IBM Boosts Security, Cloud and Analytics Capabilities With New Power Systems, Storage and Mainframe Technologies

• Power Systems family infused with new POWER 7+ processor for greater security and fast business analytics, capacity on demand, and significantly improved performance.(1)
• New high-end DS8870 storage systems are three times faster(2) than the previous model.
• IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator V3 makes it fast to run analytics on the zEnterprise EC12 mainframe; zSecure spots unusual activity before a system is compromised.

Kuala Lumpur, 22 November 2012: IBM Malaysia today unveiled new technologies designed to help organizations with today’s greatest challenges, including the need for improved security, the ability to take advantage of cloud computing, and the requirement to manage and analyze vast amounts of data. The new offerings include the most powerful enterprise Power Systems to date, a new high-end disk storage system and key software updates for IBM’s newest mainframe computer and will be unveiled at IBM Malaysia’s conference, aptly themed “Smarter Computing : Tomorrow Ready”.

The announcement is part of IBM’s continued focus on Smarter Computing systems aimed at solving the varied and intensifying challenges organizations are facing, from security vulnerabilities to managing ballooning data volumes that are expanding through social and mobile technologies. With Smarter Computing, businesses can be tomorrow-ready today, with the infrastructure that allows them to master big data, to master social media, mobile devices, analytics and also the flow of critical information. It is scalable and flexible because it uses patterns to predict what is needed next. Smarter Computing can  help customers make the right decisions today that allows them to be tomorrow ready.

New Power Systems Tout POWER7+, Elastic Capacity on Demand and Fast Business Analytics
As a result of more than $1.4 billion in R&D investment, IBM today is announcing its enterprise Power Systems with new hardware and software innovations designed to help customers gain business insights fast and securely.

IBM Power 770 and Power 780 servers now feature the new POWER7+ microprocessor, a technology that offers a performance boosts of 30 to 40 percent on application workloads compared with previous versions.(1)  Among its many features, the POWER7+ offers an expanded 2.5x L3 cache memory, greater security with faster file encryption for the IBM AIX operating system, and memory compression that results in no increased energy usage over previous generation POWER7 chips.

At the top of the Power line, the Power 795 server has been enhanced to enable customers to run very demanding applications, such as business analytics, fast by utilizing up to 16 terabytes of memory with new 64GB Dual In Line Memory Modules (DIMM).

In addition, IBM has added several new capabilities to its family of Power Systems servers to help customers build virtualized private cloud or managed service cloud infrastructures, and respond dynamically to changes in application and workload requirements. Elastic Capacity on Demand for Power Systems Pools, for example, enables the sharing of resources across multiple servers, which can improve the availability and enhace the access to resources during planned and unplanned maintenance activities.

When managing a cloud-based infrastructure with IBM PowerVM virtualization software, customers can now more easily move individual server partitions to quickly balance resources in reaction to changing business needs. Single virtual machines can be moved three times faster and concurrent migrations can occur up to 4.7 times faster than with previous versions.(3)

The average corporate IT infrastructure is cyber-attacked nearly 60,000 times every day(4) and the average total organizational cost of a data breach is $5.5 million,(5)  making security one of the top priorities of enterprise organizations. To enhance data security and regulatory compliance, IBM PowerSC security and compliance software along with Trusted Surveyor has been updated and now provides real-time security alerts and delivers improved compliance reporting.

IBM Accelerates Enterprise Storage Capabilities for Big Data
IBM earlier announced its Smarter Storage strategy, an approach to designing and managing storage infrastructures with greater automation and exploits automated intelligence to increase the efficiency, utilization, and performance of storage systems while lowering costs. This new strategy also comes with a guaranteed savings rate of at least 50 percent when deploying IBM Real-time Compression, failing which, IBM will provide, at no cost, the hardware and authorizations to match the shortfall.

The deluge of information organizations continue to grapple with is posing increasingly dynamic challenges for IT administrators. Mounting data volumes are not only stressing system performance and manageability, but security as well. To help customers respond to these challenges, IBM today solidified two of its high-end storage systems with dramatic performance and security updates.

The IBM System Storage DS8870 is the newest and most powerful member of the company’s DS8000 family of “high-density” enterprise class storage systems. Upgraded with the advanced IBM POWER7 processors and up to 1TB of system cache, the DS8870 delivers up to three times more performance for transaction processing applications than the current DS8800 model.(2) What’s more, according to the Storage Performance Council, the DS8870 has also achieved the number one ranking in its standardized SPC-2 benchmark result.(6) In addition, the DS8870 comes standard with full self-encrypting drives for additional security.

On the tape storage front, IBM updated the IBM Virtualization Engine TS7700 Release 3, a system that melds virtualization with magnetic tape. The system is an update of the TS7700 Enterprise Virtual Tape Library System, which is typically used in enterprises powered by mainframes and is designed to help administrators virtualize their existing tape storage systems for improved manageability, capacity and security. The Virtualization Engine takes the system to new levels of each, with end-to-end encryption and the ability to connect up to six systems in a grid architecture for greater access to information, as well as redundancy.

The new Technical Computing for Big Data solution includes IBM's General Parallel File System (GPFS), an advanced file management platform often used in high performance computing environments for storing and delivering large volumes of data for weather modeling, oil exploration and digital media production. Combining GPFS with the latest IBM Platform Symphony scheduler and application platform, as well as the IBM Intelligent Cluster, delivers enterprise clients a scalable, high performance environment for analytics.

New Mainframe Software for Operational Analytics, Cloud and Security
IBM also announced software offerings for IBM's newest mainframe -- the zEnterprise EC12 -- to help clients operate their IT more efficiently while making use of critical information to fuel business insights and help provide better service to clients.

The zEC12 is one of the first systems to run transaction processing applications and analytics applications on one machine, enabling clients to receive and analyze structured business data in real-time. Now, IBM is making it simpler, faster and more affordable to run analytics on System z with the new IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator V3 appliance that can speed response times for analytics to provide business insights and results. The Accelerator can also reduce the need to store data on disk drives in the mainframe by 95 percent, which can dramatically lower storage costs.(7)

IBM is enabling its popular transaction processor, CICS (Customer Information Control System), to be developed, delivered and operated in the cloud in order to help zEnterprise clients build private cloud environments that can support a high volume of customer transactions. With the new CICS 5.1 portfolio, interactive applications such as ATM systems, bank-teller applications and insurance applications can be made available in the cloud.

The new IBM Security zSecure Suite V1.31.1 enhances security intelligence by spotting unusual activity before the system is compromised, monitoring for threats with real-time alerts and network behavior analytics, and managing security audits. Integration with QRadar SIEM (security information and event management) provides enterprise-wide security monitoring.

System Networking
In addition to these systems and storage updates, IBM also announced a Software Defined Networking (SDN) controller for its enterprise networking portfolio. The new IBM Programmable Network Controller provides intelligent software for IBM RackSwitch and other OpenFlow-enabled switches. Through OpenFlow, people can create virtual networks with the scalability and flexibility required to respond to business changes in cloud and mobile services environments.

Financing
IBM Global Financing (IGF) can help clients acquire IBM systems with financing that promotes greater financial flexibility, lowers total cost of ownership and provides predictable payments. By working with a strategic partner like IGF, clients can conserve upfront cash and use it for other business critical initiatives.
Credit-qualified clients that elect financing may qualify to defer their first payment to 2013 for greater budget flexibility. IGF also offers 0% financing on a 12-month full payout lease or loan for select IBM solutions. For clients migrating from non-IBM platforms, IGF offers buyback of older servers at market value to facilitate ease of transition to IBM systems.