Oracle's latest SPARC system features security enhancement, efficiency

Oracle on Thursday announced its eighth generation SPARC platform, delivering new levels of security capabilities, performance, and availability for critical customer workloads.

Powered by the new SPARC M8 microprocessor, new Oracle systems and IaaS deliver a modern enterprise platform, including proven Software in Silicon with new v2 advancements, enabling customers to cost-effectively deploy their most critical business applications and scale-out application environments with extreme performance both on-premises and in Oracle Cloud.

SPARC M8 processor-based systems, including the Oracle SuperCluster M8 engineered systems and SPARC T8 and M8 servers, are designed to seamlessly integrate with existing infrastructures and include fully integrated virtualization and management for private cloud. All existing commercial and custom applications will run on SPARC M8 systems unchanged with new levels of performance, security capabilities, and availability.

The SPARC M8 processor with Software in Silicon v2 extends the industry's first Silicon Secured Memory, which provides always-on hardware-based memory protection for advanced intrusion protection and end-to-end encryption and Data Analytics Accelerators (DAX) with open API's for breakthrough performance and efficiency running Database analytics and Java streams processing. Oracle Cloud SPARC Dedicated Compute service will also be updated with the SPARC M8 processor.

"Oracle has long been a pioneer in engineering software and hardware together to secure high-performance infrastructure for any workload of any size. SPARC was already the fastest, most secure processor in the world for running Oracle Database and Java. SPARC M8 extends that lead even further," said Edward Screven, chief corporate architect, Oracle.

The SPARC M8 processor offers security enhancements delivering 2x faster encryption and 2x faster hashing than x86 and 2x faster than SPARC M7 microprocessors. The SPARC M8 processor's unique design also provides always-on security by default and built-in protection of in-memory data structures from hacks and programming errors.

SPARC M8's silicon innovation provides new levels of performance and efficiency across all workloads, including:

-Database: Engineered to run Oracle Database faster than any other microprocessor, SPARC M8 delivers two times faster OLTP performance per core than x86 and 1.4x faster than M7 microprocessors, as well as up to seven times faster database analytics than x86.

-Java: SPARC M8 delivers two times better Java performance than x86 and 1.3 times better than M7 microprocessors. DAX v2 produces eight times more efficient Java streams processing, improving overall application performance.

-In Memory Analytics: Innovative new processor delivers seven times Queries per Minute (QPM)/core than x86 for database analytics.

Oracle is committed to delivering the latest in SPARC and Solaris technologies and servers to its global customers. Oracle's long history of binary compatibility across processor generations continues with M8, providing an upgrade path for customers when they are ready.