54 Planning, Installing, and Managing the IBM System x3950 M22.1 Focus market segments and target applicationsThe eX4 servers from IBM are designed for the demands of the application anddatabase serving tiers offering leadership performance and the proven reliabilityof the Intel Xeon MP processor architecture to power mission-critical statefulworkloads, such as: Server consolidationServer consolidation is a process of centralizing business computingworkloads to reduce cost, complexity, network traffic, management overheadand, in general, to simplify the existing IT infrastructure and provide afoundation for new solution investment and implementation.Key server consolidation software vendors are VMware (VMware ESX 3.5and VMware ESXi 3.5), Xen, Virtual Iron and Microsoft (Hyper-V™) DatabaseThe eX4 servers are ideal as database servers or application servers, withtheir fast multi-core processors and their large and very fast memorysubsystems. The x3950 M2 in particular provides an extremely scalableplatform with room to scale to additional nodes. These configurations use anexternal storage enclosure or SAN, depending on the size of the database,which is driven by the number of users.The 16-way four-node configuration can deliver a highly reliable and capableplatform for clients who have to run multiple instances of databases that canscale beyond eight processors.Key database software vendors are Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 and 2008,IBM (DB2®), and Oracle®. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)ERP is an industry term for the broad set of activities supported bymulti-module application software that helps a manufacturer or othercompanies to manage the important parts of its business, including productplanning, parts purchasing, maintaining inventories, interacting with suppliers,providing customer service, and tracking orders. ERP can also includeapplication modules for the finance and human resources aspects of abusiness. Typically, an ERP system uses or is integrated with a relationaldatabase system.These applications today use a Web-based infrastructure with interfaces tosuppliers, clients, and internal company employees. The three generalarchitectures used by enterprise solutions are:– Four-tier architecture (often referred to as an Internet architecture) withclient systems, Web servers, application servers, and database servers
