation is bringing more workloads to each server, all of which requires a larger amount of memory, and I/O bandwidth, to ensure high performance and good response times for end users. As seen in Table 1, the range of the Oracle x86 servers in terms of capability and performance is wide, starting with the 2-socket Sun Fire X2270 M2 model. The 4-socket and 8-socket servers are at the high end of the spectrum, supporting consolidated workloads and scalable databases. As shown in Figure 2, the 4-socket and 8-socket servers tend to run a mix of workloads in which business processing and decision support workloads are a larger part of the overall mix. Oracle Sun Fire X4470 M2 Server This 4-socket server supports OLTP transactional workloads and application server workloads and it is intended for use as a platform for workload consolidation. It is a 3U system that supports up to four Intel Xeon E processors. It also supports up to 1TB of memory and has 10 PCIe I/O slots in order to provide high performance for data-intensive transactional workloads and line-of-business workloads, such as Oracle E-Business Suite, ERP, CRM, and batch workloads. Onboard, internal storage is supported by six 2.5-inch SAS-2 drives. This server provides a maximum flash capacity of 576GB. In addition, the Sun Fire X4470 M2 has hot-swappable components for high availability and reliability and is managed by Oracle ILOM software, which comes standard with the server. These capabilities are important because workload consolidation on scalable x86 servers brings with it the expectation of high availability and continued end-user access to applications and data stored on the system IDC #

12 Oracle Sun Fire X4800 M2 Server The Sun Fire X4800 M2 is the most scalable x86 server that Oracle is shipping in its x86 server line. It is intended for use with memory-intensive applications, in-memory databases, and business application consolidation The Sun Fire X4800 M2 supports scalable database workloads and workload consolidation leveraging virtualization software to improve onboard resource utilization. With eight Intel Xeon E processors each supporting eight or 10 cores per processor this server supports up to 80 processor cores. It is also outfitted with up to 2TB of memory and eight 2.5-inch hard drives. It supports up to eight hot-swappable PCIe I/O modules. These features, which support high reliability and high availability for enterprise workloads, highlight the expansion of high-end capabilities that can now be provided in the Oracle x86 systems. The Sun Fire X4800 M2 server can support up to eight 10GbE links and up to eight 1GbE links. This server is managed by Oracle ILOM, a lights-out management capability that comes standard with the server. The Sun Fire X4800 M2 provides a new high-end set of capabilities for the portfolio of Oracle Sun x86 server systems. This product set offers a broad set of choices and capabilities in hardware and software, including support for multiple operating systems and virtualization technologies. These systems can be assembled into arrays, grids, or clusters of x86 servers allowing workloads to scale up when used in conjunction with Oracle system-level infrastructure software and systems management software. C H A L L E N G E S / O P P O R T U N I T I E S The x86 server market is supplied by many vendors, and several companies ship x86 servers in high volumes. Oracle has committed to compete in this market space with respect to x86 server technology supporting enterprise workloads with systems delivering outstanding TCO for the vertically integrated stack. The company's decision to address customer pain points IT staff costs, power/cooling, maintenance costs, and energy efficiency speaks to Oracle's understanding of the IT and business requirements of enterprise workloads in the datacenter. Oracle's opportunities in this space revolve around its ability to identify IT issues related to deployment and operation of servers for enterprise workloads and then to differentiate its x86 servers to gain traction in this very large market space. With x86 servers generating more than 95% of all units worldwide, and more than 50% of all server revenue worldwide, Oracle should have substantial opportunity to grow its market share as a complement to its non-x86 SPARC-based servers. Oracle can develop both types of servers in the same way that several of its top competitors offer servers in both the x86 server and non-x86 server spaces within the worldwide server market. 12 # IDC

13 C O N C L U S I O N The x86 server line from Oracle is being evolved from the x86 servers that were originally offered by Sun Microsystems, following Oracle's acquisition of Sun in Oracle has said that it is committed to continued development of its x86 server product line, continuing to invest in the development of future systems and continuing to enhance Oracle x86 systems for performance and reliability. This portfolio of Oracle x86 servers can run a mix of applications brought forward by the customer (including custom applications, Oracle applications, and third-party ISV applications), provided that Oracle has certified them for use with the Oracle x86 server systems. Oracle's x86 servers support a wide range of customers' deployment scenarios. Customers have the option of buying the rack-optimized x86 servers for scale-out workloads leveraging Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) or scale-up workloads leveraging the scalable 4-socket and 8-socket servers. Importantly, Oracle is deploying its own x86 servers as the building blocks for the company's Exadata and ExaLogic engineered systems. Their use in the Exadata and ExaLogic systems emphasizes the point that Oracle's x86 servers are designed to take on demanding enterprise workloads and to be efficient, reliable platforms for the consolidation of workloads that were running on other servers throughout the customer's enterprise or midmarket organization. Overall, Oracle is preparing all of its x86 servers, from 2-socket models to 8-socket models, to be able to run the entire Oracle software stack, inclusive of operating system middleware, database, and applications. This approach simplifies and speeds deployments of new systems and enhances reliability and availability through the use of pre-integrated software components. C o p y r i g h t N o t i c e External Publication of IDC Information and Data Any IDC information that is to be used in advertising, press releases, or promotional materials requires prior written approval from the appropriate IDC Vice President or Country Manager. A draft of the proposed document should accompany any such request. IDC reserves the right to deny approval of external usage for any reason. Copyright 2011 IDC. Reproduction without written permission is completely forbidden IDC #