ARMONK, N.Y., Feb. 23, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE:
IBM) announced availability of Red Hat software on IBM Power
Systems as well as new IBM Power Systems hardware. These
announcements further expand IBM Systems's commitment to help
clients modernize by empowering them with the latest technology
from Red Hat to develop cloud-native applications and deploy them
into hybrid cloud environments.
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:
- Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Power Virtual Server –
Recognizing that Red Hat OpenShift can be a critical part in
helping organizations build an agile hybrid cloud, the container
platform is now available on IBM Power Virtual Server leveraging
OpenShift's baremetal installeri. The IBM Power Virtual
Server is an enterprise Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering built
around IBM POWER9 and offering access to over 200 IBM Cloud
services. In addition, IBM Power Virtual Server clients can now run
leading business applications like SAP HANA in an IBM POWER9-based
cloud.
- Red Hat Runtimes on IBM Power Systems – To help
organizations and developers create cloud-native applications, Red
Hat Runtimes is now supported on IBM Power Systems. Red Hat
Runtimes is a set of products, tools and components designed to
develop and maintain cloud-native applications. Now, developers
looking to create cloud-native applications on IBM Power Systems
have access to leading open source frameworks and runtimes that
provide a single development experience for hybrid applications
spanning IBM Power Systems and other platforms.
- New Red Hat Ansible Content Collections – Red Hat
Ansible Automation Platform, made available on IBM Power Systems
last year, provides an open source platform for simpler automation
of common IT tasks, freeing up IT administrator time as well as
compute resources to focus on other tasks. IBM has created an
extensive set of Ansible modules for the IBM Power Systems user
community. Since the start of the new year, IBM Power Systems added
22 new Ansible modules to the Collection that bring new automation
capabilities for common tasks like patch management, security
management, OS & application deployment, continuous delivery,
centralized backup and recovery, and virtualization management
& provisioning. Currently, there are 102 Ansible modules,
downloaded more than 13,000 times since February 23, that support POWER available to the
open source community on GitHub. Many of these same modules are
available as production-ready, enterprise-hardened and certified
Ansible Collections via Red Hat Ansible Automation
Platform.iv
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:
- The IBM Power Private Cloud Rack Solution – A
pre-configured on-premises system with compute, storage, networking
and pre-installed software, like Red Hat OpenShift, to match an
organization's existing infrastructure, be it based around Linux,
IBM i, or AIX, to help organizations operationalize their cloud
management and provide an IaaS environment to help clients
accelerate development and operations for Kubernetes
container-based cloud-native applications with Red Hat OpenShift
Container Platform.
- Cloud-like Capacity and Pricing Across the Hybrid Cloud
– IBM had already enabled flexible, elastic capacity for
on-premises Power Private Cloud with Dynamic Capacity, allowing
those users to unlock additional compute cores as needed and get
cloud-like consumption-based pricing. Now, IBM is extending that
ability to the hybrid cloud by piloting hybrid capacity credits,
which can be purchased and used to unlock capacity on select
on-premises IBM POWER9-based servers as well as IBM Power Virtual
Servers, based on where the user needs the additional compute
power. IBM is also working with other ecosystem partners to further
extend dynamic capacity across multiple Linux distributions.
"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, sponeda@us.ibm.com
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