IBM Announces Servers, Software, Storage for Grid Computing
TORONTO, CANADA - 20 Feb 2002: IBM today announced new software, storage and servers for Grid Computing, as well as plans to Grid-enable its entire product portfolio.
"Grid computing will take e-business to the next level by giving customers a resilient, flexible, virtual IT infrastructure readily available from any location, on demand," said Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Vice President, Technology and Strategy, IBM Server Group. "By Grid-enabling our products we give customers the ability to share computing resources, such as applications, data and computing power, both internally over intranets and externally over the Internet."Highlights of the announcement include:
- IBM's WebSphere® e-infrastructure software will provide a robust reference implementation
for the OGSA (Open Grid Services Architecture) grid services standards. IBM is working
with Globus to re-tool the Globus tool kit to be Java (TM) 2 Enterprise Edition
(J2EE) compliant using IBM WebSphere as the reference application server. This will
allow IBM WebSphere customers to benefit through better use of grid-enabled network
computing resources as they deploy their applications on Websphere, IBM's industry-leading
infrastructure platform. Applications supporting the OGSA and deployed on WebSphere
will enable customers to dynamically and intelligently use computing resources across
the network in support of their e-business requirements.
Grid computing enhances Web services by coordinating global applications and resources at various locations efficiently, regardless of the underlying implementations and services. Grid computing builds on the scope of Web services by providing a reliable, dynamic, and comprehensive infrastructure that brings together resources, applications and services within and across organizational boundaries. By supporting grid computing and Web services, businesses can solve complex problems by utilizing their resources more effectively and integrating business processes with partners and suppliers.
- The IBM eServer line of servers already form the foundation for some of the world's most powerful supercomputers. By making the Globus Grid protocols available on IBM servers, IBM is enabling customers to plug these machines quickly and easily into Grid computing systems. To support Grid implementations, IBM intends to provide the Globus toolkit on each of its eServer platforms, having already made the Globus toolkit available on AIX® and Linux®. IBM also intends to provide an implementation of the Open Grid Services Architecture as part of its Grid solutions for customers.
- Tivoli®, IBM's leading provider of e-business infrastructure management software will provide solutions that will enable Grid management functions such as: security; performance, availability configuration, operations, and storage management.
In addition, IBM's Storage Group has announced several key offerings that will
support Grid implementations such as:
- IBM TotalStorage(TM) products including those based on open standards, such as
network attached storage and the emerging iSCSI protocol. The iSCSI protocol is
designed to transport data over IP networks via TCP/IP and has it's roots in IBM
Research projects dating back to 1997. These IP-based products will provide accessibility
to data anywhere within a Grid and be able to be provisioned dynamically when needed.
The IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server (ESS), code named "Shark," which
is designed to handle large amounts of storage for on-line data and removable media
products will be key to meeting the off-line data storage needs of a Grid. Other
key IBM storage technologies will include virtualization to enable more efficient
use of resources, sharing, availability, and dynamic allocation, and IBM's Storage
Tank(TM), designed to be Grid-ready and providing the policy-based and autonomic
capabilities that make Grid a reality.
IBM Grid Expertise
IBM is a leading supplier of Grid systems and services to the scientific and technical
community including the United Kingdom National Grid, the Dutch Tera-Grid Facility,
the University of Pennsylvania Mammography Grid, and the North Carolina Bioinformatics
Grid. In addition to working with many of the world's leading research organizations
in the development of Grid projects, IBM Research used Globus technologies to build
its own "BlueGrid" -- a geographically distributed supercomputer linking IBM research
and development labs in the United States, Israel, Switzerland, Japan and England
-- to be used as a test bed for experimentation and prototyping of Grid services
and solutions.
IBM Global Services will offer an array of services to customers considering a Grid strategy. Among the services IBM plans to offer are consulting services to plan, design, migrate, implement, run and manage Grid environments, utilizing IBM's IT methodology to ensure success. This may include assistance with architecture, security, business and Information Technology processes, recovery, organizational structure, availability and optimization. For those customers with higher support services requirements, IBM offers a comprehensive suite of business-critical, High Availability Services from the server platform to the end-user with tailored workshops, assessments and packaged solutions. No other vendor can offer this extensive level of end-to-end support services in the new Grid environment.
In the same way it played a leadership role in the commercial adoption of Linux, IBM is working with the Globus open source development community and the influential industry standards body, Global Grid Forum. Open protocols are essential to Grids because they enable heterogeneous systems to work together as a single system.
About IBM
IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership
in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key Business
Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable
customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business.
For more information about IBM, visit www.ibm.com.
# # #
The IBM eServer brand name is composed of IBM's established e-business logo with the descriptive term "server' following it. IBM, the e-business logo, AIX, Storage Tank, Tivoli, and TotalStorage, and Websphere are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Java and all Java-related trademarks and logos are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc., in the United States and other countries. Other product and company names may be trademarks of their respective provider.