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When you scale right, you can mix and match Intel® architecture–based blades and rack servers. You can deploy powerful RISC servers based on the IBM® POWER™ architecture or even host hundreds of smaller servers on a single mainframe. IBM storage systems support all of these types of servers, providing shared access to enterprise data. When you choose the best mix of technologies to handle each workload, you are indeed optimizing the return on your IT investment.
Why IBM?
Unlike Dell, Sun and HP, only IBM provides a full range of open platforms that help you scale right, in the right way. And IBM platforms are centrally managed by uniform systems management software that can also incorporate legacy systems from other vendors.
And with its unparalleled industryspecific expertise, IBM can help you transform IT in ways that have a far-reaching effect on your enterprise. By taking a comprehensive view of IT operations, IBM can help you turn your IT infrastructure into an agile operation that truly delivers strategic advantages to your enterprise.
Four key benefits of scaling right with IBM are:
- Managing growth effectively by migrating to a flexible IT environment that can scale as your business grows and provide the performance you need, when you need it
- Reducing complexity to enhance staff productivity and mitigate risk
- Ensuring a resilient infrastructure that helps boost the ability of IT to support strategic business initiatives
- Addressing critical requirements for high availability, disaster recovery, security and service management Pick the best solution from a portfolio of options
Scaling right means pairing your applications with the infrastructure that can best support that workload. It is akin to using the right tool to get the job done. To maximize the return from your work efforts, consider including storage as well as servers into your consolidation plans. Large servers that host many virtual machines can help you scale up, giving you benefits such as reduced equipment needs, streamlined administration and reduced footprint and power consumption. But if scaling out is your goal, consider hosting the application on space-and energyefficient blade servers.
Scaling right—employing the best servers for the job—does not imply added complexity from having several types of servers in the data center. In fact, just the opposite can be true when you use IBM Director software, a uniform management platform designed to manage multiple IBM servers as well as legacy HP, Sun and Dell systems. Thus, the IBM scale-right approach offers simplified systems management and greater automation of administrative tasks. Freed from spending time on routine maintenance, your IT staff can focus more on projects that are truly strategic to your business.
Optimize your success by choosing a vendor that offers a complete solution When you decide to explore a scaleright initiative, you can optimize the speed and success of the projects by working with IBM. The IBM Systems family includes the industry’s most scalable portfolio of server and storage systems—an integrated product line that can match a broad range of application and data requirements.
Respond to growth with a flexible IT environment that can scale as needs change
Because IBM offers a broad range of scalable servers and storage systems, you have access to the best array of choices that can flex as your needs change—on a quarterly, monthly or even immediate basis. IBM Systems include some of the highest-performing servers in the world. And the modular and cost-efficient scale-up servers within the IBM System p™ and high-end IBM System x™ product lines support UNIX®, Linux® and Microsoft Windows® operating systems. Only IBM Systems deliver the flexible and highly scalable capacity, speed and mixed workload throughput to support the world’s largest, most complex workloads.
Blade servers offer an attractive scaleout form factor for many applications. The IBM BladeCenter® family includes both RISC and x86-based blades, which allow you to consolidate UNIX, Linux and Microsoft Windows systems together under a common IBM BladeCenter infrastructure (including power, cabling, network interfaces and SAN interfaces). In other cases, large 8-way x86-based rack servers, such System x, can provide your company with a more attractive total cost of ownership than blade servers because the rack servers have the ability to host large numbers of virtual machines.
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