Network Appliance, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP) today announced a record-high TPC-C Benchmark™ performance result for an Intel® Xeon® processor–based server (visit www.tpc.org/results/individual_results/IBM/ibm.x460.tpc-c.5.5.es.112205.pdf ). NetApp and IBM conducted the TPC-C Benchmark on an IBM eServer xSeries 460 server configured as a client/server system with NetApp fabric-attached storage (FAS) systems. The record-making result demonstrates the robust scalability of NetApp storage for enterprise online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads, especially in storage area network (SAN) environments.

The benchmark achieved 492,307 tpmC, with a price/performance of $6.37 USD/tpmC, using NetApp storage systems and an IBM xSeries 460, using the new Dual-Core Intel Xeon Processor 7040 3.00GHz with 2MB L2 cache per core (16 processors/32 cores/64 threads) and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition.1 The benchmark raises the bar for 16 processor and Xeon processor-based performance on the TPC-C online transaction processing benchmark.

“Today NetApp marks another significant milestone in our relationships with both IBM and Microsoft,” said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Products and Partners at Network Appliance. “Performance of over 492,000 transactions per minute on the TPC-C Benchmark demonstrates the scalability of our combined solution for large-scale transaction-processing applications. With the NetApp simplified data management capability coupled to SQL Server 2005 and IBM X3 Architecture-based servers, customers experience better productivity and higher performance—far more cost-effectively than was possible in the past.”

“The performance benchmark of over 492,307 transactions per minute on the TPC-C benchmark is the current high watermark in the string of number one scores for IBM's Enterprise X-Architecture servers," said Leo Suarez, vice president, IBM xSeries servers. “Use of NetApp storage subsystems recognizes that our customers can leverage a variety of storage technologies to achieve impressive results.”

“The SQL Server team is pleased to have worked with NetApp and IBM to deliver an industry-leading TPC-C performance benchmark,” said Don Petersen, senior product manager for SQL Server at Microsoft Corp. “The biggest take away is that NetApp, IBM and Microsoft are documenting that this type of performance is possible, and that demonstrates these solutions are bringing enterprise-class performance to SQL Server 2005 environments.”

NetApp Global Services Support for SQL Server 2005

NetApp Global Services (NGS) provides complementary service offerings for enterprise customers moving to SQL Server 2005. NGS assesses, designs, and fully implements a storage strategy capable of solving the biggest challenges associated with a growing SQL Server environment such as cost, complexity, risk and change. NGS delivers leading technologies, methodologies, and expertise to complement every phase of a customer's SQL Server data consolidation effort—from discovery to design to data migration and implementation. This boosts a customers’ return on investment throughout the ownership lifecycle. NGS expert services help free-up internal resources, maximize database uptime, meet performance requirements, and minimize disruption during migration and infrastructure upgrades. NGS storage services for SQL Server 2005 include:

• SQL Server storage consolidation services to deliver design documents that address database layout, thereby helping performance, and also size the storage to meet future growth needs.
• Backup and recovery services tailored for SQL Server to assist customers with both online backups and with creating disk-based backups to secondary storage. This includes design and implementation services to help meet customers recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs).

NGS documentation of services delivered helps customers minimize risk and control change associated with ongoing maintenance. For more information on NGS’ support for SQL Server visit http://www.netapp.com/support/.