Oracle's SPARC T4-4 server delivered world record performance
with subsecond response time
on the Oracle OLAP Perf Version 2 benchmark using
Oracle Database 11g Release 2
running on Oracle Solaris 11.

• The SPARC T4-4 server achieved throughput of
  430,000 cube-queries/hour
  with an average response time of 0.85 seconds and the
  median response time of 0.43 seconds.
  This was achieved by using only 60% of the available CPU resources
  leaving plenty of headroom for future growth.

Reblogged from Kevin Closson's Blog: Platforms, Databases and Storage:

In case you haven’t seen the news yet, earlier today, AMD made an announcement that represents a new era in the compute landscape and builds on our rich tradition of bringing disruptive technology to the data center.

The thing about cyber security is the good guys – that’s us and the rest of the technology industry, as well as law-abiding users of technology everywhere – have to be right about securing technology 100 percent of the time. The bad guys – the thieves, mischievous hackers, and other nefarious types – only have to be right one time to break-in and steal someone’s sensitive data or cause other problems. 

Those are tough odds.