ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- In the largest update to its systems portfolio this year, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced 55 new and updated server and storage technologies that can help clients gain actionable insights from data, increase IT capacity and deliver new services faster to create profitable business opportunities.

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The new and enhanced offerings include affordable business analytics systems, automated tools for implementing security and compliance standards, and starter kits for establishing private clouds.

As the world's increasing demand for data and services puts a strain on IT resources, organizations become trapped in a vicious cycle in which a rigid IT infrastructure and lack of trusted data leads to reactive or risky decision making. Attempts to overcome these challenges through additional IT investments often result in a more sprawling and costly infrastructure.

The new offerings, highlighted below, address these challenges with smarter computing technologies for business analytics, integrated storage, optimized systems and virtualized data centers.

Designed for Data

Companies that handle vast amounts of information need to be able to analyze that data to make better business decisions in real time. IBM is delivering new entry-level business analytics systems, accelerated database analytics and expanded data storage options. Highlights include:

    --  IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator incorporates the Netezza data warehouse
        appliance into the IBM zEnterprise System for faster analytic responses.
        The blending of Netezza and System z technologies enables the merging of
        online transaction processing (OLTP) systems, which facilitate and
        manage transaction-oriented applications typically for data entry and
        retrieval transaction processing, with analytics into a single platform
        for operational business analytics. The appliance plugs into IBM DB2 for
        z/OS database on zEnterprise 196 (or z114) and is designed to speed
        response time for a wide variety of intensive analytics, which
        ultimately can provide faster business analysis. At a time when
        organizations are demanding access to customer purchase histories,
        customer behaviors and real time sales trends, IBM DB2 Analytics
        Accelerator helps clients sift through this massive amount of data and
        make the information relevant and actionable in a timelier manner.

    --  IBM Smart Analytics System 9700 and IBM Smart Analytics System 9710
        utilize innovative technologies to deliver an end-to-end data warehouse
        and business intelligence solution on IBM zEnterprise System. The new
        systems can support a data distribution hub, transactional analysis
        platforms and modernized reporting systems, or provide a framework for
        comprehensive predictive analytics. IBM clients can now build a
        mainframe-based operational business analytics solution at an
        entry-level price.

    --  IBM POWER7 processor-based IBM Smart Analytics System 7710 and x86
        processor-based IBM Smart Analytics System 5710 are single server,
        all-in-one systems that deliver business analytics and reporting
        services faster and at a lower cost than previous IBM integrated
        solutions. Engineered for the rapid deployment of business-ready
        solutions in days and not months, they offer a breadth of capabilities
        including business intelligence reporting, analysis, dashboards, data
        mining, cubing services and text analytics.

    --  IBM Storwize V7000 Unified midrange disk system brings efficiency and
        simplicity to data storage with file and block storage located on the
        same system with a world-class graphical user interface. It provides
        automatic policy-driven movement of files to the desired drive type to
        help manage costs and simplify administration, the ability to either
        scale within a system or scale out by clustering two systems together,
        and enhanced remote mirroring options.

    --  IBM System Storage DS8000 Release 6.2 enterprise disk systems introduce
        greater performance and improved capacity optimization capabilities that
        allow organizations to manage diverse workloads efficiently and
        automatically without administrator involvement. Easy Tier enhancements
        include automated data migration across three-tiers of storage, as well
        as automated data rebalancing within a single tier, which can help
        clients improve performance where and when it's needed. Moreover, with
        only two parameters to set, Easy Tier is easy to set up and manage.

    --  IBM XIV Storage System Gen3 enterprise disk system was introduced in
        July with an advanced hardware upgrade that can improve performance for
        the most demanding workloads. Now, IBM is adding support for 3TB disk
        drives that increase capacity by 50 percent in the same physical
        footprint and enable an increase in usable capacity of up to 243TB per
        rack (based on IBM internal measurements). IBM is offering several other
        innovations such as the IBM XIV Mobile Dashboard, an Apple iPad
        application available at no cost that enables XIV system status to be
        monitored from anywhere. Separately, IBM this week announced the first
        Storage Performance Council (SPC) result with the XIV Storage System as
        part of the SPC's announcement of the new energy extensions for SPC-2
        (SPC-2/E) and SPC-2C (SPC-2C/E). XIV Storage System produced an SPC-2/E
        result which demonstrated its ability to handle Big Data as well as
        providing associated energy use data. The SPC-2/E result shows the XIV
        Storage System provides outstanding enterprise price-performance, in
        addition to Large File Processing (LFP) performance that is faster than
        all SPC-2 submissions from competing vendors to date.(1)

Tuned to the Task

Systems that are optimized across the infrastructure and tuned for specific tasks enable businesses of all sizes to achieve superior economics. IBM is providing new technologies that automate security and compliance of virtualized environments and multi-system virtualization capabilities to reduce cumbersome IT sprawl. Highlights include:

    --  IBM PowerSC technology provides automated tools for security and
        compliance of virtualized environments on Power Systems running PowerVM
        virtualization technology. Centrally managed reporting for compliance
        measurement and audit can reduce the cost of cloud computing security in
        virtualized data centers. Clients can automatically apply security
        profiles and generate reports about compliance, which can reduce
        administrative costs involved in configuring and auditing systems that
        require particular industry standards.

    --  IBM z/VM 6.2 offers new multi-system virtualization capabilities within
        the software to help clients avoid virtual machine sprawl.  Up to four
        instances of z/VM can be clustered together as members in a Single
        System Image, where they can be managed as a single z/VM system and
        share system resources.

    --  IBM Systems Director v6.3 includes improvements in performance,
        scalability and usability for simplified management of optimized
        systems. Enhancements in the new version include simplified usability
        functions and fewer installation steps, the ability to manage more
        endpoints from a single interface, and streamlined database management
        with an embedded DB2 database.

Managed in the Cloud

IBM cloud infrastructure solutions can accelerate deployment and maximize efficiency of businesses who want to achieve rapid, flexible delivery of high value services. IBM now offers solutions that help clients easily establish virtualized data center environments, scale cloud file systems more efficiently and improve system utilization. Highlights include:

    --  IBM SmartCloud Entry solution, delivered by IBM Starter Kit for Cloud,
        offers the building blocks to create private clouds on virtualized IBM
        System x and Power Systems hardware. The solution provides simplified
        initialization and administration for cloud environments on Power and
        x86 systems, standardization of virtual machines and improved operations
        productivity with an easy-to-use, self-service interface. Organizations
        can also quickly and easily scale to more advanced cloud solutions as
        business demands and workloads increase. See related October 12, 2011
        press release, "IBM Introduces New Portfolio of Private Cloud
        Offerings."

    --  zEnterprise Starter Edition for Cloud offers customers an entry-level
        Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud delivery model for Linux on
        System z with Tivoli Provisioning Manager. This easy-to-deploy, highly
        secure, resilient turn-key "cloud in a box" extends the scope of the
        enterprise cloud with centralized management of the entire zEnterprise
        system.

    --  IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud is a comprehensive, converged cloud
        computing platform that combines server, storage, networking and
        management technology that allows clients to quickly create an x86-based
        virtualization environment that is simple to deploy, manage and scale.
        BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud comes in three sizes - small, medium
        and large - designed to fit the business needs of any size business,
        based on budget, storage size or performance, and is capable of helping
        smoothly manage a typical multi-rack datacenter as if powered by a
        single chassis.

    --  IBM Active Cloud Engine scales cloud file systems efficiently by moving
        files where and when they are needed. It gives companies fast access to
        billions of files and dramatically improves the management and
        efficiency of cloud storage. Capabilities for global clouds are
        available on IBM Scale-Out Network Attached Storage R 1.3 (SONAS) and
        for mid-sized clouds on Storwize V7000 Unified systems.

    --  IBM Systems Director VMControl 2.4 now offers extended virtual image
        management and system resource pool capabilities on System x for
        Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), the next generation open source
        hypervisor. The new cloud-ready virtualization capabilities help improve
        system utilization and reduce time to deploy new workloads.

    --  IBM System Networking delivers smarter data center networking with
        faster, flexible and standards-based solutions designed to increase
        performance while helping to reduce costs, space, power and complexity
        for public and private clouds, as well as analyzing big data. New
        offerings include IBM 16Gbps Fibre Channel SAN backbones and switches
        that can ease migration to private clouds, the new 1.28Tb/sec 40GbE IBM
        RackSwitch G8316 that helps flatten networks for better performance and
        simplicity, the OpenFlow-enabled 10/40GbE IBM RackSwitch G8264 to
        increase client control, iFlow Director for high performance, low cost
        IBM BladeCenter-based appliances for mobile and Web 2.0 applications,
        and the new IBM Networking Operating System for today's dynamic,
        virtualized data centers.

Financing provided by IBM Global Financing,(2) the lending and leasing arm of IBM, helps credit-qualified clients make the transition to smarter computing with zero percent financing for servers, storage and software or deferred payments up to six months. Financing helps clients accelerates their cash flow break-even point by spreading upfront costs over time, enabling them to utilizing cash reserves for other strategic investments. For more information on IBM's financing options, visit http://www.ibm.com/financing/us/lifecycle/acquire/hardware

About IBM

For more information on IBM Smarter Computing, visit www.ibm.com/smartercomputing

(1) 8259.94 MBPS SPC-2 (LFP) Data Rate, $137.07 SPC-2 (LFP) Price-Performance Source: Storage Performance Council SPC-2 Benchmark Results, August 19, 2011, http://www.storageperformance.org/results/benchmark_results_spc2/#BE00001

(2) IBM Global Financing offerings are provided through IBM Credit LLC in the United States and other IBM subsidiaries and divisions worldwide to qualified commercial and government clients. Rates and availability are based on a client's credit rating, financing terms, offering type, equipment and product type and options, and may vary by country. Non-hardware items must be one-time, non-recurring charges and are financed by means of loans. Other restrictions may apply. Rates and offerings are subject to change, extension or withdrawal without notice and may not be available in all countries.

IBM, BladeCenter, DB2, iFlow Director, POWER7, PowerSC, Power Systems, RackSwitch, Storwize, System Storage, System x, System z, Tivoli, VMControl and z/VM are registered trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other company/product names and service marks may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Contact Tracy Sullivan IBM Media Relations +1 617-693-0021 tsulliva@us.ibm.com

SOURCE IBM