ACADEMIA

IBM announced powerful new server solutions aimed at helping x86 clients accelerate the journey to Smarter Computing.  Designed to support the requirements of fast-growing businesses, the new products give data center managers the speed, performance and flexibility they need to implement and manage new and existing workloads.

The new products round out one of the industry's most comprehensive portfolios of x86 offerings.  This lineup includes an energy-efficient blade server with breakthrough networking flexibility and a compact, affordable rack system that fills the price and performance gap between traditional two-processor servers and four-processor systems for handling high-performance computing and database-intensive applications. IBM also announced several new entry systems for small-to-mid-size infrastructure workloads.

Roland Hagan, vice president and business line executive, IBM System x business said,  "Unlike many of our competitors, IBM offers clients a range of solutions from economical infrastructure, to performance optimized solutions, to expert integrated systems to help any size enterprise address its top business challenges."

IBM's newest blade server is the IBM BladeCenter HS23E, an affordable, energy-efficient platform for small to mid-sized organizations, offering breakthrough networking flexibility with built-in support for multiple networking technologies.  With up to eight networking ports of Ethernet and other advanced networking protocols, the HS23E can deliver up to 42 percent better compute performance that previous generation servers.  In addition, a free IBM FastSetup download automates server setup to reduce hands-on server deployments from days to minutes.

IBM unveiled a new category rack server, the IBM System x3750, a streamlined, entry four-processor offering created for technical computing and other floating-point intensive workloads. The x3750 offers IBM exclusive eXFlash storage technology and innovative "pay-as-you-grow" compute capability to clients who are outgrowing their dual processor systems and need faster database performance, and the ability to manage huge data volumes to gain business insights in seconds rather than hours.  IBM has engineered the System x3750 to provide up to 25% more memory performance than comparable systems.

IBM rounded out its new portfolio of entry-to-mid level x86 offerings with new value rack servers that include the storage-dense IBM System x3630 M4, designed for cloud and department-level virtualization, virtual storage, and database workloads, and the IBM System x3530 M4, a new cost-optimized, dense, dual-processor system that is ideal for financial applications, web services, retail point-of-sale, and network infrastructure workloads.  These new rack servers extend the IBM portfolio to new customers by lowering the cost of entry for two-processor workloads.

IBM also announced the new IBM Flex System x220, an entry-level compute node that further expands the flexibility and choice of compute options for the recently announced IBM Pure Systems family of expert integrated systems.  Performance of the IBM Flex System x220 is tuned for entry virtualization applications and infrastructure workloads such as office email and collaboration.  Its advanced management capabilities offer clients real-time system and workload management capabilities out of the box on day one.