IBM rolls out integrated systems to automate most management, updating jobs
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IBM's new line of products is designed as an integrated package from the beginning, which is intended to eliminate time and money wasted on operations and maintenance.
IBM has rolled out a new family of integrated business systems designed to take much of the work out of creating and managing enterprisewide networks and the applications that run on them.
Part of a $2 billion research and development and acquisition effort over the past four years, the company’s PureSystems is an effort to bring all of its physical and virtual IT elements into one integrated system.
Organizations can spend up to 70 percent or more of their IT budgets on basic operations and maintenance costs, which leaves little financial room for investing in new technologies or processes, IBM officials said. A recent IBM study indicated that almost two-thirds of corporate IT projects are delivered over budget and behind schedule. The study also found that only one-fifth of private-sector IT departments can spend the majority of their IT budgets on innovation, company officials said.
The PureSystems family of products is designed to provide three major ways to cut IT management costs:
- “Scale-in” system design. The process integrates servers, storage and networking into an automated system — doubling the computing power per square foot of data center space. The scale-in design is intended to provide increased density, allowing the entire enterprise system to handle twice as many applications as other IBM systems, company officials said.
- Patterns of expertise. IBM is embedding technology and expertise in software that allows the system to manage basic, time-consuming jobs such as configuration, upgrades and application requirements.
- Cloud-ready integration. Company officials say the PureSystems family of products is designed for the cloud, allowing organizations to quickly create private, self-service cloud applications that can automatically scale up or down as required.
The first two products in the PureSystems line, PureFlex System and PureApplication System, begin shipping this quarter.