Success Brief

Dual-Core
Gas Natural
Intel®Itanium®2 processor Improving natural gas distribution with Dual-Core Intel®Itanium®2
Energy processors 9000 series

Company The Gas Natural Group is an energy services multinational company that supplies
and distributes natural gas in Spain, Italy and Latin America.

Product evaluated HP Integrity Superdome Server* with Dual-Core Intel® Itanium® 2 processors
9000 series.

Challenge Gas Natural wanted to test the performance of a Dual-Core Intel® Itanium® 2
processor 9000 series to improve its business-critical Geospatial Information
System (GIS).

Results When compared to systems with Intel® Xeon® processors, the Dual-Core Intel®
Itanium® 2 processor-based HP Integrity Superdome* Server was able to transfer
data from one database to another 10 hours faster — a reduction of more than 60%.
“With robust Dual-Core Impact Gas Natural is deploying Dual-Core Intel® Itanium® 2 processor-based HP Integrity
Intel® Itanium® 2- Superdome* Servers with Red Hat* Linux to power its improved GIS.
based HP Integrity Next steps The energy company plans to migrate additional business critical applications to
Superdome* Servers this platform.

at the heart of our

Challenge
GIS, we’ve finally got The Gas Natural Group is an energy services multinational company that supplies and distributes natural
a solution that can gas in Spain, Italy and Latin America. Its rich history spans 150 years and today's Group boasts almost 10
handle our critical million customers. In 2003, Gas Natural was faced with a new challenge — the Spanish energy market was
liberalised and for the first time, it had to deal with regulatory requirements and competition in the
asset information.” marketplace. Since then, much of the company’s focus has been on becoming much more efficient,
Jose Maria Boixeda, compliant and customer-oriented.
New Technologies &
The company relies on complex Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) that run on powerful computing platforms
Communications Director
to plan, design, build and manage its extensive gas pipeline throughout Spain, Italy and Latin America. In the
past, Gas Natural has used HP RISC-based servers for its GIS needs. However, as part of its drive for efficiency
and improved customer service, it wanted to migrate to more flexible and cost-effective server platform
and enhance functionality to enable it to extract better business intelligence much quicker.

Gas Natural has worked closely with Intel for many years and the adoption of the latest generation of
Intel® technology has played an important role in enabling the Group to successfully operate in its competitive
industry. As a result, it was a natural step for the new technologies group at Gas Natural to test the
performance of a Dual-Core Intel® Itanium® 2 processor platform while evaluating GIS alternatives.
Deployment
Gas Natural evaluated two HP Integrity Impact
Superdome* Servers, each powered by four Gas Natural was impressed by the speed and reliability of the Dual-Core Intel®
Dual-Core Intel® Itanium® 2 processors 9000 Itanium® 2 processors 9000 series and excited by the promise of further
series at its datacentre in Barcelona, Spain. performance gains when taking advantage of the dual core capabilities.
Because the processor and HP servers are based on industry open standards,
Results the energy company also benefited from real freedom of choice in selecting
Gas Natural relies on Smallworld Core Spatial business intelligence applications to exploit its data more effectively.
Technology* at the heart of its GIS to manage
its gas pipeline. However, the new technologies As a result, Gas Natural has started to move the pilot into production and is
group wanted to boost the server infrastructure deploying Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2 processor-based HP Integrity Superdome*
supporting it and to extend GIS functionality Servers to power its improved GIS which takes advantage of both Smallworld
through the addition of Oracle Spatial* technology. Core Spatial Technology* and Oracle Spatial* technology. In addition to
In order to evaluate this proposed solution, Gas lowering costs, it anticipates the new solution will increase the visibility of the
Natural had to move huge volumes of data from performance of its pipe network, improve planning, ease regulatory reporting
the Smallworld database into the Oracle 10g* and make the company more responsive to changing business requirements.
database on a weekly and often daily basis.
Gas Natural measured the time taken to transfer
data when using a server powered by four single-
core Intel® Xeon® processors compared with a
server powered by four Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2
processors 9000 series, both running Red Hat*
Linux. Even though this process could only take
advantage of one core per processor, the Intel
Xeon processors took 26 hours while the Dual-
Core Intel Itanium 2 processor 9000 series took
just 16 hours — a reduction of more than 60%.

Future
The energy company plans to migrate additional
business critical applications to a Dual-Core Intel
Itanium 2–based HP Integrity Superdome*
platform in order to benefit more widely from
the associated performance and cost benefits.

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©
Copyright 2006 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. Intel, the Intel logo, Xeon and Itanium Inside are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

This document is for informational purposes only. INTEL MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS DOCUMENT.
*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

Performance tests and ratings are measured using specific computer systems and/or components and reflect the approximate
performance of Intel® products as measured by those tests. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration
may affect actual performance. Buyers should consult other sources of information to evaluate the performance of systems
or components they are considering purchasing. Intel does not control or audit the design or implementation of third party
benchmarks referenced in this document. 1206/KLH/RL/XX/PDF 315919-001-EN