The Financial Times has added servers from Fujitsu Siemens
to its existing Sun infrastructure to save more than £1m over the
next three years and allow a capacity “on-demand”
computing.Processors in the Fujitsu servers can be
activated and deactivated as required, giving an on-demand service
and better handle fluctuating demands.
Financial Times IT director Ian Cohen said,
"We now have the ability to add more processing capacity and remove
it when we don't need it."
"The other dynamic of the saving is that
Fujitsu prices its processing power more competitively than Sun,"
he added.
The deal also signals the start of the FT's
innovative dual-supplier approach, using servers from both Fujitsu
and Sun Microsystems to support the Solaris operating system.
Thomas Meyer, server group manager at analyst
firm IDC, said companies could gain a number of benefits through
the dual-supplier approach. "The neat thing is that staff don't
need extra training - it's also possible that the total solution
costs would lower because you have two suppliers," he said.
"Companies can start looking for competitive
offers from the suppliers," he added.
Cohen said the FT will be able to manage what
could be a potentially complex relationship with the two suppliers.
He said, "We have good processes to allow us to effectively manage
a dual-supplier strategy - it's not an issue for us."
The FT will use the two Fujisu Primepower 2000
Unix servers to support a variety of business applications such as
advertising and the company's new publishing system, which will be
complete in the first quarter of next year.