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IBM Touts Linux Strategy with New Virt, SuSE, Supercomputer Intiatives
8/8/2008
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IBM made several announcements Tuesday at the annual LinuxWorld conference, introducing a new series of products, services and initiatives that the company says will "further expand IBM's commitment to Linux and open source by enabling the next generation of Linux."
Big Blue's list of revelations includes plans to release its first open source software contribution for supercomputers based on Linux; a new ISV software appliance toolkit; plans to pre-load Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 in its Lotus Foundations product; an expansion of its real-time Linux initiative; and the introduction of a new version of z/VM.
"We see the next real growth [in the Linux market] coming from five main directions," Inna Kuznetsova, director of Linux at IBM, told reporters during a LinuxWorld press conference. "These include Big Green Linux, Linux for business critical operations, Linux desktop, mid-market solutions and emerging technologies on Linux."
The new version of IBM's z/VM virtualization technology is central to its company-wide "Big Green Linux" initiative, Kuznetscova said. Big Green Linux is a cross-company initiative within IBM that reviews the company's energy consumption. The new z/VM 5.4 is designed to permit users to run thousands of instances of Linux on the mainframe. Those running Linux on IBM's System z mainframes will be able to use the dynamic memory upgrade, which allows them to add memory in real time.
Thinking big, IBM is reaching out to supercomputer users with its HPC Open Software Stack, its first certified package of Linux-based OSS for those machines. The stack is designed to create clusters of servers that together form a single, super-fast system. IBM claims such a system is both more productive and easier to manage. The company is including its Extreme Cluster Administration Toolkit (xCAT) in the stack; it will be available through a software repository hosted by the University of Illinois's National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
Thinking small, the company is set to help ISVs deliver Linux-based software appliances to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with a new ISV software appliance toolkit. The company defines software appliance as a "ready-to-use, fully integration solution that can be delivered on DVDs or USB drives." The idea is to reduce the level of IT skill required to deploy the solution; IBM claims few as one-to-five clicks to install.
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