IBM has boosted its On Demand computing initiative with
a handful of virtualisation and grid-enabling technologies designed
to streamline the infrastructure of corporate IT shops and make it
easier to manage.
Officials believed the new offerings addressed the three
requirements for a true On Demand environment which include
integration, automation, and virtualisation. More importantly, the
latest products allow corporate administrators to "map" these
capabilities appropriately onto their shifting business processes
and management needs day to day.
Among the new offerings is IBM's TotalStorage virtualisation
family of products to help administrators take some of the
complexity and management of data in a network. Virtualisation
technology supplies a single and consolidated view to all critical
resources on a network regardless of where the data resides. The
new products will make it cheaper for users to house important
customer and financial information.
The TotalStorage Virtualization products comprise the SAN Volume
Controller, SAN Integration Server, the SAN file system known as
Storage Tank, and integrated device management technology based on
the Bluefin specification.
Available from July, the SAN Volume Controller gives IBM its own
storage virtualisation technologies. IBM has a reseller
relationship with Datacor to provide virtualisation
capabilities.
IBM also rolled out a WebSphere product incorporating grid
computing technologies, along with its Open Infrastructure Offering
(OIO), which lets users acquire either all or just part of their
infrastructure needs for one price billed monthly.
Building on its previously announced "pay-as-you-grow" strategy,
IBM rolled out its Standby Capacity On Demand service aimed at
blade servers and storage systems. This allows corporate users to
buy a server or storage system for significantly less than the
total cost and also turn on additional capacity over a six-month
period, company officials explained.
Lastly, IBM announced Web Server Provisioning, what company
officials called one of a new class of automation offerings that
can make use of more advanced technologies being developed under
IBM's autonomic computing plan. Users can either switch or add
another server to increase capacity immediately as a way to
streamline their overall operations or optimise resources not being
fully used.