More companies are relying on business applications designed for their industry and tuned for specific business needs. Localization is key to business success for both multinational and regional companies. Interactions with clients, supply chain partners and other departments must be in the...
IBM Systems and Technology Solution Brief Power Systems IBM PowerLinux Industry Application Solution Editions Optimized business solutions from IBM, OEMs, ISVs and SIs Highlights ●● ●● Deliver industry-specific services faster with IBM® PowerLinux™ workload optimized solutions ●● ●● Apply trusted IBM and local expertise in business and technology to help create value in your organization ●● ●● Exploit resiliency and security provided by POWER7® and PowerVM® for critical industry applications ●● ●● Simplify operations and lower acquisition costs More companies are relying on business applications designed for their industry and tuned for specific business needs. Localization is key to busi- ness success for both multi-national and regional companies. Interactions with clients, supply chain partners and other departments must be in the native language, use the local currency, and adhere to country-specific regulations. Large global software houses provide localized applications for most every size operation. For midsize businesses, the optimal IT solutions are often industry-specific applications from regional software providers and systems integrators. Platform selection is typically determined by the combination of what the firm has used in the past and the software architect’s hardware recom- mendation. This can result in inefficient use of server and system software resources. IBM has teamed with global and regional software providers to deliver localized industry solutions designed to maximize the return on invest- ment of the total solution, with built-in efficiency and simplicity. IBM PowerLinux Industry Application Solution Editions are complete systems, optimized by leading global and regional independent software vendors (ISVs), original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and systems integrators (SIs) in partnership with IBM.
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IBM Systems and TechnologySolution Brief
Power Systems
IBM PowerLinux Industry Application Solution Editions Optimized business solutions from IBM, OEMs, ISVs and SIs
with IBM® PowerLinux™ workload optimized solutions
●● ● ●Apply trusted IBM and local expertise in business and technology to help create value in your organization
●● ● ●Exploit resiliency and security provided by POWER7® and PowerVM® for critical industry applications
●● ● ●Simplify operations and lower acquisition costs
More companies are relying on business applications designed for their industry and tuned for specific business needs. Localization is key to busi-ness success for both multi-national and regional companies. Interactions with clients, supply chain partners and other departments must be in the native language, use the local currency, and adhere to country-specific regulations. Large global software houses provide localized applications for most every size operation. For midsize businesses, the optimal IT solutions are often industry-specific applications from regional software providers and systems integrators.
Platform selection is typically determined by the combination of what the firm has used in the past and the software architect’s hardware recom-mendation. This can result in inefficient use of server and system software resources.
IBM has teamed with global and regional software providers to deliver localized industry solutions designed to maximize the return on invest-ment of the total solution, with built-in efficiency and simplicity.
IBM PowerLinux Industry Application Solution Editions are complete systems, optimized by leading global and regional independent software vendors (ISVs), original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and systems integrators (SIs) in partnership with IBM.
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Built on POWER7 technology, and leveraging IBM experience in Linux and virtualization, these workload-optimized systems help midsize IT organizations focus on delivering the applica-tions’ business value rather than managing the system environment.
Faster time to valueIBM PowerLinux technology provides a feature-rich and resilient stack that is optimized for data-intensive industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, government and research and development. Industry Application Solutions Editions leverage this foundation to help companies realize the solution value more quickly through
●● ● pre-integration, testing and optimization of the complete hardware and software stack
●● ● server landscape simplification via exploitation of IBM PowerVM for IBM PowerLinux virtualization
●● ● rapid high quality implementation by industry and IT skilled OEMs and cohesive teams of IBM Business Partners
IBM provides Industry Application Solution software providers with rich enablement and optimization support to help them, in turn, provide well-tuned solutions to clients. This support includes tools, programs and personal assistance. For example, IBM optimizing compilers and the IBM Advance Toolchain for PowerLinux are key performance improving technologies. The IBM Chiphopper™ offering helps ISVs build their applications to open Linux standards creating a single source code tree for better portability and customer support.
Systems integrators may build custom solutions for particular industries and markets. For example, RAMEC-VS provides a system optimized for the Russian market, including the IBM PowerLinux 7R2 rack server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, IBM PowerVM for IBM PowerLinux, IBM DB2® Universal Database, and several local ISV applications.
Simplified server configurations for an industry solution can be achieved through full exploitation of IBM PowerVM—often to a single server. A PowerLinux server can support to up to 160 virtual machines with near linear virtual machine scaling. Studies show that the the greater the number of virtual machines used, the more throughput can be obtained1. The system resources including processors, memory, I/O and network adapters can all be virtualized. PowerVM’s dynamic resource management can add and remove them from running virtual machines as each workload’s demands f luctuate. This allows workloads small and large, compute and I/O intensive, transactional and batch, to co-exist on a single server with each being allocated exactly the resources it needs, when it needs them. A single server environment can be quickly and easily deployed and managed.
The IBM PowerLinux Solution Edition for SAP Applications is an example of a simple, single server environment for midsize companies. Supporting up to 500 SAP ERP users, the virtualized solution can be configured with virtual machines supporting a multi-tier SAP ERP landscape:
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●● ● SAP ERP production environment●● ● SAP ERP development environment●● ● IBM DB2 database software●● ● SAP Solution Monitor
PowerLinux Industry Application Solution Editions are delivered by skilled solution providers which help bring the solutions’ value to the business quickly with IBM assistance.
●● ● Optional RHEL or SLES operating system factory pre-load●● ● IBM Installation Toolkit for PowerLinux for fast installation
and optimized default configuration parameters●● ● PowerVM Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM) to sim-
plify virtual machine creation and management—a browser-based tool designed specifically for midsize businesses.
●● ● Classroom and online technical education, and how-to guides on PowerLinux architecture, PowerVM, and solution architecture, sizing, implementation and tuning.
Most of the tools and services are available at no additional charge to client staffs which choose to deploy the solutions in-house.
Superior economicsThe IBM PowerLinux platform helps lower total solution costs in several ways. In addition to low purchase prices on high-value servers, virtualization software and operating system support, PowerLinux-based solutions can drive more through-put with less overhead than x86 servers running VMware. Fewer servers are required to support the same workloads, whether they require a virtually consolidated or scale-out configuration. Fewer system administrators and management tool licenses are needed to manage fewer servers. With fewer servers comes additional savings on power, cooling, per-socket software licenses, cabling, networking – and a less complex IT environment.
POWER7 processors provide the foundation for designing optimized systems in conjunction with software and expert domain knowledge. POWER7 workload-optimizing technolo-gies such as Intelligent Threads enable PowerLinux solutions to execute faster than on x86 based systems. With up to four Intelligent Threads per core—x86 processors only have two “non-intelligent” ones—the technology dynamically switches the processor threading mode to deliver optimal performance for different workloads. Emerging applications such as big data analytics are scale-out, thread intensive workloads and software providers like Fixstars in Japan are taking notice. With PowerLinux servers, Fixstars clients can gain new industry- specific insights faster to help outpace their competition.
The initial Fixstars Hadoop big data appliances will be optimized for the medical, manufacturing and finance industries for small to mid size organizations. Each solution will consist of 3 - 5 PowerLinux 7R2s in a single clustered configuration.
—Owen Stampflee, Linux Product Manager, Fixstars
PowerVM efficiencies contribute to acquisition savings for Industry Application Solution Edition clients. The unique capabilities of PowerVM enable clients to achieve extremely high levels of sustained utilization—80 percent to 90 percent in some cases—for more throughput on fewer servers compared to x86 servers with VMware. A recent study shows the IBM PureFlex system with POWER7 processor-based
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compute nodes running Linux and PowerVM delivers 72 percent higher throughput performance than VMware vSphere v5 on x86, running the same workloads on Linux across virtualized resources.2
Incremental throughput is also achieved through the use of the IBM Advance Toolchain for GNU compilers and tools, Post-Link Optimization and IBM Compilers for Power Systems™ servers—all designed to exploit IBM Power Architecture®. The more efficient the pathways through the code and linked programs, the greater performance and throughput can be attained, freeing cycles for additional workloads. A leading regional Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solution provider to the Italian market, Zucchetti Group’s testing has shown excellent performance on applications for accountants, employment consultants and associations and on their HR and ERP solutions for enterprises.
The new IBM [PowerLinux] machines produce a performance improvement of at least 40 percent compared to Linux machines based on Intel x86 and represent an ideal tool to assure continuity over time, supporting the needs of development and growth of applications without the need for further investments.
—Alberto Cazzulani, HR Business Unit Technologies & Services Manager, Zucchetti Group
Less downtimePowerLinux Industry Solution Editions take advantage of Linux and potentially open source infrastructure services such as the LAMP stack—Linux, the Apache web server, MySQL relational database server, and PHP/Perl/Python scripting languages. Through the IBM Linux Technology Center, IBM brings decades of experience in mission-critical systems and RAS, virtualization and emerging industry capabilities to Linux and open source software, bettering Linux for all. IBM is consistently among the top commercial contributors of Linux code as measured regularly by The Linux Foundation’s “Who writes Linux” series3. Linux continues to be a fundamental component of IBM business—embedded deeply in hardware, software, services and internal deployment.
A totally integrated approach to the design, development, and testing of every PowerLinux server ensures the resiliency required for today’s industry solutions. All POWER7 server models include innovative reliability, availability and serviceabil-ity (RAS) features that help avoid unplanned downtime. IBM RAS engineers optimize server design to help ensure that IBM PowerLinux servers support high levels of concurrent error detection, fault isolation, recovery, and availability. High availability software solutions from IBM Tivoli and SUSE complement the inherent hardware reliability.
RAS is an imperative to the healthcare industry. IBM Watson is an optimized system comprised of 90 POWER7 based servers running Linux4. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and IBM have agreed to collaborate on the development of a pow-erful tool built upon IBM Watson in order to provide medical professionals with improved access to current and comprehen-sive cancer data and practices. The resulting decision support tool will help doctors everywhere create individualized cancer diagnostic and treatment recommendations for their patients based on current evidence.5 The ability to use Watson to
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answer complex questions posed in natural language with speed, accuracy and confidence has enormous potential to improve decision making across a variety of industries from health care, to retail, telecommunications and financial services.
IBM PowerLinux serversPowerLinux Industry Application Solution Editions are built on world-class IBM PowerLinux servers equipped with two sockets and up to 16 cores, running the Linux operating system. These value-priced servers have been designed to go head-to-head with x86 servers on cost, while delivering greater performance, higher utilization, and superior availability. PowerLinux servers enable organizations to realize higher value from their solution deployment.
The IBM PowerLinux 7R2 server is a two-socket server offering with 16 POWER7 cores in a dense, 2U rack-optimized form factor. It is a high-performance, energy-efficient and reliable server fueled by the outstanding performance of the POWER7 processor supporting a choice of Linux operating systems from Red Hat or SUSE. Combined with
industrial-strength PowerVM for PowerLinux and unique workload optimizations, the PowerLinux 7R2 is the ideal server foundation for tuned to the task solutions for analytics, infrastructure and industry applications.
The IBM PureFlex System combines compute, storage, networking, virtualization and management into a single infrastructure system that is expert at sensing and anticipating resource needs to optimize IT infrastructures. The IBM Flex System™ p24L Compute Node is a 12-core or 16-core POWER7 based server architected for virtualization, performance and extraordinary efficiency. The compute node supports Linux operating environments and is designed to run a wide variety of workloads in a PureFlex System.
IBM PowerVM for IBM PowerLinuxThe IBM PowerLinux family of servers is optimized for scale-out Linux computing, maximizing f lexibility and reliability when compared to traditional Linux servers. With these servers and IBM PowerVM virtualization, an organization can more efficiently virtualize all server resources and reduce server sprawl by driving higher utilization per core and more through-put per server. This efficiency results in significantly reduced costs, with improved service levels and security. IBM PowerVM for IBM PowerLinux provides the industrial strength virtualiza-tion solution for IBM PowerLinux servers—offering more capabilities at lower prices than VMware vSphere v5.
Why IBM?IBM embeds domain knowledge learned in over 100 years of experience as a world’s premier information technology com-pany, into PowerLinux offerings. The Linux user community at large recognizes the enterprise-class value IBM brings to Linux and Linux servers such as PowerLinux—and bringing that value to companies of all sizes. We’re proud that in December 2011 readers of the Linux Journal selected IBM as the winner in the “Best Linux Server Vendor” category in the Journal’s 2011 Readers’ Choice Awards.6
IBM’s deep understanding of clients’ business challenges and emerging opportunities across multiple industries, has earned us the honor of being a trusted partner to global and regional industry application providers around the world. With presence in 208 countries, clients and industry software firms alike bene-fit from global fulfillment of hardware and systems software, as well as renowned IBM services and support.
IBM facilitates OEM business relationships through programs that bring together IBM Business Partners with industry solu-tion providers. This program helps them develop integrated products and solutions based on IBM technologies such as PowerLinux and bring these solutions to market quickly and cost-effectively. The established IBM Business Partner ecosystem is ready and trained to help size and implement the PowerLinux foundational aspects of the solution, allowing the industry solution provider’s experts to customize the application and train end users to meet requirements of your business.
For more informationTo learn more about IBM PowerLinux Industry Application Solution Editions, please contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit the following website: ibm.com/power/powerlinux
Additionally, IBM Global Financing can help you acquire the IT solutions that your business needs in the most cost-effective and strategic way possible. We’ll partner with credit-qualified clients to customize an IT financing solution to suit your busi-ness goals, enable effective cash management, and improve your total cost of ownership. IBM Global Financing is your smartest choice to fund critical IT investments and propel your business forward. For more information, visit: ibm.com/financing
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Produced in the United States of America April 2012
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, POWER7, PowerVM, Power Systems, and PowerLinux are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries or both. If these and other IBM trademarked terms are marked on their first occurrence in this information with a trademark symbol (® or ™), these symbols indicate U.S. registered or common law trademarks owned by IBM at the time this information was published. Such trademarks may also be registered or common law trademarks in other countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the web at “Copyright and trademark information” at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml
PowerLinux uses the registered trademark Linux pursuant to a sublicense from LMI, the exclusive licensee of Linus Torvalds, owner of the Linux mark on a world-wide basis.”
Other company, product or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.
1 “IBM PowerVM Virtualization Technology on IBM POWER7 Systems”, January, 2012. ibm.com/systems/power/software/linux/powerlinux/claims.html
2 “Virtualization Performance on the IBM PureFlex System”, April 2012. ibm.com/systems/power/software/linux/powerlinux/claims.html
3 “Linux Kernel Development: How fast it is going, who is doing it, what they are doing, and who is sponsoring it”, March 2012. http://go.linuxfoundation.org/e/6342/ho-writes-linux-2012/879kf/221839922
4 “System Administration of the IBM Watson Supercomputer”, April 2012. http://www.linuxjournal.com
5 Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, IBM to Collaborate in Applying Watson Technology to Help Oncologists, March 22, 2012. ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/37235.wss
6 Linux Journal 2011 Reader’s Choice Awards, “Best Linux Server Vendor”, December 1, 2011. ibm.com/linux/award.html
