 |
My Top 3 |
 |
IBM announced a storage breakthrough in blade computing that will allow small and medium-sized customers and branch offices to consolidate multiple storage devices onto a single blade computing system. Building on the leadership design of IBM’s office-ready blade solution, customers can now share information across all blade servers in a single system to help improve utilization and reliability while reducing costs.
IBM is adding industry-first shared storage to the exceptional features of its BladeCenter S system, bringing enterprise-class storage capabilities to smaller firms and branch offices that lack the IT staff and budgets to manage expanding volumes of business information. With this innovative new approach, IBM is cutting the cost of shared storage technology by 30 to 40 percent and — supported by new, complementary features — making it easier to set up and own.
First launched in 2007, BladeCenter S is specially designed to simplify the management of technology needed to run a business — from servers, to phone systems and business applications — in a single system. BladeCenter S can help reduce the 25 to 45 servers used by an average mid-size company by up to 80 percent. With the addition of shared storage, a requirement for many business applications including IBM Lotus Notes, Microsoft Clustering Services, Oracle, SAP and VMware VMotion, BladeCenter S can now support nearly any business need.
BladeCenter S has demonstrated market success with over 4,000 retail stores planning to run operations on the system by the holiday season and 130 Business Partner centers featuring BladeCenter S, including more than 80 primarily dedicated to its promotion.
In addition to delivering breakthrough shared storage, or Storage Area Network (SAN) technology, IBM is also the only blade server vendor in the industry to offer rapidly growing businesses access to up nine terabytes of shared storage, equivalent to that needed to store the print collections of the U.S. Library of Congress and six times the storage capacity of competitive blade offerings for small and medium-sized customers and branch offices.
Like many small and medium businesses, companies with branch offices and stores such as retailers or healthcare networks seldom have data centers in which to store and manage the technology they need to run business operations. With limited IT resources on-site, these companies face unique technology requirements and require solutions that simplify IT at the office:
Harley-Davidson Motor Company is planning to use BladeCenter S to run multiple sites. One BladeCenter S currently operates at the office of Harley-Davidson’s subsidiary, Buell Motor Company, where its capacity to run outside the data center and plug in to standard power is essential.
Harley-Davidson plans to send a fully configured BladeCenter S with shared storage capability to their Talladega Test Facility in Lincoln, Alabama where they do not have dedicated local IT staff. The Harley-Davidson corporate IT team will fully configure the system and send it to the facility, where all they need to do is plug it in.
Other new BladeCenter S features IBM is announcing today include the BladeCenter Start Now Advisor, which provides clients guided setup so they can set up the BladeCenter S chassis in 30 minutes or less, and the BladeCenter Service Advisor, an automatic “call home” feature that alerts IBM or the customer’s authorized service provider to any issues — think OnStar for servers.
Tag: network solutions
Leave a Reply