IBM introduced a new family of "expert integrated systems" with built-in expertise based on IBM's collective experience running customers' IT operations. The company says the new system, dubbed PureSystems, offers clients an alternative to today's enterprise computing model, in which multiple and disparate systems require significant resources to set up and maintain.
IBM says PureSystems is the result of $2 billion in R&D and acquisitions over 4 years. "By tightening the connections between hardware and software, and adding incomparable software know-how, PureSystems is designed to help clients to free up time and money to focus on innovation that many businesses cannot address due to ever rising costs and staffing needs in the traditional data center," says Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive, software and systems, IBM.
With the new offering, IBM says it is addressing the issue that companies worldwide must spend 70% or more of IT budgets on operations and maintenance, leaving little to invest in innovation. A recent study by IBM found that two-thirds of corporate IT projects are delivered over budget and behind schedule, and only one in five corporate IT departments is able to spend the majority of its IT budget on innovation.
With PureSystems, IBM is introducing "Scale-In" System Design, a concept that integrates the server, storage, and networking into an automated, simple-to-manage machine. According to IBM, scale-in design provides for increased density, and as a result, PureSystems can handle twice as many applications compared to some IBM systems, doubling the computing power per square foot of data center space.
In another innovation as part of PureSystems, with the new "Patterns of Expertise," IBM is embedding technology and industry expertise through software that allows the systems to automatically handle basic, time-consuming tasks such as configuration, upgrades, and application requirements. The patterns of expertise enable operational know-how and knowledge to be built directly into the systems. This approach converts technology expertise into reusable, downloadable packages.
Patterns are available in three categories, including IBM Patterns, which are built-in at the factory and created based on knowledge gleaned from IBM's IT managers, engineers and technology experts, ISV Patterns which are the result of collaboration with more than 125 independent software vendors for applications that are certified "PureSystems Ready"; and Customer Patterns so IT organizations can package the knowledge of their own applications into a Pattern, enabling a company that is interested in expanding into new markets to do so even when skills are not readily available in new regions or markets.
In addition, out-of-the-box, all PureSystems family members are built for the cloud, enabling corporations to quickly create private, self-service cloud offerings that can scale up and down automatically.
"With its new scale-in design and built-in expertise, PureSystems represents an important advance in the evolution of computing," says Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive, software and systems, IBM. "By tightening the connections between hardware and software, and adding incomparable software know-how, PureSystems is designed to help clients to free up time and money to focus on innovation that many businesses cannot address due to ever rising costs and staffing needs in the traditional data center."
PureSystems' design integrates and optimizes all of the critical components required in a data center - system networking, storage, compute, management, etc. - and provides for a single-view management system. The result, says IBM, is a system that is intuitive to set up and can be far less expensive to maintain and upgrade.
The first two models of the PureSystems family - PureFlex System and PureApplication System - start shipping to customers this quarter. PureSystems support POWER processors and Intel processors. For more information, visit www.ibm.com/ibm/puresystems.