Intel Corporation has introduced the Intel Xeon processor E7 v2 family aimed at big data developments in the market. The new processor family delivers “in-memory” computing capabilities to process and analyze large, diverse amounts of data – to unlock information that was previously inaccessible.
The Intel Xeon processor E7 v2 family has triple the memory capacity of the previous generation processor family, allowing much faster and thorough data analysis. In-memory analytics places and analyzes an entire data set – such as an organization’s entire customer database – in the system memory rather than on traditional disk drives. This method would be gaining in popularity due to the increased need for more complex analytics.
Industry analyst firm Gartner expects 35 percent of mid- to large-sized companies will adopt in-memory analytics by 2015, up from 10 percent in 2012 and predicts at least 50 percent of Global 2000 companies will use in-memory computing to deliver significant additional benefits from investments in enterprise resource planning (ERP).
BSS, CRM and ERP
Built for up to 32-socket 8 servers, with configurations supporting up to 15 processing cores and up to 1.5 terabytes (TB) of memory per socket, the new processor family would achieve twice the average performance of the previous generation. These enhancements would help businesses that run mission critical applications including business support systems (BSS), customer relationship management (CRM), and ERP to operate more efficiently, at lower cost and with faster response times.
For example, a sales team with these capabilities could maximize revenue by pinpointing the best time to sell a product, or let an oil and gas company better predict when its platforms require preventative maintenance.
To reduce data bottlenecks, the Intel Xeon Processor E7 v2 family features Intel Integrated I/O, Intel Data Direct I/O and support for PCIe 3.0. As a result, the new processor family would achieve up to four times the I/O bandwidth over the previous generation, providing extra capacity for storage and networking connections.
Intel E7 v2 and SAP HANA
Starting this week, 21 system manufacturers from around the world will announce more than 40 Intel Xeon processor E7 v2 family-based platforms. These manufacturers include Cisco, Dell, EMC, HP, Huawei, , Lenovo, IBM, and Supermicro. Numerous analytics software vendors also support Xeon processor E7 v2 family-based platforms, including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Red Hat, SAP, SAS, Sungard, and Teradata.
Based on initial testing of the new Intel Xeon processor E7 v2 and SAP’s HANA in-memory analytics software, Intel claims that eBay has seen greater performance and understanding of larger data sets that will help drive additional revenue opportunities for its customers.
