IBM Targets Cloud Services Market

IBM is expanding its service offerings for cloud computing, offering a validation program for service providers and consulting services for companies pursuing a range of paths to the cloud. The new services position IBM to benefit from growth of cloud computing on several levels, offering some services on its own infrastructure while providing hardware, construction and consulting to companies building their own “private clouds.”

“No matter how compelling the economics are, cloud strategies can’t run counter to business strategies,” said Willy Chiu, Vice President, High Performance On Demand Solutions, IBM. “Over the last year in our 13 cloud computing centers worldwide, we’ve worked with clients to understand how to help them take advantage of both public and private clouds.”

Among the services announced today is a benchmarking service for cloud computing providers called “Resilient Cloud Validation.” IBM also introduced services to help clients customize and secure their private cloud computing infrastructures.

The benchmarking program offers a Resilient Cloud logo as a confidence booster for enterprise customers who are interested in shifting services to the cloud but concerned about reliability. Allscripts, which provides online services for physicians and other healthcare providers, is the first company to begin the validation process. 

IBM Leases Paris Space from Digital Realty

IBM has signed a lease for “plug-n-play” data center space in a Digital Realty Trust facility in suburban Paris, the two companies said today. IBM says it will establish a new hosting data center in the property, which was leased through Digital Realty’s Turn-Key Datacenter program, which provides tenants with finished raised floor data center space.

IBM is one of the world’s leading data center builders, managing more than 8 million square feet of raised floor space. The Paris lease raises an interesting question: given its in-house capabilities, why would IBM lease pre-built space from Digital Realty? The answer: to bring space online quickly to meet customer demand in a hot market.   

“In terms of speed to market, with our Turn-Key Datacentre product based on our POD Architecture we are able to meet the datacentre requirements of customers such as IBM in six to eight weeks from the time we come to an agreement - well ahead of current industry standards,” said Bernard Geoghegan, Senior Vice President, Europe of Digital Realty Trust.

Merrill Buys iDataPlex for Risk Management

The wave of mergers on Wall Street hasn’t entirely slowed investment in IT hardware, but appears to have refocused it on a new priority: risk management. Just weeks after being acquired by Bank of America, Merill Lynch announced today that it will purchase IBM’s new iDataPlex servers (pictured above) so it can pack more computing power into its data centers.

“Our goal is to rapidly adopt technologies like iDataPlex that reduce the power consumption within our data centers,” said Jeffrey M. Birnbaum, chief technology architect at Merrill Lynch. “iDataPlex is a perfectly positioned platform for this new style of computing - giving us the ability to pack a lot more compute power into smaller, less expensive package and minimize power and cooling costs.”

IBM Plans Major Dublin Data Center

IBM will build invest 30 million euros ($43 million) in a new data center at its Technology Campus in Dublin, Ireland, the company said today. The next-generation facility will provide IT services for the Irish market, and also serve as a global hub for delivering IBM Software to clients in 84 countries worldwide.

The data center will feature IBM’s latest energy-efficient designs for power and cooling, and provide clients with access to “massive internet-scale computing capabilities,” the company said.

The project continues a data center building boom for IBM, which wns and operates more than 8 million square feet of data center space. IBM said last month that it would build a $360 million cloud computing data center in Research Triangle in Noirth Carolina, as well as 13 disaster recovery centers around the world. In June IBM opened its largest data center in Boulder, Colorado. 

IBM Virtual World Can Manage Your Servers

Here’s a closer look at the “Virtual Network Operations Center,” a Second Life demo of IBM’s technology for creating virtual worlds that provide real-time monitoring of a distributed network of data centers. It provides a 3D model of your actual racks and servers, along with multiple screens presenting information about the status of your data center. There’s also a lounge where your sysadmin avatars can take a break. So do the virtual sysadmins work while their real-life counterparts relax? Or is it the other way around? This video runs about 5 minutes, 30 seconds.

For more news from Big Blue, visit our IBM channel. For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

IBM Unveils $2 Billion Storage Blitz

IBM's storage virtualization solution, the IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller.

Storage is the next frontier in data center transformation, according to IBM, which today is rolling out more than 30 new products and services as part of a $2 billion investment to help customers manage the tidal wave of data being created as society goes digital.

“The world is re-tooling its underlying IT infrastructure in a dramatic shift away from a decades-old client/server model to a radically more efficient Internet-style architecture,” said Andy Monshaw, General Manager, IBM System Storage. ”This requires different thinking and new capabilities, which we are addressing in this information infrastructure launch, with our investments going forward, and how IBM will do business with our clients. There is no bigger opportunity for our clients than to unlock the value they have in their data centers and help them create smart, innovative offerings for their end users – the consumer.”

Today’s rollout is the culmination of three years of research and development work, as well as a 24-month acquisition spree in the storage sector, as IBM bought XIV, Diligent, Cognos, Arsenal, Optim, FilesX, Softek, and NovusCG. Big Blue grouped its storage onslaught into three areas: “Internet-scale” availability, data consolidation and retention, and security. 

IBM Will Build 13 Disaster Recovery Centers

IBM will invest $300 million this year to build 13 data centers providing global disaster recovery for business customers. The new facilities are being built in New Jersey and nine international sites, including facilities in China, Japan, Turkey, Poland and France.

IBM says the building boom is a response to a strong increase in demand for disaster recovery services in the last 18 months. Philippe Jarre, general manager of I.B.M.’s business continuity and resiliency services unit, told the New York Times that disaster recovery is the fastest-growing sector in IBM’s Global Services unit.

The new initiative is described as a cloud computing solution for disaster recovery and business continuity, providing backups of data on servers which can then be quickly accessed to rapidly restore lost files. The cloud solution leverages IBM’s 2007 acquisition of Arsenal Digital Solutions, which makes rack-mounted appliances dedicated to business continuity.

A new data center to support New York City customers will open in the Metro Park section of Edison, New Jersey, about 25 miles from Manhattan, IBM said. Metro Park is notable for its access via highways and rail, as it is a station stop on the Northeast Corridor rail line, and is also easily reached via the New Jersey Turnpike, Garden State Parkway and Route One. IBM’s primary DR site for New York is currently in Sterling Forest, NY, about 40 miles outside Manhattan.

Mammoth Super-iDataPlex Cluster for IBM

IBM and the University of Toronto are building a new supercomputer that will be powered by 4,000 of its new iDataPlex servers and entirely water cooled. The system will be the most powerful supercomputer in Canada and one of the 20 fastest in the world, capable of performing 360 trillion calculations per second, according to Reuters.

The new supercomputer will help scientists at the University of Toronto and its research hospitals, providing processing horsepower for projects in aerospace, astrophysics, climate change prediction and medical imaging. The $47 million price tag is being footed by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, in partnership with the province of Ontario and the university.

More on IBM’s Research Triangle Project

IBM has posted a video with an overview of its plans to build a $360 million cloud computing data center at its facility in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The new facility will be feature 60,000 square feet of raised-floor space. This video runs about 1 minute and 40 seconds

For more news from Big Blue, visit our IBM channel. For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

IBM Plans $360M Cloud Data Center in NC

IBM will build a $360 million data center at its facility in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina to power cloud computing applications for customers, the company announced today. The new facility will incorporate IBM’s latest approaches to energy-efficiency, modular design and high-density computing.

While Amazon, Microsoft and Google build their own cloud platforms, IBM is focused on building cloud data centers in which its enterprise customers can run their own applications. The Research Triangle Park (RTP) facility will provide up to 60,000 square feet of raised floor space that can be customized for IBM customers. The project is part of a broader cloud computing initiative unveiled today by IBM, which also includes a new cloud computing center in Tokyo.

IBM will renovate an existing warehouse building on its RTP campus for the new data center, which will be the first in the world to be built with IBM’s New Enterprise Data Center design principles. This approach provides internet-scale computing capabilities, including power densities of up to 1,600 watts per square foot, along with IBM’s latest energy efficiency designs.

“We’ve got a fairly creative way we’re going to design this data center to maximize our energy usage,” said Joseph Dzaluk, IBM’s Worldwide Vice President for Infrastructure and Resource Management. “It will be guided by customer requirements, but we’ve designed it to segment different work loads and densities.”