Advertisment

IBM adds eX5 servers to its portfolio

author-image
CIOL Bureau
Updated On
New Update

BANGALORE, INDIA: IBM today introduced the first systems that break technical barriers to offer more scalable, workload-tuned computing on the x86 platform. The company’s new eX5 servers are the result of a three-year engineering effort to improve the economics of operating enterprise-sized, x86-based systems, said a press release.

Advertisment

The eX5 portfolio marks IBM’s second family of 2010 systems designed for a new generation of demanding workloads and to significantly reduce costs of existing IT infrastructure. They are being previewed today at the CeBIT trade show in Germany and will be officially available later this month and throughout the year.

The new systems ride a wave of market share growth for IBM. IBM gained more revenue share than any of the major x86 server vendors in each quarter of 2009 and now holds nearly 20 percent share - a 3.5 point year-over-year gain, the release said citing an IDC report. IBM also significantly outperformed the blade market in 4Q09, recording 64 per cent revenue growth in blades and gaining 5.7 points, according to IDC.

IBM engineers have expanded the capabilities of the x86 platform by achieving an engineering first - decoupling memory from its traditional, tightly bound place alongside the server’s processor, thereby eliminating the need to buy another server to support growing memory-intensive workloads. This all-new class of x86-based systems offers six times the memory scalability available today, helping to flatten the ever-rising cost of operating industry-standard data centers.

Advertisment

“The IBM eX5 systems are game changers,” said Acxiom CIO David Guzman. “We’ve been able to double our virtualization capacity, dropping our software licensing costs. The price/performance equation is extraordinarily compelling, with five times the performance at a fraction of the cost. Moreover, there is a positive impact on all of the other key components of IT cost - space, power, labor, maintenance. The concrete results of this next generation machine are exciting, and the roadmap has 'knock-your-socks-off' vision.”

The eX5 systems take advantage of integration with IBM middleware to create a highly virtualized environment that can give users a flexible, highly scalable system that can reduce the number of servers needed by half while cutting storage costs 97 per cent and licensing fees by 50 per cent.

The release also said that IBM will introduce three ultra-scalable eX5 systems in 2010 - the four-processor IBM System x3850 X5, the BladeCenter HX5 and the System x3690 X5, an entry-priced server capable of enterprise-class operation that will become the most powerful two-processor server on the market.

tech-news