Standards-Based Benchmark Results

Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) Benchmarks

SPEC CINT2006 Results

CINT2006 benchmarks provide integer compute-intensive performance comparisons:

Cisco UCS B200 M1 Blade Server Configurations

• Intel Xeon E5520, 2.26 GHz
• Intel Xeon E5540, 2.53 GHz
• Intel Xeon X5550, 2.66 GHz
• Intel Xeon L5520 2.26 GHz

SPEC CFP2006 Results

CFP2006 benchmarks provide floating-point compute-intensive performance comparisons:

Cisco UCS B200 M1 Blade Server Configurations

• Intel Xeon X5570, 2.93 GHz
• Intel Xeon E5520, 2.26 GHz
• Intel Xeon E5540, 2.53 GHz
• Intel Xeon X5550, 2.66 GHz
• Intel Xeon L5520, 2.26 GHz

SPECjbb2005

SPECjbb2005 evaluates the performance of server-side Java by emulating a three-tier client-server system with emphasis on the middle tier.

Cisco UCS B200 M1 Blade Server

• June 2009
• April 2009

SPEC OMP2001 Results

Cisco UCS M1 Blade Server Configurations

• March 2009

VMware VMmark

Hardware vendors, virtualization software vendors, and other organizations use VMmark to measure the performance and scalability of applications running in virtualized environments.

Cisco UCS B200 M1 Blade Server

• VMmark v1.1
• VMmark FAQ

Recent News

How Cisco UCS Reinvents the Data Center
ComputerWorld, November 10, 2009

InfoWorld Test Center Applauds Unified Computing (PDF - 475 KB)
InfoWorld , November 10, 2009

Unified Computing System: A Robust Platform (PDF - 475 KB)
EWeek, October 10, 2009

Cisco's Chambers: Tough Talk on Data Centers (PDF - 87 KB)
Business Week, December 8, 2009

Industry Awards and Recognition

Cisco Innovation Recognized with Best of VMWorld 2009 GOLD Award: Hardware for Virtualization

SearchServerVirtualization.com received over 175 nominees for the eight categories, and Cisco's new Unified Computing System (UCS) wins with a combination of server, network and virtualization resources into a single integrated platform.

Learn More on the VMWorld Site

Cisco Unified Computing System Wins "Best Data Center Innovation" Award

BladeSystems Insight is an executive summit for data center blade-server technologies, which took place April 2009 in Las Vegas before an audience of more than 150 hosted end-user executives; vendor sponsors; key industry analysts including Forrester and IDC; association leaders; and others. This award was based on voting from attending IT executives near the end of the event when attendees had taken the the opportunity to experience and evaluate the full range of companies, products, and presentations.

Learn More on the BladeSystems Site

Cisco Unified Computing System Wins Best of INTEROP 2009 for Data Center & Storage

"It's clear that Cisco really examined the server virtualization challenge carefully when they designed the UCS. Everywhere you look, you can see how they focused on removing virtualization bottlenecks and enabling flexible device management at every level - plus they've left plenty of room for growth. That's why the UCS is our choice for the BOI Data Center and Storage Category winner for 2009." — Steven Hill, InformationWeek

Learn More on the Interop Site

Industry Reports

Access industry analyst reports about the Unified Computing System from Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and others. Learn what they are saying about the innovations behind the Unified Computing system, which integrates computing, virtualization, networking, and storage access into a single, cohesive system. Read their thoughts about our technology, management architecture, market strategy, and partner ecosystem.

Register for Access Now

Industry-Standard Benchmarks

SPEC CPU2006

SPEC's next-generation, industry-standard, CPU-intensive benchmark suite stresses a system's processor, memory subsystem, and compiler. SPEC designed the CPU2006 suite to provide a comparative measure of compute-intensive performance across the widest practical range of hardware using workloads developed from real user applications. There are two benchmark suites that make up the SPEC CPU2006 standard; CINT2006 and CFP2006.

CINT2006 provides integer compute-intensive performance comparisons:

• SPECint2006: The geometric mean of 12 normalized ratios — one for each integer benchmark — when the benchmarks are compiled with peak tuning
• SPECint_base2006: The geometric mean of 12 normalized ratios when the benchmarks are compiled with base tuning
• SPECint_rate2006: The geometric mean of 12 normalized throughput ratios when the benchmarks are compiled with peak tuning
• SPECint_rate_base2006: The geometric mean of 12 normalized throughput ratios when the benchmarks are compiled with base tuning

CFP2006 provides floating-point compute-intensive performance comparisons:

• SPECfp2006: The geometric mean of 17 normalized ratios — one for each floating point benchmark — when compiled with peak tuning.
• SPECfp_base2006: The geometric mean of 17 normalized ratios when the benchmarks are compiled with base tuning.
• SPECfp_rate2006: The geometric mean of 17 normalized throughput ratios when the benchmarks are compiled with peak tuning.
• SPECfp_rate_base2006: The geometric mean of 17 normalized throughput ratios when the benchmarks are compiled with base tuning.

SPECjbb2005 (Java Server Benchmark)

SPECjbb2005 evaluates the performance of server-side Java by emulating a three-tier client-server system with emphasis on the middle tier. The benchmark exercises the implementations of the Java Virtual Machine, Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler, garbage collection, threads, and some aspects of the operating system. It also measures the performance of CPUs, caches, memory hierarchy and the scalability of shared memory processors (SMPs).

VMware VMmark

VMware developed VMmark as a standard methodology for comparing virtualized systems. Hardware vendors, virtualization software vendors, and other organizations use this free tool to measure the performance and scalability of applications running in virtualized environments. The tool uses a tile-based scheme for measuring application performance and provides a consistent methodology that captures both overall scalability and individual application performance.

The benchmark system comprises a series of subtests that are derived from commonly used load-generation tools, as well as from benchmarks developed by SPEC. VMware is also a member of the SPEC Virtualization subcommittee and is working with other members to create the next-generation virtualization benchmark.