Features - Storage Innovations:

IBM DELIVERS NEW OPTION FOR MANAGING SERVER AND STORAGE COST

IBM has announced a new option for customers to manage increasing IT costs. IBM eServer BladeCenter and Shark Storage solutions are now available with standby capacity on demand, providing customers with additional capacity but only paying for what is used.

These offerings compliment IBM's Open Infrastructure Offering (OIO), a new delivery option that lets customers acquire all or part of their infrastructure requirements for a single monthly price, allowing them to substitute new technologies as needed.

IBM eServer BladeCenter Standby Capacity On Demand is designed to meet the rapidly expanding demand from blade customers. The first of its kind for the blade server market, BladeCenter now provides customers with the ability to quickly deploy and automatically provision blade servers when needed. Customers purchase a fully configured BladeCenter system for a fraction of the total cost and then turn on additional capacity up to 14 blade servers in a single chassis -- over a six-month period as it is needed.

The same option is also available for IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage "Shark" Server, providing customer with an additional 3.5 terabytes of storage capacity to use as they need it.

"Since the inception of e-business on demand, we have seen that companies are benefiting from tapping into extra server, storage and network capacity as required," said Mark Shearer, vice president IBM eServer Products. "These new offerings will help customers become on demand businesses, helping to lower costs, improve productivity and quickly respond to new business opportunities."

IBM's Capacity On Demand solutions are available across the eServer family, allowing businesses to be more responsive to their customers. These new offering dramatically speed deployment of IBM eServer and Storage systems.

The eServer BladeCenter and Storage Standby Capacity On Demand will be available for purchase worldwide later this year.