IBM Power Systems Enhances Hybrid Cloud Capabilities with Red Hat
New pre-configured private cloud platform, innovative cloud-consumption payment model, and more Red Hat software now supported on IBM Power Virtual Servers
Today's announcements include:
- Expanded Red Hat Capabilities on IBM Power Systems – IBM Power Systems now features Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Power Virtual Server leveraging OpenShift's baremetal installeri, Red Hat Runtimes, and newly certified Red Hat Ansible Content Collections.
- New IBM Power Private Cloud Rack Solution – Providing clients an optimized, production-level OpenShift platform to modernize traditional environments with cloud-native applications, the IBM Power Private Cloud Rack combines on-premises hardware, a complete software stack of IBM and Red Hat technology, and installation from IBM Systems Lab Services to deliver 49% lower cost per request as compared to similarly equipped x86-based platformsii.
- Extended Dynamic Capacity – Enhancements to IBM Power System's dynamic capacity to quickly scale compute capacity across the hybrid cloud on Linux, IBM i, and AIX.
"Twelve months ago, IT practitioners faced a vastly different landscape before the world was transformed by the global COVID-19 pandemic," said General Manager of IBM Cognitive Systems Stephen Leonard. "But despite the challenges, they recognize that a hybrid cloud approach can offer 2.5x the value derived from a single public cloud, as measured by an IBM internal, assessment by IBM's Institute of Business Valueiii. IBM Power Systems, along with the greater IBM and Red Hat portfolio, plays a critical role in this transition to hybrid environments."
IBM Power Systems and Red Hat Drive Client Success with Hybrid Cloud
Shree Cement Ltd., one of India's largest cement producers with nearly $2 billion in revenue last year, has selected IBM POWER9-based IBM Power Systems to run a combination of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and AIX to help them modernize their IT infrastructure with hybrid cloud. When Shree Cement needed to streamline their supply chain while also increasing its computing capacity, they knew they needed to refresh their existing x86-based infrastructure.
"We were in the midst of technology modernization and were looking for a dependable IT Infrastructure support that could deliver 24/7 capabilities and integrate the operations, logistics, resources, export-import supply chain," said Manoranjan Kumar, Chief Information Officer, Shree Cement Ltd. "The two operating systems on IBM Power Systems, namely IBM AIX and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, helped us move away from vertical business silo approach. This allows us to operate horizontally across the company to bring in synergy amongst multiple manufacturing plants to drive business results and ensure business continuity even during the migrations."
Shree wanted to build around an infrastructure that would allow them to scale with future business expansion while maximizing the utility of their hardware, and by creating an IT infrastructure built around Red Hat on IBM Power Systems, Shree Cement has laid a foundation that positions them to capitalize on the expanding hybrid cloud capabilities from IBM Power Systems and Red Hat, such as:
Simplified Deployment and Management of Hybrid Cloud
To help clients not only deploy a hybrid cloud, but also scale with agility to respond to spikes in demand, IBM is announcing two new technologies designed to bring simplicity to hybrid cloud deployment and management:
"IBM's latest expanded support of their hybrid cloud and application modernization initiatives will help enable our customers to easily attain the efficiencies and flexibility of combining on-premises and cloud solutions using the latest open source and tooling," said Jim Dixon, Vice President, Software & IBM Power Systems at Mainline Information Systems. "Availability of hybrid cloud credits along with new appliance-like options of hardware and Red Hat software, including Red Hat OpenShift to provide consistency between on-premises IBM Power Systems and off-premises clouds, can offer ease of entry into this new and important IT paradigm."
IBM IT Infrastructure Continues to Evolve for Hybrid Cloud
Later this year, the next generation of the IBM Power Systems servers based on IBM POWER10 processor, which was built from the ground up for hybrid cloud, will debut. In addition, later this year the next generation for the AIX operating system, version 7.3, is expected to continue the legacy of innovation with enhanced capabilities that deliver the resiliency, security, and scale needed for the hybrid cloud.
To round out a hybrid cloud ready infrastructure, IBM Storage recently announced new entry-level IBM FlashSystem models with comprehensive container support as well as support for Red Hat OpenShift and Ansible Automation Platform, while IBM Z and IBM Power Systems also announced new hybrid cloud container offerings for IBM Z across Red Hat OpenShift and IBM Cloud Paks.
Statements regarding IBM's future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.
For more information on IBM, please visit http://www.ibm.com.
For more information on IBM IT Infrastructure, please visit https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure.
i Red Hat Knowledge Base article, "Deploying OpenShift 4.x on non-tested platforms using the bare metal install method – https://access.redhat.com/articles/4207611 .
ii This is an IBM internal study designed to replicate multi-tier banking OLTP workload usage in the marketplace of an IBM E950 (40-core Model 9040-MR9) with a total of 1 TB memory extrapolated (based on IDC QPI performance metric) to 60 cores running on 3 nodes of IBM S922 (20-core Model 9009-22G) with a total of 768 GB memory. The OpenShift cluster consisted of three master nodes and two worker nodes using OpenShift version 4.5.5 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) for IBM Power across five PowerVM LPARs. A sixth PowerVM LPAR on the system ran the OpenShift load balancer. SMT8 mode was enabled across all Power LPARs. Results are based on an extrapolation to 3 servers from an an x86 cluster configuration comprised of two servers running VMware ESXi 6.7 with eight VM guests (three masters, four workers, and one load balancer) using OpenShift version 4.5.6. Each worker node guest had access to all vCPUs on the physical server on which it was running. Compared x86 models for the cluster were 2-socket Cascade Lake servers containing 48 cores and 512 GB each for a total of 96 cores and 1 TB of memory. Both environments used JMeter to drive maximum throughput against four OLTP workload instances using a total of 500 JMeter threads. The results were obtained under laboratory conditions, not in an actual customer environment. IBM's internal workload studies are not benchmark applications. Prices, where applicable, are based on U.S. prices as of 02/15/2021 from our website and x86 hardware pricing is based on IBM analysis of U.S. prices as of 09/20/2020 from IDC. Price comparison is based on a 3-year total cost of ownership including HW, SW, networking, floor space, people, energy/cooling costs and three years of service & support for production and non-production (dev, test and high availability) environments.
iii Based on IBM internal, cross-industry assessment
iv Number of downloads does not represent number of unique users
CONTACT: Sam Ponedal, IBM Media Relations, [email protected]
SOURCE IBM
