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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / JULY 7, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 27
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Systems/Enterprise:
IBM FLIPS THE SWITCH ON DEEP
COMPUTING ON DEMAND
IBM ushers in the era of deep computing on demand with the start up of its
first facility designed to deliver supercomputing power to customers over the
Internet, helping to free them from the fixed costs and management
responsibility of owning a supercomputer. Additional facilities are planned
nationally and internationally.
IBM's deep computing on demand will offer scalable, highly secure systems
that customers can access via a VPN connection over the Internet.
One of the first expected to use deep computing on demand is GX Technology
Corporation, which produces high resolution subsurface images from large
volumes of seismic data. These subsurface images provide vital information
to petroleum exploration companies in their search for new oil and natural
gas deposits. The service is expected to help enable the Houston-based
company to expand the scope and the number of projects it can effectively
handle around the world.
"With dry hole costs in the range of $5 million to $60 million each,
companies exploring for oil and gas reserves use our high resolution
subsurface images to significantly reduce their drilling risk. Shortening
project cycle times allows our clients to gain a significant additional
benefit from our services," said Mick Lambert, president and CEO, GX
Technology. "IBM's deep computing on demand gives us the power to
dramatically reduce project cycle times and increase our project capacity,
while reducing infrastructure and operating costs."
With deep computing on demand customers can:
- help avoid large IT capital outlays and long term depreciation or
lease schedules -- this is especially important for companies with
short term projects
- bring to bear, on a temporary basis, massive amounts of compute power
that could be otherwise unaffordable and which helps provide
strategic insight
- help lower overall operating costs
- help improve price/performance for compute-intensive applications and
processing of massive amounts of data
- off-load certain system maintenance to IBM
- use the latest technologies to help maximize performance
- meet the urgent computational needs of new business opportunities
that could otherwise be cost-prohibitive
The new deep computing on demand facility is located in a highly secure
section of IBM's Poughkeepsie, New York plant. Initially, the system
consists of a cluster of IBM eServer xSeries Intel-based Linux systems with
related disk storage, and is planned to include pSeries UNIX servers.
Designed for scalability to meet increased demand, the deep computing on
demand facility is also planned to incorporate a variety of blade
technologies and AMD technologies over time.
The service is expected to find favor with a broad spectrum of companies
that have peaks and valleys in their need for supercomputing power. These
can include Hollywood studios that use supercomputing power to create
animated movies as well as life sciences companies for genomic and drug
discovery research. Financial services organizations, government agencies
and national research laboratories are also likely customers.
"The on demand computing model helps allow customers to avoid technological
risk as well as the financial risk associated with ownership," said David
Turek, vice president, IBM Deep Computing. "Deep computing on demand is
designed to fulfill those two goals, freeing customers to focus on growing
their business."
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