INDUSTRY

ARMONK, NY -- IBM Japan today announced it has delivered its flagship eServer z900 mainframe and its highly scalable eServer x440 Intel-processor-based system to Bridgestone Corporation, Japan, to power the IT infrastructure for its new dealer and branch online system. The system is using three eServer z900 mainframes, noted for their superior scalability and availability, connected in a parallel sysplex configuration, in which applications run as though they are on a single database server. The system, which runs DB2 database software, has a total processing power of approximately 5 billion instructions per second (MIPS), making it the most powerful mainframe system in Japan. The system also includes 23 eServer x440s, which are used as application servers. Introduced earlier this year, the eServer x440 is the result of a three-year development effort to build an exceptionally powerful Intel processor-based server that meets performance, reliability and scalability requirements of corporate data center customers. Powered by ground-breaking IBM Enterprise X-Architecture technology, the eServer x440 offers a highly reliable, "building block" approach that allows customers to pay for computing power incrementally as they need it, and is designed to support from four to 16 processors. Bridgestone's dealer and branch online system manages order placement and shipping between Bridgestone and its sale companies. The system also provides inventory information from the sales companies to Bridgestone. Bridgestone chose the IBM servers in recognition of the sizable improvement in system processing power at peak load times and their scalability to handle future peak loads. "The advantage of the eServer zSeries and xSeries that Bridgestone Corporation Japan has selected is the most superior high-end server technology in the industry," said Takayuki Hashimoto, vice president, BP and System Sales, PC Division, IBM Japan. "Parallel Sysplex of the zSeries provides the most powerful scalability and allows the system to run 24 hours, 365 days a year continuously. In addition, only zSeries has a self-management function with a balanced system design, enabling optimal use of system resources in dynamic e-business environments. xSeries provides the greatest performance, scalability and reliability to fuse these advanced technologies of zSeries together with an open architecture."