 "IBM POWER7 Systems To Manage Data-Intensive Apps")
IBM has announced new POWER7 systems designed to manage the workloads and emerging applications.
The new systems servers, software and IBM’s PowerVM virtualisation capabilities allow customers to manage ever-increasing amounts of data in an interconnected world and to conserve energy and floor space in burdened data centers. They are part of a year-long rollout by IBM of workload-optimised systems for the demands of emerging business models such as smart electrical grids, real-time analytics in financial markets and healthcare, mobile telecommunications, and smarter traffic systems.
New technology from IBM announced, includes the new high-end IBM Power 795 system; four entry-level POWER7 processor-based servers designed specifically for mid-market clients; and a POWER7 processor-based workload-optimised Smart Analytics System that helps businesses draw real-time information from massive amounts of data.
The new 256-core IBM Power 795 offers better energy efficiency. It uses IBM’s EnergyScale technology that varies frequencies depending upon workloads.
The new POWER7 technology supports processor cores as prior systems and uses the latest PowerVM virtualisation software to allow customers to run over 1,000 virtual servers on a single physical system, enabling a substantial improvement in operating efficiency.
IBM also announced Power Flex, a new environment composed of two or more Power 795 systems, PowerVM Live Partition Mobility and a Flex Capacity Upgrade on Demand option. This solution enables clients to shift running applications from one system to another to perform system maintenance without downtime, helping to balance workloads and more easily handle peaks in demand. IBM also announced a new version of IBM’s UNIX operating system, AIX 7.
Express Servers
The four Express servers announced – IBM Power 710, 720, 730 and 740 Express - offer mid-market clients the performance, energy efficiency and other benefits of POWER7 technology in compact rack-mount or tower packages. These high-density, cost efficient servers minimise complexity and provide the memory capacity, internal storage options, I/O expandability and RAS features needed for demanding workloads in today’s high-growth midsize business.
Smart Analytics System
The IBM Smart Analytics System 7700 with POWER7 technology delivers a single, optimised system with the balance of software, systems and storage capabilities for workloads generating unprecedented amounts of data at extreme speeds - providing a powerful analytics platform that can be deployed and customised for clients in a matter of days. This solution helps clients quickly draw insights from vast amounts of data to anticipate emerging business trends, capture new opportunities and avoid risks.
The Smart Analytics System, which features several pretested Power Systems 740 Express server configurations, IBM DB2 powered and InfoSphere Warehouse software and AIX, analyses data where it resides. This is important as clients seek to shorten the cycle time between processing and results, and seek to avoid the costs of migrating data from one system to another.
Additional Power Announcements
For IBM i clients, IBM is offering four new IBM i Solution Editions, integrated and optimised for rapid ERP deployment. These packages feature software from SAP, JD Edwards, Infor and Lawson and offer significant savings for customers running older versions of the i operating system who are looking to upgrade.
“Infor and IBM have partnered to deliver the IBM i Solution Edition for Infor System i Solutions. This is an important step in bringing a combination of Infor System i ERP and POWER7 processor-based systems to a set of customers that want simple, integrated solutions at a lower price,” said Joe Marino, Vice President of System I Development and Support, Infor. “We believe that this solution will be valuable to a large set of customers and will be a great success in the market.”
IBM also announced IBM Rational Power Appliance, a family of software appliances comprised of Power Express servers that are pre-loaded and pre-configured with IBM Rational software for AIX development. Available in a range of sizes and programming languages to suit specific user requirements, these ready-to-use systems provide customers a fully-enabled software development environment that can be put to use in a matter of hours, rather than days or weeks.