Oracle Users Finding Xsigo Virtual I/O Reduces Costs by 30 Percent

A group of businesses that have deployed Xsigo virtual I/O in support of their Oracle (News - Alert) database applications are finding that they now experience 70 percent less infrastructure complexity as well as up to 25-times faster job completion.

In addition, their overall capital costs have been reduced by 30 percent. Among these businesses is Xsigo clients CARFAX, a vehicle history information provider; Investec, a specialist bank and asset manager; managed service provider Bitbrains; as well as HiFX, a foreign-exchange broker.

To ensure peak performance, Oracle database operations rely on high-speed data movement to and from data storage devices. Xsigo’s customers are achieving such stellar results because its virtual input/output (I/O) delivers throughput at up to 40Gbps, or four times the throughput of 10G Ethernet, which the company said in its press announcement today, is the highest speed in the industry.  In addition, the company said it also minimizes performance-robbing transmission delays with overall latency less than a third of that of Ethernet.

Bruce Fingles, vice-president of product management of alliances and support at Xsigo, said: "Only Xsigo converges Ethernet and fibre channel connectivity over the world's fastest 40 Gb link to deliver the highest throughput and fastest job execution, benefits that translate directly to reduced costs and a better user experience."

He added that "I/O performance makes all the difference in job performance and operating efficiency for customers running I/O intensive workloads such as Oracle."  

Xsigo said its customers also demonstrate further operational efficiencies in Oracle environments by capitalizing on the rapid re-configuration capabilities inherent in virtual I/O. The company explained that it is because it enables a 70 percent reduction in I/O hardware required, which allows IT managers to save 50 percent on switch ports and costly I/O cards.

Stating that high availability is critical to its customers, Xsigo’s user David Christie, CIO at HiFX, said, "Xsigo saves us a third on our overall capital cost by eliminating the need for a dedicated disaster recovery facility, allowing us to leverage our test and development equipment for that purpose instead. Because Xsigo virtual I/O is configured in software, not hardware, we can reconfigure our test and development facility to replicate our entire Oracle production facility in just three minutes, which eliminates the need for expensive standby equipment."  

Christie also said,  "To provide excellent customer service, we demand that our Oracle 11G-based transaction processing applications be accessible 24 x 7 and deliver a consistent user experience, even under peak demand loads, all of which demands a lot from our server I/O."

He added that the Xsigo virtual I/O is unique because it “combines the high-bandwidth and low latency of InfiniBand with the flexibility of software-controlled I/O resources, so our customers always get a great user experience."

In other news, TMCnet reported the battle continues between business-software rivals Oracle and SAP (News - Alert) over a Northern California jury award in favor of Oracle in November.