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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / JULY 14, 2003; VOL. 2 NO. 28
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Systems/Enterprise:
NEW IBM SOFTWARE COMBINES
WEBSPHERE + LINUX + POWER4 CHIP
IBM announced it is bringing together three key technologies -- WebSphere
Internet infrastructure software, the Linux open source operating system, and
the advanced POWER4 microprocessor -- to help companies improve IT
performance while containing costs.
For the first time, IBM's market-leading WebSphere Application Server will
support IBM eServer pSeries and iSeries machines running both Linux and
IBM's POWER4 chip, which recently set a new world record for transaction
processing.
As more banks, retailers, manufacturers, government agencies and others
turn
to Linux as a reliable environment for critical applications, they want to
complement and expand its use to more powerful servers able to handle large
workloads.
The combination of WebSphere (recently named by a top analyst firm the
best-
selling Web application platform), Linux (the world's fastest-growing server
operating system), and POWER4 (the first "server on a chip," containing two 1-
gigahertz-plus processors and other innovations) creates a platform for
extending complex Web-based applications across enterprises with levels of
performance, openness and cost-effectiveness unmatched by competitors.
Another benefit for customers is that current Java-based applications
running
on top of WebSphere Application Server will easily run on the new Power4
architecture running Linux.
WebSphere + Linux + POWER4 will become available in an updated version of
WebSphere Application Server -- Version 5.02 -- and on IBM eServer pSeries and
iSeries servers starting on July 15.
IBM also announced that the WebSphere software will be included in a new
offering from IBM Global Financing that allows qualified customers in the
United States and Canada to defer payments until January 2004 at no charge or
choose special low financing rates.
The program applies to all IBM Software products that are purchased on a
one-
time charge basis. Contracts in the US must be signed by Sept. 30, and by
Sept. 15 in Canada.
"The new WebSphere software advances IBM's distinction as the only company
that can support customers' use of Linux across every major server platform,"
said Tom Inman, vice president, IBM WebSphere Foundation and Tools. "This is
important as customers increasingly see what a reliable, cost-effective
environment Linux is and increasingly adopt it up the server chain for
mission-critical applications."
The combination of WebSphere and Linux gives medium and large-size
companies
a
highly reliable, open-standards-based platform for extending Linux-based
applications across an IT infrastructure -- to run on Intel processor-based
servers; more robust POWER4 servers such as pSeries and iSeries; all the way
up to the zSeries mainframe.
With Linux and WebSphere, customers can enjoy the flexibility of using
applications across the enterprise on multiple server platforms and chip
architectures as business needs dictate. Conversely, Microsoft Windows
applications can only run on Intel-based servers.
IBM's POWER4 microprocessors offer industry-leading performance with as few
as
half the microprocessors of competing systems. Running Linux on POWER4 enables
administrators to take advantage of the wealth of applications available for
Linux while leveraging the considerable performance and scalability of an
enterprise-level environment.
On June 30, IBM announced a new world record for transaction processing. An
IBM eServer pSeries system, IBM TotalStorage FAStT900 and DB2 Universal
Database used half the number of processors at a lower transaction processing
cost to beat HP's new Itanium 2 processor-based Superdome.
According to the Transaction Processing Performance Council's TPC-C
benchmark,
an IBM eServer p690 with 32 POWER4+ processors running AIX 51, the industry's
fastest growing UNIX operating system, and DB2 Universal Database delivered
763,898.39 transactions per minute (tpmC) at a cost of $8.31/tpmC. IBM ousted
an Itanium 2 system from the top spot that used twice the number of
processors. HP had previously recorded 707,102 tpmC at a cost of
$8.44/tpmC.
IBM also delivers DB2 database and Tivoli security software that support
the
Power4 chip running on Linux.
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