IBM ANNOUNCES NEW GRID OFFERINGS, PARTNERS TO FORM GRID ECOSYSTEM
Royal Dutch Shell and Kansai Electric Power Newest IBM Grid Customers
ARMONK, NY, April 28, 2003 - IBM announced today new offerings to further expand Grid computing into commercial enterprises, including the introduction of new solutions for four industries - petroleum, electronics, higher education and agricultural chemicals. In addition IBM announced that more than 35 companies, including networking giant Cisco, will join IBM to form the foundation of a Grid ecosystem that is designed to foster Grid computing for businesses.
IBM also announced Royal Dutch Shell and Kansai Electric Power as new Grid customers.
Royal Dutch Shell - IBM worked with Royal Dutch Shell to build a reusable software toolkit that works as a wrapper around existing applications, creating a Grid-enabled infrastructure for their seismic interpretation applications. The solution, based on IBM eServer xSeries running Globus and Linux[r], cut the processing time of seismic data while improving the quality of the data, ultimately allowing Royal Dutch Shell to focus its employees on key scientific problems.
"Grid computing is important to Shell because it offers the potential to create a truly unlimited resource, with a uniform interface to a variety of services, said Jacob Buur, principal research physicist, Shell International and Production B.V. "This is a significant opportunity for Shell to engage its independent companies in closer cooperation."
The Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc. - KEPCO, Japan's second largest electric utility, is working with IBM to develop an information-based Grid that will allow KEPCO to federate and virtualize various data sources across the enterprise. The Grid solution will integrate information distributed across departments and affiliated companies to enable information sharing using existing systems and to develop new businesses more rapidly at a minimum cost.
Building the Grid Ecosystem Recognizing that no one company can drive commercial adoption of Grid computing, IBM today unveiled an initiative to build a Grid ecosystem consisting of software vendors and Business Partners that will help develop commercial Grid solutions.
Cisco joins more than 35 new and existing Business Partners and other vendors to form the foundation of the developing IBM Grid ecosystem. IBM and Cisco are working together to enable enhanced Grid services for Storage Area Networks (SAN). Cisco's intelligent multilayer storage networking architecture helps lay the foundation for building globally scalable access to Grid data. The integration of intelligent services into the network helps simplify data access across the Grid and resource sharing and management. Earlier this year IBM began reselling the Cisco MDS 9000 SAN switches. Cisco has plans to enhance these switches to enable globally scalable access to data through Grids.
"The ability to access storage in a scalable and secure way is a critical component in Grid computing, allowing businesses and their partner companies to manage massive amounts of data and to collaborate worldwide," said Soni Jiandani, vice president of marketing in the Storage Technology Group at Cisco. "The IBM and Cisco solution is an important step in delivering the very real benefits of Grid and on demand computing to businesses of all sizes."
Today's announcement expands on the existing, global strategic alliance between Cisco and IBM. The two companies combine their complementary strengths in Internet infrastructure, e-business systems and services to deliver end-to-end Internet business solutions to enterprise and service provider customers.
Application software vendors joining Cisco in IBM's Grid ecosystem initiative include:
- Accelrys, which plans to provide Research and Development solutions
for customers in the Life Sciences industry.
- Calypso Technology uses Grid computing to increase the speed of
financial analytics for customers in the financial sector.
- Cadence, which plans to provide Engineering and Design Automation
solutions for Electronics customers.
- Force10 Networks Inc. plans to work with IBM in all industries for
Enterprise Optimization supporting the significant network demands that Grid computing puts in Grid environments
- Landmark Graphics Corporation, which integrates all aspects of the
upstream oil and gas industry with leading software and services, plans to work with IBM on Research and Development Grid solutions for Industrial customers.
- Mercury Interactive plans to work with IBM on software quality in all
sectors for Enterprise Optimization.
- MSC.Software plans to work with IBM in Industrial for Engineering and
Design.
More than twenty IBM Business Partners also are helping to form the IBM Grid ecosystem. A fact sheet with Business Partner information is available on request.
"Grid is an industry-wide effort built and designed around open standards," said Tom Hawk, IBM's general manager of Grid computing. "IBM is working to bring business partners, developers, system integrators, middleware companies, and IT vendors of all shapes and sizes together to form a Grid ecosystem that will accelerate the adoption of Grids in the enterprise."
Grid Industries and Offerings
IBM, which in January announced its go-to-market strategy in 2003 built around five Grid focus areas that address the needs of the aerospace, automotive, financial markets, government and life science industries, announced today new offerings for four industries.
- Agricultural Chemical (Research and Development and Business
Analytics Focus)
For Agricultural Chemical customers, IBM is offering an Analytics Acceleration Grid and an Information Access Grid. The Analytics Acceleration Grid can help accelerate scientific discoveries, including producing high value seeds, by improving computing and storage resources. The Information Access Grid is designed to help customers maximize exploitation of data resources by efficiently managing data volumes and non-standard data formats required for new discovery in fields such as molecular biology.
- Electronics (Engineering and Design Focus)
For the Electronics industry, IBM is offering an Engineering Design Grid and Design Collaboration Grid. The Engineering Design Grid will help electronics companies aggregate disparate elements such as compute and data resources from suppliers, OEMs and contract electronics manufacturers (CEMs) to create a single unified system to help accelerate new product introductions. The Design Collaboration Grid will enhance data sharing across partners requiring intensive manufacturing processes and electronic design automation (EDA) tools.
- Higher Education (Research and Development Focus)
For Higher Education, IBM is offering University Collaboration Grid, which enablesseamless sharing of large amounts of raw research data among researchers and across institutions by providing a flexible and expandable infrastructure that can adapt to changing research requirements.
- Petroleum (Engineering Design Focus and IT Optimization)
For the Petroleum industry, IBM is offering a Geophysical Processing and Analysis Grid and an IT Optimization Grid. The Geophysical Processing and Analysis Grid is designed to reduce seismic imaging time and improve reservoir management results by providing better access to key analytical tools and applications, available when and where required, and scalable to meet the demands of projects that require 'peak' resources. The IT Optimization Grid can help customers exploit underutilized compute and storage resources while improving flexibility and scalability.
The Grid offerings announced today are designed to operate in a heterogeneous environment and will incorporate the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA). IBM Global Services will support all elements of a Grid implementation with both IBM and non-IBM hardware and software.
About IBM
IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about IBM's Grid computing business, visit http://www.ibm.com/grid.
Voor meer informatie
Etta Pouw
Communications
IBM Nederland N.V.
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