At a time when one analyst says many vendors are moving towards utility and grid computing, IBM Canada Ltd. has released another component in its push to integrate its On Demand strategy.
IBM on Monday released two new IBM eServer business continuity offerings, the iSeries for Capacity Backup and the iSeries for High Availability Server.
The company’s On Demand strategy gives users the ability to tap into extra computing capacity and infrastructure to support business demands as they arise.
The offerings target small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), as well as customers that are looking for capacity back-up and high-availability solutions to protect their business data, IBM Canada said in a statement. It’s also a way for SMBs to be able to opt into high-end servers without incurring the higher expense.
The iSeries for Capacity Backup is designed to meet the needs of customers looking for an off-site, disaster recovery server and features on/off capacity on demand – allowing customers to designate a minimum set of active processors to better use their server. Standby processors can also be activated, the company said.
The iSeries for High Availability server works to help customers minimize planned and unplanned downtime.
In terms of overall strategy for IBM, Toronto-based Alan Freedman, research manager, infrastructure hardware at IDC Canada Ltd. said most vendors are moving toward utility and on demand computing. They are also focusing more on what used to be just storage-related topics such as back-up, disaster recovery and downtime.
Pricing for both the iSeries for Capacity Backup and iSeries for High Availability server depends on the configuration of the machines, and each server offering is available as specially configured i825, i870 or i890 servers. They also support Linux, Java, Windows and ported UNIX applications.
IBM Canada can be found at www.ibm.ca.