Unisys has unveiled the latest version of its enterprise computing platform Forward!, boosting performance with Intel’s ‘Ivy Bridge’ Xeon E7 processors.
The IT services brand has introduced four new models of the Forward! platform, two of which (models 4150 and 4120) support the Xeon E7s to upgrade their computing capabilities and memory capacity.
Unisys claimed that customers can use the new models – designed for Linux and Windows – to build powerful and secure environments for applications spanning cloud, big data, analytics and enterprise resource planning (ERP).
Rob Cashman, VP of mission-critical servers and solutions at the company, said: "Organisations no longer need to make trade-offs 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 platform enables customers to scale more easily by adding computing resources in a single node, or by adding additional nodes, which can be Xeon processors or different software, according to Unisys.
The firm claimed that an independent test run by research company Enterprise Strategy Group demonstrated that Forward! outperformed a virtualised environment using an industry-standard hypervisor, delivering up to 38% better throughput and a maximum 122% faster performance when running multiple workloads.
The Intel-compatible platform models should become available from June 30, and come after Unisys began to draw the curtains on its aged mainframe processor earlier this month.
Its decades-old chip, which loses out on speed and performance compared to newer chips, is used in some of Unisys’s ClearPath mainframes, but the firm announced it is moving to Intel’s x86 chips in server models Libra and Dorado.
Last December Unisys announced its successful bid to become storage company X-IO’s IT services provider.
