Unisys introduces more powerful models of Forward! platform

Unisys Corporation has announced the second generation of its Forward! by Unisys™ enterprise computing platform. New features include support for the new Intel® Xeon® Processor E7 v2 Family and capabilities that expand the power and flexibility of the Forward! platform for a range of mission-critical applications.

Unisys debuted four new models of the Forward! platform, with two using the faster computing capabilities and greater memory capacity of the Intel® Xeon® E7 (“Ivy Bridge”) processors. The new models support a larger number of processor cores and partitions than the first-generation Forward! platform.

The new models also provide clients a broader range of options to build powerful, secure environments to address complex cloud, ERP, big data and analytics applications.

Designed for Linux and Windows workloads, the new Forward! models combine the Intel processors with Unisys’ advanced secure partitioning (s-Par®) software and high speed interconnect technology in an advanced fabric architecture linking all computing resources and components. The fabric architecture enables the new Forward! systems to provide a more secure, reliable, high-performance platform for business applications that require intensive use of memory, input/output, networking and other resources for extended periods of time.

With the new models, organisations can more easily scale up – that is, add computing resources in a single node – or scale out by adding additional nodes. Those nodes can include different generations of Intel® Xeon® processor technology or different software environments, depending on the specific challenge.
“Unisys continues to perfect Forward! as the ideal computing platform for the data centre of the future,” said Rob Cashman, vice president, mission-critical servers and solutions, Unisys. “Organisations no longer need to make tradeoffs between the cost efficiency and flexibility of Intel-based platforms and the security and reliability of Unix systems. With Forward!, CIOs now have a flexible, cost-effective alternative for server consolidation and for running big-data analytics, cloud and other mission-critical applications in a secure, Intel-based environment.”

The Unisys s-Par software on the Forward! platform goes beyond traditional virtualisation technology by creating a secure “container” of dedicated resources for each mission-critical application workload – eliminating the resource contention that often accompanies virtualisation and enabling faster, more predictable performance. In a recent third-party test, the Forward! platform decisively outperformed a virtualised environment using an industry-standard hypervisor, delivering up to 38 percent better throughput and up to 122 percent faster multiple-workload performance.

The new high-end Forward! models 4150 and 4120 use the Intel® Xeon® Processor E7 4800 v2, which provides up to 48 and 60 processor cores, respectively, per node – nearly a four-fold increase over the first-generation Forward! platform. In addition, those new models accommodate up to 12 secure partitions per node, with 512 gigabytes of memory per partition, escalating the power and scalability required for the most challenging mission-critical applications.

The mid-range Forward! models 2080 and 2100 use the Intel® Xeon® Processor E5 2600 v2. These models support up to 16 and 20 processor cores and up to 12 partitions per node, with 384 gigabytes of memory per partition.

All nodes in the Forward! fabric are connected via high-speed links to reduce system latency and provide better real-time analytics and transaction performance than competing platforms. Users can create multi-node versions of Forward! spanning different geographic locations, creating a system that is virtually limitless in scalability and power.