In this post, I am trying to compare AMD and Intel Core 2 Quad processors.

In the consumer market of processors two big brands are competing directly, Intel & AMD. For several years sometimes Intel dominates AMD and sometimes AMD dominates Intel. Currently Intel is dominating with its outstanding Core i3, Core i7, Core 2, and other models in the lower range.

Before the advent of these, AMD had managed to surprise its direct competitor with the famous Athlon 64 bit, and its professional Opteron series. These processors were offering very good performance, but also cost efficient when compared to their competitors. But these AMD servers not satisfied to offer leading performance, even Athlons and other Opterons allow consistent overclocking. Today, these servers are still available in the market and offers a good performance, certainly much lower than those of their competitors which processors are based on the architecture Core 2.

However, today if you want to set up a new workstation, or want a compatible option for virtualization, several choices are available. Previously the choices were limited to the range Intel and AMD, because the processors offered by these manufactures were somewhat overwhelmed by the situation and above all out of breath.

To stay in the competition AMD launched an upgraded version of its processor Phenom, which was reviewed at several levels and renamed Phenom II. To be precise, the fine engraving was increased, the third-level cache was tripled, and has undergone some enhancements to improve performance. Now lets see who wins the competition.

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Nowadays, you have a large range of options to choose a processor that meets your demands. Today, we are going to discuss about two models (Intel and AMD). These two models meet all criteria, offers the best affordable price, match the performance ratio, etc … However, you will notice, BODHost.com only included Intel processors. Someone will say we like only Intel, but this is not the case. According our tests AMD does not offer as powerful processors as its cost. Intel processors are pretty ideal for everything such as gaming, streaming videos / audio encoding, graphics, and of course virtualization.

For an instance, Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550. Its 4 cores are driving up the top notch performance. This is really an ideal processor to encode many videos or music. For those who are seeking for game servers, the choice between Q9550 and E8400 is less clear. The frequency of the E8400 (2 cores) is 3GHZ per core against the Q9550′s (4 cores) 2.83 GHz. However, the games who do not take advantage on two core will become faster on dual core.

Even though, Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 2.83 GHz is just an upgraded version of Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.66 GHz. The noticeable differences are frequency and CPU Cache. The Q9550 processor based on Yorkfield chip, and it has 12 MB of L2 cache. On the other hand Q9400 has 6 MB L2 cache. Moreover, Q9550 offers better quality, however, the price ratio is higher than its predecessor.

For your information, BODHost offers both, Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 and Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 dedicated servers. The prices are clearly not the same, but surprisingly many e-commerce stores are regularly showing their interest in these servers.

Undoubtedly, the Q9400 and Q9550 are the most interesting and popular among online business entrepreneurs. So if you are searching a Quad Core Dedicated Server at a reasonable price, you probably know better than me what you have to do …

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Dell Quad Core Xeon X5550 2.66 GHz is designed for multiprocessor systems. The architecture consists of four quad core execution units, also called processing units, within a single processor. This processor offers an excellent performance and a high processing capacity for high Internet server loads. Thus, the response time, the number of supported users and scalability improves strongly. This product has been tested and validated by Dell.

These servers can give a whole new portfolio to your business. In addition, servers are available in several formats such as towers, blades, rack mount, workstations, new storage system Equalogic, software and services, etc …

Furthermore, the Dell PowerEdge M series blade servers are basically designed around the Intel Xeon 5500, according to Dell, these servers provide an optimal level of virtualization, easy to use system administration, etc …

With these systems, the web hosting provider can claim the highest level of performance per watt on their dedicated servers.

By providing an integrated administration with a single access point, Dell also claimed that the architecture of their servers offers a purchase price lower than their competitors (specially HP).

Blade Servers -

Dell’s blade servers are mostly popular for the faster deployment than HP and IBM Blade Servers. Additionally, Dell has developed a function ImageDirect, which helps to simplify administration of the image servers and facilitate their development. Companies can create images of servers and ask them to be implemented during during the manufacturing of the server in the factory.

This avoids time consuming manual configuration. Hence, the deployment times are shortened and the time span to operate such servers decreased by almost 45%. The device allows to quickly stabilize such systems during the operation.

Workstations -

Moreover, dell precision workstations are also designed around Intel Xeon 5500 microprocessor, they are characterized by advanced administrative capacity and thermal characteristics.

The new family includes the Dell Precision T7500, T5500 and T3500 tower. These stations were designed for technical applications, media industries, bio sciences etc… All these servers feature the Energy Star 5.0 certification.

Side Software –

The Dell Management Console (DMC), which is borrowed from Altiris and Symantec aims to bring a single point environment to entire administration systems for all computing.

Storage System -

EquaLogic PS6000 storage system provides higher level performance, advanced virtualization abilities and more value to your business. It integrates seamlessly into a storage area network SAN Equalogic to form a virtualized storage.

Dell includes the SAN HeadQuarters solution, which is a centralized dashboard for monitoring performance and the different events of dozens of PS systems, up to 10 PB (petabytes) of storage capacity in a network.

Finally, Dell offers the data center consulting services as well. It allows to evaluate performance of the data center, costs of materials, virtualization of servers, the optimization of backup and restoration.

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A plethora of new features should cause IT pros to adopt this much improved version. It is necessary that you can effectively manage your infrastructure Windows Server 2008 R2. The Server Manager console (Server Manager), introduced in the original version of Server 2008, offers a single management environment for almost any task on a server.

Many wizards simplify the configuration of new server roles and features. IT pros can manage most of these tasks from the command line, via servermanagercmd.exe. Since we are talking about the command line, Windows Server 2008 R2 comes with Windows PowerShell 2.0 enabled by default, which is a good thing. With PowerShell management environment, you can manage 500 servers as easily as if there were only five.

Disks with Windows Dedicated Server Hosting

If you need to control disk usage on all these servers, some simple PowerShell commands are enough. There is no need to use scripts. You connect to remote computers via WinRM and you avoid the endless headaches of configuring firewall with WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation). But do not panic, WMI is still present and even easier to use in Windows PowerShell. You can harness the wealth of management information using WMI management features remote WinRM. PowerShell 2.0 will revolutionize your approach to the administration and increase your efficiency.

Windows Server 2008 R2 offers fantastic tools, monitor performance and reliability (Reliability and Performance Monitor). Within minutes, you can get a complete graphical view of your dedicated server and you do not need to go fishing information through a variety of management tools. In the server manager, under Diagnostics, select System Resource Manager (Windows System Resource Manager). It is possible to connect to the local server or remote server. Resource monitor displays an updated status in real time.

The monitor is configurable with standard performance counters of multiple machines. You can also access the Performance tab and run a predefined set of data collection. This approach is convenient to get started and prepare for the creation of their own data sets. After data collection, Windows Server 2008 R2 generates a report containing all relevant information. I personally have never met a simple solution to generate reports of valuable performance and usage.

Among its many features, Windows Server 2008 R2 allows you to define criteria to plan events and windows collection of performance data. And do not think you need to connect to a Windows Server 2008 R2.

In addition you can install Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 and manage all Windows machines 2003, 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 without leaving your desk.

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One way to understand SharePoint requires an understanding of what it can do for you and how it can be used:

1. Improve individual productivity with tools made in collaboration:
Connect people with an information they need and allow them to receive, create and organize information, documents, lists and data to accomplish necessaries of their work.

2. Manage and track documents:
The document management features provide enhanced recording and verification of documents and management changes. Restore previous versions or control access or alteration of documents.

3. Ease of use and integration of Microsoft Office:
The views and improved menus within sharepoint sites make navigation easier and allow users to obtain useful information easily. Integration with familiar tools including Microsoft Office suite makes it easier its implementation and acceleration without having to learn new authorized  documentations.

3. Deploy solutions designed for you:
You can start with one of the many work-spaces and to start your standard or custom start implementing of a SharePoint solution designed specifically for the processes and the needs of your business.

4. Build your own collaborative environment:
Building a collaborative environment should not be complicated and long. Now you can implement and deploy your SharePoint solutions with minimal time effort.

5. Reduce the complexity:
Controls in SharePoint for administration make it easier to control the information stored within your website.

6. Secure your information in the manner of your choice:
You can control access and security of documents regardless of their level of accessibility and users, groups or teams, can control their own work-spaces that you have defined with security settings.

7. Take file sharing to the next level:
The registration of documents and registration, version history and storage allow you to see what changes were made and retrieve older versions. Features allow the garbage collection and recovery of lost information easier.

8. Easily scale your collaboration solution
SharePoint is suited perfectly for both large and small groups who need the tools and options for  collaboration. Remember, your website can grow with you and contain many sub-sites which will quickly achieve different goals and sharepoint is the perfect option to complete the demand of scalable collaborative solution.

9. An economical solution for the implementation of your applications
SharePoint provides a framework for flexible and multi-functional information management and collaboration that are both scalable and customizable, allowing it to match the needs and infrastructure of any business and organization.

Note: Dedicated Server is highly recommended for SharePoint 3.0

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