IBM Updates Lot of Storage Offering

In the new era of computing, businesses are looking for faster paths to the cloud to take advantage of the hybrid environments that maximize big data insights and provide innovative ways to share resources.

At InterConnect 2013, IBM Corp. unveiled new systems and solutions that address these needs by helping clients and MSPs build private and hybrid clouds to get the most out of big data, social, and mobile workloads. These include PureSystems, Power Systems, Smarter Storage Systems, System x, and Technical Computing offerings that provide the flexibility clients need to quickly deploy clouds.

                        Pure Systems

Clients are looking to leverage public clouds while still maintaining control of them. This is causing organizations to embrace private and hybrid clouds where they can more easily manage in-house resources as they adopt external cloud services. According to analyst firm Gartner, Inc., hybrid cloud computing is at the same place today that private cloud was three years ago; actual deployments are low, aspirations are high, and nearly half of large enterprises will have hybrid cloud deployments by the end of 2017. The firm indicates in the past three years private cloud computing has moved from an aspiration to a reality for nearly half of large enterprises, and hybrid cloud computing is now on the same trajectory. (Private cloud Matures, Hybrid cloud Is Next, 06 September 2013, Thomas J. Bittman, Gartner, Inc.)

“IBM is uniquely positioned to compete aggressively for public, private and hybrid cloud computing opportunities,” said Tom Rosamilia, SVP, IBM systems and technology group and integrated supply chain. “The new IBM Systems and solutions provide superior efficiency and agility to help clients quickly deploy the right cloud infrastructure that best meet their needs.”

IBM also announced new software and services that can provide an easy on-ramp to line-of-business leaders to help them move key department workloads into the cloud for immediate returns. Building on its recent acquisition of SoftLayer, IBM is bringing new integrated cloud capabilities to the entire C-suite that can allow executives to accelerate cloud adoption for business transformation.

IBM PureSystems Simplify and Accelerate Cloud and Big Data 
IBM is introducing new capabilities across the PureSystems family that can help clients of all sizes experience the benefits of expert integrated systems. New PureFlex offerings can simplify service delivery, accelerate system deployment and drive improved efficiency for cloud environments. Key among these are two updated PureFlex configurations – PureFlex System – Express and PureFlex System – Enterprise.

The PureFlex System – Express, available as a single chassis configuration, offers an affordable entry price point suitable for SMBs and departmental deployments in larger enterprises.

The PureFlex System – Enterprise with highly available multi-chassis configurations is designed for scalable cloud deployments with built-in redundancy for resilient operation. Both systems support choice of POWER processor and x86-based compute nodes. The PureApplication System for simplifying and accelerating cloud applications is now available in smaller, 32 or 64-core configurations on POWER7+ with enhanced performance, density and resiliency.

Since its launch last year, IBM has shipped more than 6,000 systems in over 100 countries where clients have already taken advantage of PureSystems. This includes a large number of MSPs who are using the systems to deliver cloud infrastructures for their clients. These include AMPORTS, HELPCard and Tracewell Systems.

Complementing these two new configurations are new PureFlex and Flex System compute nodes, networking options, and The PureFlex Solution for IBM i, an integrated system being an alternative that allows existing SMB IBM i clients to reduce IT costs and complexity by consolidating i and Windows applications on an PureFlex solution. IBM is also expanding and simplifying its PureFlex cloud support with an upgrade path to advanced SmartCloud offerings, as well as a new SmartCloud Entry offering that provides support for OpenStack. The PureFlex Solution for SmartCloud Desktop Infrastructure is optimized to deliver performance and flexibility to meet clients’ desktop virtualization business needs.

IBM is also introducing PureSystems to address big data and analytics. PureData System for Analytics has a new cost-effective entry model, powered by IBM Netezza technology that enables business to gain insights on ever growing volumes of data, simpler and faster. To simplify big data for the enterprise, PureData System for Hadoop enables big data exploration in areas like social and text analytics.

Power Systems Solutions Provide Building Blocks
for Faster, Open and Big Data-Enabled Cloud Environments
IBM introduces a series of new Power Systems offerings that further support hybrid cloud environments and can simplify clients’ ability to adapt to emerging business needs at a lower cost with superior choice and flexibility compared to commodity servers based on decades old, PC era design.

The new Power Systems Solution Edition for Service Providers allows for fast go-to-market with a pre-built, pre-installed cloud solution that is based on OpenStack support for SmartCloud Entry and PowerVC. The Power Virtualization Center product, IBM PowerVC, offers virtualization and management capabilities that can improve system resource efficiency and agility for virtual workload implementations. The new IBM PowerVP is a virtualization performance tool that helps clients respond to business needs faster by providing real-time insight through a graphical display. It enables further optimization of virtualized systems and helps identify potential performance bottlenecks.

For clients seeking open cloud environments, the new Power Integrated Facility for Linux can enable them to exploit the reliability, scale and performance of enterprise Power Systems to improve QoS and reduce the cost of managing their Linux ecosystem. Each Power IFL is comprised of four processor activations, memory activations and PowerVM license entitlements. With Power IFLs, clients can quickly activate capacity for Linux applications without interruption. And with PowerVM included, clients can accelerate response to changing priorities without incurring extra virtualization software licensing fees.

Processing speed is a concern for clients in all cloud environments. The new IBM BLU Acceleration Solution – Power Systems Edition exploits POWER7+ processor-based technology for 8x to 25x faster reporting and analytics (based on internal IBM testing of sample analytic workloads comparing queries accessing row-based tables on DB2 10.1 vs. columnar tables on DB2 10.5. Performance improvement figures are cumulative of all queries in the workload. Individual results will vary depending on individual workloads, configurations and conditions) and 10x storage space savings. (client-reported testing results in DB2 10.5 early release program. Individual results will vary depending on individual workloads, configurations and conditions, including table size and content) The solution combines DB2 software with BLU Acceleration with dynamic in-memory columnar technology and Power Systems.

ACPL Exports Pvt Ltd, jewelry exporter based in Agra, India, has selected two IBM P7R1 IBM Power Linux systems over HP and Dell to sustain their business growth. The new systems integrate the company’s SAP ERP management software, boosting performance 32% and lowering costs as much as 15% without increasing the size of its IT footprint.

IBM Storage Systems Better Manage Business Data in Cloud   
Big data is changing the way people think about and use storage. From the sheer mountains of data being generated and shared, to a growing demand for added capacity and access to it via the cloud, big data is transforming how storage is managed and leveraged in the data center.

IBM is launching the new Storwize V5000 to help SMBs tackle this growing data challenge. Positioned in the middle of the Storwize portfolio, the Storwize V5000 provides SMBs a flexible entry into the advanced management capabilities and performance of the Storwize family.

The system can be configured with disk and flash, and supports IBM Easy Tier capabilities that automatically place data in the most cost-effective tier. The cloud-ready system, which comes with built-in support for OpenStack, can help clients build private and hybrid cloud storage architectures, while virtualization and clustering capabilities help them take advantage of true Software Defined Storage that grows and adapts with their changing businesses.

IBM System x for SMB Workloads  
Designed for smaller business workloads and applications such as email, file/print and Web serving, and suitable for hybrid cloud environments, the new IBM System x3250 M5 can deliver superior performance, availability, and energy efficiency, with room to grow. The compact uni-processor rack server offers double the storage capacity, twice the data throughput, 18% better energy efficiency and 10% memory power savings over the previous generation on the same size chassis. With the server’s simple and flexible interface, clients can use IBM’s Feature on Demand function to remotely upgrade key features on the x3250 M5, without costly server downtime.

IBM also announced availability for later this month of its new NeXtScale System, a flexible computing platform with three times as many cores as previous one-unit rack servers, for the fastest-growing workloads such a social media, analytics, technical computing, and public, private and hybrid cloud delivery. This new system incorporates up to 84 x86-based systems and 2,016 processing cores in a standard EIA 19-inch rack, allowing easy integration into any data center and uses industry standard components including I/O cards and top-of-rack networking switches for flexibility of choice and ease of adoption.

IBM Technical Computing Delivers
Optimized High Performance Cloud Solutions for Midmarket
The IBM Technical Computing portfolio is refreshed with a number of new and enhanced mainstream offerings including Application Ready Solutions, NeXtScale System, and IBM Platform Computing software optimized for compute and data intensive workloads. These solutions can be deployed either to create a private cloud or be used in public clouds.

IBM Application Ready Solutions are geared for midmarket clients in need of optimized high performance cluster based solutions for high performance scale-out applications. Easy to deploy, manage and use, the solutions are developed with leading ISVs  and are based on selected IBM systems such as new NeXtScale System and Flex System, workload management with Platform Computing, and GPFS parallel file system software. Application Ready solutions can be used create a dynamic private HPC cloud depending upon user needs. New and enhanced ISV support includes ANSYS, Dassault Systemes, MSC Software, mpiBLAST, and Schlumberger. In addition, a new IBM InfoSphere BigInsights big data solution can help telecommunications, financial services, and other industry clients achieve near real-time big data analytics for competitive advantage.

IBM Platform Computing software solutions can help accelerate time to results and reduce costs with enhanced workload, resource and cloud management. These solutions can also be used to manage local workloads as well as be deployed in public clouds. For instance, the enhanced IBM Platform HPC ensures fast time to cluster readiness, simplified management and ease of use in a single integrated product. The newest version of IBM Platform LSF Family delivers performance at scale while improving utilization and energy efficiency with enhanced policy controls, workflow management, and reporting for improved security and productivity. The updated IBM Platform Symphony provides faster MapReduce results on a lower-cost shared infrastructure, including native support for co-processor harvesting that is simple and more cost efficient to manage and maintain.

IBM has a portfolio of open cloud solutions that help clients build, rent or tap into cloud capabilities. It has brought together knowledge and cloud capabilities to help more than 20,000 clients around the world. Today, it has more than 100 cloud Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions, 37,000 experts with industry knowledge helping clients transform, and a network of more than 25 global cloud delivery centers. Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $6 billion in acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives. Most recently IBM acquired SoftLayer with more than 21,000 clients in 140 countries to further build out its Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) portfolio with an easy and secure on-ramp to cloud integrating IBM SmartCloud.

IBM Global Financing
IBM Global Financing can help clients evolve and grow their IT investments with affordable financing that promotes greater flexibility, lowers TCO and increases predictability of payments. Clients can obtain 0% financing when they acquire IBM PureFlex Systems, Power Systems, Storage Systems, and System x technology or migrate their IBM i solutions to the latest technology platform. Also, IBM’s new mobile financing application for IBM Business Partners can help facilitate closing more business with their clients – anytime, anywhere on-the-go – to acquire the financing needed to deploy solutions for big data and analytics, mobile computing, social business and Smarter Planet technologies within minutes.