The ever-increasing amount of data generated by FSI businesses presents a significant challenge, but an even bigger opportunity. The ability to process large amounts of data at speed opens up new possibilities such as the use of real-time data analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Legacy IT infrastructure can sometimes struggle with these increasingly data-intensive workloads, which is where Intel® Optane™ technology can help.
“When paired with our next-generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor, users will see real performance, throughput, and persistence advantages on your most memory-bound workloads.”
Intel® Optane™ technology is a major innovation that enables businesses to unlock the potential of their data by combining the attributes of both memory and storage. By creating a new memory tier, the technology allows organisations to gain significant boosts in performance as well as cutting infrastructure costs. Optane technology is available in a number of formats to suit businesses of all sizes, with Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory being developed specifically for the data center.
Representing a big memory breakthrough, Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory technology offers a unique combination of affordable large capacity and persistence (or non-volatility). It allows data to be stored, moved, and processed at unprecedented speeds with improved Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) in the data center. This innovative memory technology can help businesses extract greater value from data-intensive applications as well as deliver improved scalability.
The technology can help businesses that are looking to supercharge the performance of data workloads that are constrained by memory. “When paired with our next-generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor, users will see real performance, throughput, and persistence advantages on your most memory-bound workloads,” said Lisa Spelman, vice president, Data Center Group, general manager, Intel® Xeon® processors and Data Center Marketing, during a live webinar.
During the webinar, Spelman revealed a new Memory Mode for Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory, designed to deliver extraordinary flexibility, effectively increasing available system memory. “This allows an application to view the persistent memory DIMM as part of volatile main memory,” explained Spelman. “With increased capacity, you get greater virtual machine, container, and application density while increasing utilisation of your Intel® Xeon® processors.”
The result is improved TCO and service scalability across data centers. And, on top of that, Memory Mode offers full data encryption to ensure all information is secure.
Intel has also launched an initiative to enable its customers early access to this technology before it rolls out to a wider audience. The Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory Hardware Beta Program is “a collaboration to enable delivery of early access systems and services for adoption of persistent memory-enabled solutions,” explained Spelman. “This is an opportunity to get a jumpstart on your deployment, working with the leading names in technology.”
Big names already involved in the Hardware Beta Program include Cisco*, Google Cloud*, Dell EMC*, HPE* and Lenovo*. General availability for the innovative memory will begin in the first half of 2019.
The Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory is particularly useful in cloud environments as it helps expand server memory capacity, enabling businesses to put more VMs (Virtual Machines) into the same space as before. The technology benefits private and hybrid clouds as there is more memory per footprint. By increasing VM density, businesses can improve their TCO dramatically while Intel® Optane™ technology also enables faster restarts and greater uptime than using traditional DRAM. This new tier of storage enables organisations to unlock the value of their data, supporting big data analytics so that they can glean valuable business insights.
Another major benefit of the Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory is the ability to accelerate AI workloads. The growth of AI is already being accelerated by a number of factors including falling computing unit costs, a huge increase in available data, and big data software tools becoming open source. However, The Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory can further enhance this growth by boosting machine learning capabilities with the unique combination of fast and persistent large-capacity memory. The technology allows machine learning workloads to run faster by bringing more data close to the compute.
The Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory enables FSI businesses to gain a competitive advantage in the digital era by unleashing the full potential of their data. And for those that want to get ahead of the competition, the Hardware Beta Program is the ideal starting point.
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