OREANDA-NEWS. In a move to help more clients create hybrid cloud computing environments, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new servers and storage software and solutions designed for cloud computing. IBM also revealed flexible software licensing of its industry-leading middleware to help clients speed up their adoption of hybrid cloud environments.

Businesses are increasingly adopting hybrid cloud environments to integrate existing technology investments (systems of record) with new workloads in the cloud (systems of engagement) driven by mobile, big data and social computing. These systems bring new waves of data that can make moving computing workloads around a challenge because they reside in a variety of on-premises data centers and inside public and private clouds. The combination of IBM Power Systems, IBM z Systems, IBM Spectrum Storage, IBM Middleware, IBM SoftLayer and OpenStack software can help clients more simply navigate between these environments and gain valuable insights on key business data.

"IBM hybrid cloud solutions are built for the enterprise and clients are using them to help enable new business models to drive growth," said Don Boulia, Vice President of Cloud Services, IBM Systems. "Hybrid cloud computing requires new levels of openness, dynamic data management, integration, automation and scalable performance in server, storage and software technologies. IBM brings all of these technologies together from on-premises data centers and inside public and private clouds to more efficiently manage traditional computing with new mobile, big data and social computing workloads."

New IBM Power Systems, IBM Spectrum Storage, IBM z Systems and Big Data storage solutions for Hybrid Clouds

    IBM Power System E850 - Introducing the industry's first 4-socket system with flexible capacity and up to 70 percent guaranteed utilization.[1] The E850 is an ideal solution for cloud service providers or medium and large enterprises looking to securely and efficiently deploy multi-tenancy workloads, while speeding access to data with larger in-memory databases with up to 4TB of installed memory, optimized for the peaks and valleys of business needs.
    IBM Power System E880 - In conjunction with our latest enhancements to the E880 that allow it to scale to an unprecedented 192 cores, IBM testing has shown that critical data-intensive business workloads like IBM DB2 with BLU Acceleration exhibit ideal linear scaling all the way up to this capacity. That means that cloud deployments will experience reduced loss of efficiency when scaling at this level -- a capability that does not exist on commodity hardware.
    IBM PurePower System - Quick-to-deploy compute, networking and storage converged infrastructure with advanced security capabilities. Securely deliver insights in the cloud; managed with OpenStack and adaptable to changing needs, PurePower offers rapid implementation and ROI with up to 12X greater workload density[2] than select competitors and a virtualization hypervisor with zero documented vulnerabilities.[3]
    IBM Spectrum Control Storage Insights – Building on its \$1 billion investment in IBM Spectrum Storage, this new software-as-a-services solution provides data management as a hybrid cloud service to optimize on-premises storage infrastructures. It provides clients with individual views into storage consumption at the department or application level. Deployed in as little as 30 minutes, Storage Insights simplifies storage management by improving storage visibility and applies analytics to ease capacity planning, enhance performance monitoring, improve storage utilization by reclaiming under-utilized storage and lower the cost of storage up to 50 percent per GB by optimizing data placement.
    IBM XIV GEN 3 - New system designed for cloud with IBM Real-time Compression that dramatically reduces total cost of ownership. IBM XIV grid architecture integrated proven real-time compression technology can store 50 to 80 percent more data and with little or no application impact.  This IBM unique enterprise storage capability dramatically reduces the cost per effective usable capacity.  Combined with low cost of management, industry leading power efficiency, and patented Real-time Compression, IBM XIV Gen3 has shown in large deployments an average of  42 percent lower total cost of ownership over three years than HP 3PAR.100000 equivalents.[4]
    Big Storage Technology - A technology preview of a new active cloud archive service for clients to store large amounts of data and easily retrieve it on demand, at the lowest cost possible. This enterprise grade cloud service is being piloted with our service partner Iron Mountain, and design partner clients with a variety of business use cases.
    Rocket's Mainframe Data Access Service on Bluemix: Provides clients a simple, seamless and secure connection to data on the IBM z Systems mainframe for development of new mobile and hybrid cloud apps through Bluemix. Starting in June, clients can access a no-charge trial of the service, which provides universal access to the data, regardless of location interface or format, including VSAM, ADABAS, IMS, CICS and DB2, SMF, Tape and Sys Logs, and allows access to that data through methods developers prefer, including MongoDB APIs, JDBC, web services, SQL and the REST protocol via z/OS Connect.

"Zucchetti, a leading Italian IT provider and independent software vendor (ISV), has selected IBM Power Systems servers with POWER8 processors and Linux to deliver the company's solutions portfolio via the cloud and speed application data up to three times faster. The company services more than 100,000 clients across manufacturing, retail, banking, legal and government industries across Europe. "IBM Power Systems allow us to bring our clients the capabilities they need while maintaining a high degree of security, availability and scalability," said Gregorio Piccoli, CTO of Zucchetti. "As the cloud market grows, the combination of Zucchetti's applications and IBM POWER8 processor-based servers will enable new cloud and competitive opportunities, giving our company the edge it needs in the innovation arena."

Nuance is a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. The Burlington, Massachusetts based company's speech solutions support up to 50 different languages and are used by nearly two-thirds of Fortune 100 companies. The company uses IBM software defined storage technology to store and manage its data used in the development of its products. "IBM Spectrum Control Storage Insights deploys very quickly from the cloud, and the browser based tool is extremely easy to use," said Bob Oesterlin, Senior Storage Engineer, HPC Grid, Nuance Communications. "This is particularly important to small IT teams that are tasked with ensuring storage is performing optimally but don't have the resources to manage additional on-premises tools."

Flexible IBM Software Licensing for Hybrid Clouds

Many IBM Software products are available for monthly licensing including its industry-leading WebSphere Application Server starting at \$166 per month, per core. Clients can freely move monthly licenses between on-premises and public and private clouds as needed including on IBM SoftLayer and third party clouds.

Clients are cloud enabling existing enterprise applications and deploying across on-premises and hybrid cloud environments without changing these applications using IBM PureApplication Service on SoftLayer. In June, IBM will deliver a self-service portal for clients to scale their infrastructure and software license footprint for hybrid deployments in minutes using PureApplication Service.

IBM is also offering try-before-you-buy access to key middleware software products for hybrid cloud computing. For a limited time, clients can use WebSphere Application Server on-premises and run the same capacity in a public cloud at no-charge.

IBM is the global leader in cloud with an unmatched portfolio of open cloud solutions to enable customers for the hybrid cloud era with integration, control over data and expertise. IBM Cloud has helped more than 30,000 clients around the world. 


[1] Subject to the terms and conditions of this Performance Guarantee Program, the Power E550 server (machine type-model 8408-E8E) shall perform according to its specifications when operating at an up to 70% utilization.

[2] See “Why your virtualization matters’ report, page 21, 2014 Solitaire Interglobal, Ltd.

[3] PurePower System is Based on PowerVM which, in a search on National Vulnerabilities Database (web.nist.gov) has zero documented vulnerabilities over the last three years.

[4] International Technology Group, IBM XIV Storage System and HP 3PAR StoreServComparing Costs and Capabilities for Cloud Deployments.