Mandalay Bay Vegas
As always we’ve been well briefed on IBM STG’s latest slew of product announcements today. We’re interested in trying to simplify its messages down to give a clear view of what’s being introduced.
Today IBM’s STG division introduced some significant offerings across its Power, System x, PureSystems, System Networking and Technical Computing lines. Table 1 shows what was announced, what it is and notes of associations. We hope you’ll find it useful as you navigate the news on a very crowded day.
Table 1 – IBM STG Product Announcements – June 10th 2013
| Offering | Which Area? | Type | Notes |
| Network Advisor | Fibre Channel SAN | Software | With Fabric Vision feature – simplified FC SAN management and analytics |
| SAN96B-5 switch | Fibre Channel SAN | Hardware | 96-port 16Gb – good for FlashSystem storage |
| SAN48B-5 switch System z FICON control port | Fibre Channel SAN | Hardware | FC SAN improved management |
| AIX Solution Edition for Analytical Decision Management | Power | Software | Industry solution |
| Application Specific Acceleration Engine for PowerLinux, 710, 730 | Power | Software | New I/O for workload acceleration for electronic trading in Finance |
| Campaign for Healthcare Power Systems Edition | Power | Software | Industry solution |
| Campaign for Retail Power Systems Edition | Power | Software | Industry solution |
| Cúram Solution for Care Management Power Systems Edition | Power | Software | Industry solution – added to Government version |
| Easy Tier Server (Storage) for local SSD database caching | Power | Software | Adds flash capabilities |
| Health Analytics Quick Start Power Systems Edition | Power | Software | Industry solution |
| Patient Care and Insights Infrastructure Solution Power Systems Edition | Power | Software | Industry solution |
| Power 710 Flexible Warranty | Power | Service | Warranty added to entry-level Power server |
| SmartCloud Entry 3.1 for Power | Power | Software | Entry level private Cloud – already on x86 |
| Solution Edition for Cloud | Power | Software | Fits Power for Cloud usage |
| Application Ready Solution for Accelrys | Technical Computing, PureSystem, System x, System Storage, Platform Computing | Hardware, Software | Accelrys Enterprise Platform (AEP) NGS Collection integrated with Flex System x240 or System x, Platform Computing. Simplifies and accelerates mapping variant calling and annotation for Acclerys Enterprise platform GPFS and V7000 Unified, mitigate data access and storage bottlenecks |
| Application Ready Solution for ANSYS | Technical Computing, PureSystem, System x, System Storage, Platform Computing | Hardware, Software | ANSYS Fluent (Computation Fluid Dynamic, ANSYS Mechanical (structural analysis) with Remote 3D Visualization Server on high performance System x or Flex System cluster or HPC Cloud) |
| Application Ready Solution for CLC bio | Technical Computing, PureSystem, System x, System Storage, Platform Computing | Hardware, Software | CLC bio Genomic Server and CLC Genomics Workbench integration on Flex System x24, Platform Computing, GPFS, V7000 Unified. Address file system performance with GPFS, V7000 Unified, Flex System x86, Platform Computing |
| Application Ready Solution for Schlumberger for INTERSECT and ECLIPSE | Technical Computing, PureSystem, System x, System Storage, Platform Computing | Hardware, Software | With Flex System x240, Platform Computing, DS350 disks for accelerated reservoir simulations and easy access to data and remote management |
| Application Ready Solution for Gaussian | Technical Computing, PureSystem, Platform Computing | Hardware, Software | Gaussian software on high performance cluster or HPC Cloud environment – PureSystem concerns Flex System Power nodes |
| Blue Gene/Q Express | Technical Computing, Power | Hardware, Software | |
| Power Systems for Technical Computing | Technical Computing, Power, PureSystem, Platform Computing | Hardware, Software | Power 730, PowerLinux 7R2, Flex Systems, p460.cluster p260 (Power nodes) together via Platform Computing for scale-out high performance technical computing |
| Connections Hypervisor Edition 4.0 System Pattern | PureSystem | Software | Fast hypervisor deployment |
| Flex System Solution for Microsoft Hyper-V | PureSystem | Software | Virtualization and Cloud reference architecture solutions, Microsoft certified for SMBs |
| Flex System Solution for SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Accelerator | PureSystem | Software | Reference architecture for SAP Business Warehouse Accelerator, Flex System |
| Mobile Application Platform Pattern for PureApplication System | PureSystem | Software | Faster deployment of Worklight server on PureApplication Systems (POWER or x86) |
| PureFlex Solution for Cloud Backup and Recovery | PureSystem | Software | Reference architecture solution leveraging TSM for Cloud services |
| PureFlex Solution for SAP Business Suite | PureSystem | Software | SAP Business Suite reference architecture – Cloud and bare-metal deployments |
| SmartCloud Desktop Infrastructure Solutions for Citrix XenDesktop | PureSystem | Software | Reference Architectures for Storage Solutions on PureFlex and Flex System |
| SmartCloud Desktop Infrastructure Solutions for VMware View | PureSystem | Software | Reference Architectures for Storage Solutions on PureFlex and Flex System |
| PureFlex Solution for IBM i | PureSystem, Power | Software | IBM PureFlex solution for consolidating i and x86 workloads |
| Systems Solution for SAP Business Suite and HANA | PureSystem, System x | Software | Reference Architecture on PureFlex/Flex System and x3950 |
| Flex System Fabric EN4093R 10G Switch | System Networking | Hardware | IBM OpenFlow-enabled switches – planned for August availability |
| Networking OS 7.7 | System Networking | Software | SDN – expanded OpenFlow integration |
| Rack Switch G8316, G8052 | System Networking | Hardware | IBM OpenFlow-enabled switches |
| Software Defined Network for Virtual Environments | System Networking | Software | SDN – overlay network for existing equipment for Cloud, consolidation and virtualisation |
| Smart Analytics 5600 R3 | System x | Software | Data Management and Business Analytics |
| SmartCloud Desktop Infrastructure Reference Architecture for Citrix – VDI-in-a-Box | System x | Software | Virtual Desktop Infrastructure |
| SmartCloud Desktop Infrastructure Reference Architecture for Microsoft Windows Server 2012 | System x | Software | Virtual Desktop Infrastructure |
| System x Flash Cache Storage Accelerator for SAP Solutions | System x | Software | Data Management and Business Analytics |
| System x Integrated Offering for Cloud | System x | Software | Cloud – single SKU |
| System x Reference Architecture for Hadoop: MapR | System x | Software | Data Management and Business Analytics |
| System x Reference Architecture for Microsoft Hyper-V | System x | Software | Cloud – single SKU |
| System x Reference Architecture for Microsoft SQL Server | System x | Software | Data Management and Business Analytics |
| x86 Reference Architecture for SAS Visual Analytics | System x | Software | Data Management and Business Analytics |
| Intelligent Cluster 13A | System x, Technical Computing, Platform Computing, Storage | Hardware, Software | Factory integrated, pre-tested cluster based on System x or Flex x86 nodes with optional FlashSystem, Storwize V3700, System x GPFS Storage Server, App Ready Solutions, etc. |
| System x GPFS Storage Server | System x, Technical Computing, GPFS (Power), System x | Hardware, Software | HPC storage solution based on GPFS, System x 3650 nodes and EXP3700 disk drawer and NL-SAS disks. Factory integrated, tested and supported as IBM IntelligentCluster |
| System x Reference Architecture for Hadoop: InfoSphere BigInsights | System x, Technical Computing, Platform Computing, InfoSphere BigInsights | Software | System x optimised Hadoop big data environment accelerated by Platform Symphony scheduler and GPFS |
| Smarter Storage for Technical Computing | Storage, Technical Computing, GPFS, System x (GSS) | Storage portfolio optimised for Technical Computing including System x GPFS Storage Server, GPFS, SONAS, FlashSystem, DCS3700, Storwize V3700, DS3500, Linear Tape File System – Enter. Edition, TS3500 | |
| Watson Engagement Advisor | Power | Service | Already announced end May 2013 |
There are 49 new offerings by our calculations listed here – System z is missing today, although we covered its new introductions recently, as are storage systems, which is announcing its new stuff at Edge2013. The announcements cover Power, System x and PureSystem (which combines both platforms), Systems Networking and Fibre Channel SAN products and Technical Computing.
The vast majority (38) are of software or reference architectures, demonstrating the extent to which IBM is pursuing a workload-optimising approach. The hardware announcements include FC SAN and rack switches as well the Intelligent Cluster 13A and GPFS Storage Server from Technical Computing/System x. The sole services offering is the addition of a flexible warranty to the entry-level Power 710, but then again IBM introduced its Watson Engagement Advisor at the end of last month and included here for completeness.
Let us know if you’d like help in understanding what was announced and why and we’ll do our best to position them for you.
Martin, helpful as always…