Archive for the ‘IBM’ Category
IBM is its own open-source lab for social software
September 4th, 2009 | 
Author: Most vendors must guess what customers want to buy, and how they’ll use it. For IBM, however, with about 400,000 employees, it has the potential to be its own best laboratory, one that becomes even more potent when mixed with active participation in open-source communities.
That potential, as I discovered in an interview on Friday with Jeff Schick, IBM’s vice president of social software, isn’t a “gimme,” but is powerful if you can enable the right sort of corporate culture and processes.
For example, Schick mentioned that IBM has a technology adoption program for employees that spans the gamut of new products, add-ons and patches to existing products, and still-raw technologies direct from IBM’s labs. While the invitation list and process is different for each particular item, IBM generally encourages its product groups to “experiment” upon each other. The earlier in the development process, the better.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10345493-16.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
IBM launches cloud virtual-desktop service
IBM launched on Monday its Smart Business Desktop service, a combination of thin client computing, virtualization, and the cloud, which is claimed to be the “industry’s first public desktop cloud service.”
“Today more than ever, enterprises need an affordable, reliable, and efficient way to deploy and manage desktop infrastructures,” said Jan Jackman, vice president, IBM Global Technology Services. “The public desktop cloud service is designed to help bring cost savings, flexibility, scalability, and security to clients like never before.”
The service will be available to businesses in Europe and North America in October, the company said.
According to IBM, companies will need minimal hardware to use the service. “All that’s needed is a machine–a thin client or PC–capable of running an Internet browser and Java. Users simply log on over a secure connection through the Internet,” the company said.
The new desktop service is part of a wider strategy around desktop virtualization as a potential alternative to buying new hardware, IBM said. “Through key technology and business partnerships with Citrix, Desktone, VMware, and Wyse, along with IBM tools for customer assessment and strategic planning, IBM is helping clients address PC replacement dilemmas.”
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10332030-92.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
New school year brings ‘Green IT’ college degree
Making data centers more energy efficient has been elevated to a college degree.
IBM on Wednesday said it has developed a two-year associates degree in “green data center management” in collaboration with the Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, Neb.
Existing technologies like virtualization can improve data center efficiently significantly. Emerging technologies such as this wireless sensor promise better control over equipment and facilities.
(Credit: Arch Rock)
Starting in December, students will learn how to design and manage data centers to run efficiently in what IBM says is the first college degree in the subject. Classes will be offered online to remote students as well.
The Environmental Protection Agency in 2007 estimated that data centers alone use about 1.5 percent of all electricity in the U.S. and are on a pace to double consumption in the coming years. With existing technologies, energy use could be cut by 25 percent, representing up to $4 billion in savings, the EPA found.
Because of financial and environmental concerns, more data center operators are taking steps to cut energy use, such as consolidating server workloads and upgrading cooling systems. Companies such as IBM, HP, and IT consulting companies have practices in designing facilities to be more efficient.
The green IT degree from IBM and Metropolitan Community College covers technologies for consolidating computing work loads, including virtualization, as well as security and disaster recovery. The course work also addresses the nuts and bolts of building and managing a facility, such as cabling and monitoring.
The data center where the class will be taught, which will be stocked with IBM servers, was funded by a $1.8 million Department of Labor grant.
Source :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10331256-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Posted in education, evironment, Green, IBM | 
Tags: college degree, education, Green IT, IBM, Metropolitan Community College | 
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High-end server chips breaking records
How would you like a single-chip microprocessor with more than four times the performance (on some applications) of Intel’s best Core i7?
Then consider that up to 32 of these chips can be directly connected to form a single server, achieving four times the built-in scalability of Intel’s next-generation Nehalem-EX processor.
That’s IBM’s widely anticipated Power7, which it described at last week’s Hot Chips conference. But if you’re interested, you’d better be prepared to spend a lot more than four times as much per chip. IBM isn’t talking about pricing, but large Power servers can cost more than $10,000 per processor.
IBM’s forthcoming Power7 server processor has eight cores, manages 32 threads, and includes 32MB of on-chip embedded DRAM cache. Power7 also has the highest levels of off-chip bandwidth ever achieved by a microprocessor.
