Cloud and Data and Security, Oh My

Cloud Ready. Data Ready. Security Ready. With outstanding performance.

Important themes for the Smarter Computing announcements today.

The new offerings include:
1) the most powerful enterprise Power Systems to date, POWER7+ systems,
2) a new high-end disk storage system, the DS8870, and
3) key software for the IBM zEnterprise EC12.

• Read the press release.
• Analyze the new POWER7+ #1 Benchmarks on the Power 770 and Power 780 — Java, SAP, and High Performance Computing.
• Peruse the Power Systems performance report with new rPerf data.
• Take a look at the brand new #1 DS8870 SPC-2 storage benchmark.(1)

These new technologies are designed to help organizations improve security, take advantage of cloud computing, and manage and analyze the vast amounts of big data in our world today.

************************************************

(1) ) Storage Performance Council, “SPC Benchmark 2™ Full Disclosure Report IBM Corporation, IBM System Storage DS8870,” October 2012. Source: http://www.storageperformance.org/results/benchmark_results_spc2. SPC Benchmark-1 and SPC Benchmark-2 are trademarks of the Storage Performance Council.

SAP and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

technorati tags: IBM, systems, performance,POWER7+,770,780,Power,DS8870,benchmark,EC12,zEnterprise,SPC-2,SPEC,SPECjbb2005,SPECint,SPECfp,SPECompL,SAP,Linpack,benchmarking

Oracle Finally Sees the “Smarter” Light

OK, I admit it. I took a break from watching benchmarks last night to watch the musical soap opera Glee on TV. But seriously, I really hardly ever watch it. And only when Idina Menzel is on.

In addition to the wonderfully corny mashups of songs by various artists such as Van Halen and Hall & Oates, Glee always has to impart a message. Be yourself. Do the right thing. Be careful of that crush on your math teacher.

Last night the message was to stay the high ground and don’t insult anyone. Be positive.

For many weeks now, Oracle has had a prominent advertisement published that among other things disses “Building planets” and the groundbreaking IBM concept of “Smarter Planet.” In reality Smarter Planet has proven to be absolutely innovative and terribly successful in the application of IT to advance systems and solve the world’s challenges. Whether they be transportation, energy, water, cities, healthcare, whatever.

The latest application is a smarter supercomputer that can do trivial things such as predicting the path of hurricanes, analyzing the ocean floor, and decoding gene sequences.

So I have to say that I was surprised this morning when I saw Oracle’s latest press release on CIOs and the future. The headline clearly touts the “Smarter Use of IT.”

I guess that someone in Oracle didn’t get the email. I can see it now: We know that making IT smarter for business applications is imperative and you may just be tempted to mention it. But please remember that we are currently insulting IBM’s use of it in our ad in the Wall Street Journal.

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones at pots calling the kettle black. What’s your mashup?

************************************************

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

technorati tags: IBM, systems, performance, smarter, planet,Oracle,Glee,mashup,CIO,IT,benchmark,benchmarking

Performance and Capacity Implications for a Smarter Planet

IBM uses the phrase “Smarter Planet” to describe its vision for the future, in which the world’s systems become increasingly instrumented, interconnected and infused with intelligence in order to better manage the environments in which we work, play and live.

Real examples of current and emerging technologies are starting to enable “smarter” solutions for vital domains such as energy, transportation, food production, conservation, finance and healthcare. For such an ambitious vision to become reality, there are many technical challenges to address, among them being how to manage performance and capacity for the supporting IT systems.

This new Redpaper discusses performance and capacity implications of these solutions. It examines the Smarter Planet vision, the characteristics of these solutions (including those that make performance and capacity management particularly challenging), examples of addressing performance and capacity in a number of recent Smarter IT projects, recommendations from what has been learned thus far, and discussions of what the future may hold for these solutions.