IBM cuts price of Watson-based Power servers

BANGALORE, INDIA: IBM slashed prices of its Power Systems to compete with Oracle and HP.

IBM will roll out eight new Power Systems for entry level starting at $5,947. The new systems include Power Express 710, 720, 730 and 740 family of products.

"Big data and cloud systems that were once only affordable to large enterprises are now available to the masses," said Rod Adkins, Senior Vice President, IBM Systems & Technology Group. "With these new systems, IBM is forging an aggressive expansion of its Power and Storage Systems business into SMB and growth markets."

IBM will also introduce two new PowerLinux Systems - 7R1 and 7R2 - optimized for IBM InfoSphere BigInsights and InfoSphere Streams big data analytics software. The company will also introduce two new Power Systems - 750 and 760 - for midsized and large enterprises.

The new systems are based on IBM's Watson system and are powered by its Power7+ microprocessor technology. These will enable users to build and deploy infrastructure for private and hybrid clouds, as per a release.

These systems also come optimized for IBM's analytics software including Cognos and SPSS for business and predictive analytics.

Viswanath Ramaswamy, country leader, Power Systems, IBM India South Asia, said: "IBM is now extending its Power7+ microprocessor technology to entry level and mid range systems. IBM Power processors are a better platform for big data and cloud than x86 chips because virtualization, a key ingredient for big data computing, is built into the processor. With highly competitive price points for AIX, Linux or IBM i, the power of analytics has never been more cost-effective to obtain."

Clients can take advantage of an optional IBM Solution for WebSphere Mobile and Web Applications on PowerLinux to speed up application development for the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry, says the release.

IBM is also introducing new Storage Systems and SmartCloud storage solutions.

IBM SmartCloud Storage Access software lets organizations set up secure private storage clouds and users store information on the company's internal cloud. The new package features a Web-based self-service portal that lets any user create an account, set up the amount of storage they need, and then start uploading files via the cloud.

 

IBM also updated its XIV Storage System with a new system design for big data that supports up to 12 10GB Ethernet Ports (or 22 1GB Ethernet ports), and up to 6TB of solid state cache, both of which combine to improve the performance of database-like workloads by up to five times over previous models.

IBM's also released v4.1of its Real-Time Compression Appliance model STN7800, which can support large complex environments. The appliance is based on System x server technology and offers 5x compression in real-time, unlimited per appliance software licensing (over 50TBs), and supports 10GbE optical, 1GbE copper, or mixed 10GbE and 1GbE connectivity options, as per the release.