IBM發佈最新Blade伺服器

IBM Blades power Malaysian businesses with latest innovative technologies

Petaling Jaya, 12 July 2007 – IBM today showcased their latest innovative technologies that deliver easier, more affordable management capabilities to businesses of all sizes in Malaysia. The IBM Blades World 2007 was organized for chief information officers and IT managers where they gained insights on how to simplify and improve their businesses.

“IBM BladeCenter was engineered to reduce complexity by reducing the number of tools and access points needed to manage the solution. Why manage hundreds of servers, dozens of switches, and networking devices when you could manage just a handful of BladeCenters,” said Azlina Mohd Ariff, Country Brand Manager, System x, System Technology Group, IBM Malaysia.

She also added that blades can help small and medium businesses (SMBs) to consolidate sprawling servers and reap the benefits of integrated blade computing. By integrating servers, networking, storage and software in one system, SMBs are able to save on power, cooling and floor space. It can also decrease management and maintenance costs which are critical for SMBs, who don't have the budget or staff to implement complex IT solutions.

For larger organizations which have begun to consolidate servers into centralized data centres using rack-mounted servers in many cases, it is a means of reducing the challenges and costs associated with administering many small servers scattered across the enterprise.

“Blades is one of the most exciting enterprise computing technologies that have emerged in the past four to five years. It enables IT to become much more flexible and agile to be able to better respond to changes in the environment more cost effectively,” said Rajnish Arora, Research Director, Asia/Pacific Enterprise Servers and Workstations Research, IDC Asia Pacific.

Due to the blade server’s increased rack density, fewer racks would be required to house the servers which often results in lower rental charges from reduced floor space requirements.

He added, “The use of low-power processors in some blades can save users money on electricity and cooling costs too. With rising energy costs, power efficiency has become one of the top issues for most large company IT executives to address in the next several years.”

According to IDC’s Asia/Pacific Quarterly Enterprise Server Tracker, IBM in Malaysia was the number one ranked vendor in the overall server market by revenue share, in the first quarter of 2007. IBM Malaysia took the top spot with a 48.6 percent revenue share, posting an impressive 65.9 percent year-on-year growth, outpacing the market growth by more than 3 times.

"IDC has observed that IT buying patterns are evolving as product innovation continues across the marketplace," added Rajnish Arora. "The phenomenal growth in the use of volume servers is creating challenges for the CIOs and CTOs in system management, and power and cooling requirements. IDC believes that IBM has an extremely comprehensive suite of blade server offerings that can effectively address some of the key challenges that IT managers face."

“IBM has always been at the fore front of advanced technology. An energy-smart innovation called Calibrated Vectored Cooling from IBM engineers the path of cool air flow through the system, using highly energy efficient blowers that move air from the front of the system to the back while protecting components inside the server,” said Azlina.

Further example is Cool Blue, a technology component that can use the existing chilled water supply for air conditioning systems already located in the majority of customer data centers to reduce server heat emissions into the room by up to 55 percent. This is more efficient than traditional AC designs and can be deployed on any server, enabling organizations to ease the burden on existing air conditioning units and potentially lower energy costs by up to 15 percent.

Also in the portfolio is the IBM Thermal Diagnostics, the industry's first thermal analyzer to pinpoint and automatically take action on heat-related issues. IBM Thermal Diagnostics provides clients with the intelligence needed to monitor heat emissions and determine their root causes before they flare up.

Another competitive advantage to IBM BladeCenter is the virtualization technology which enables companies to lower the cost of IT labor that can account for about 70 percent of overall IT spending. Virtualization also enables better use the computing capacity that companies have already bought. IBM virtualization offerings lead the industry in interoperability with the ability to virtualize both IBM and non-IBM systems.

“Through collaborative innovation, IBM builds solutions with other industry leaders, leveraging the best in the industry and delivering solutions as a whole to enable client’s to innovate their businesses,” she added.

In February 2006 Blade.org, a collaborative organization and developer community focused on accelerating the development and adoption of open blade server platforms was established to increase the number of blade platform solutions available for customers and to accelerate the process of bringing them to market. From eight founding companies, Blade.org has grown to more then a 100 members including leading blade hardware and software providers, developers, distribution partners and end users from around the globe.

Azlina also further substantiated IBM’s commitment towards creating an ecosystem of ‘openness’; the IBM BladeCenter solutions are built on open standards, making them interoperable with one another and allowing them to easily fit into most client’s current standards and solutions.

“Our clients who are standardized on IBM BladeCenter know the new technology can easily integrate into their current architecture as it becomes available. This enduring architecture effectively means reduced risk. A perfect example would be moving to the latest processors. To implement the latest from Intel, AMD or IBM only means a new blade. Power, thermals, systems management, switching all likely stay the same with no overhaul needed for the entire IT infrastructure. There is no unneeded ‘churn’ levied on the IT staff either,” she said.