IBM has announced that it will provide support for blade servers running Windows on IBM zEnterprise mainframes as early as the end of 2011.
In an April 12 announcement to its EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) hardware clients, IBM said it would support System x blades running Windows on zEnterprise systems in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Upon announcing its new mainframes in July 2010, IBM introduced a new dimension in computing with the IBM zEnterprise Server, as it enables users to deploy an integrated hardware platform that brings mainframe and distributed technologies together. IBM described it as a system that can start to replace individual islands of computing and can work to reduce complexity, lower costs, improve security and bring applications closer to the data they need.
And as part of that announcement, IBM provided a road map for its hybrid capabilities, the delivery of special-purpose workload optimizers and select general-purpose IBM blades. In 2010 IBM delivered a business analytics solution — IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer — and then general-purpose Power7 blades. In February 2011, IBM continued with the announcement of the IBM WebSphere DataPower XI50 for zEnterprise (DataPower XI50z), a multifunctional appliance for the System z environment that can be implemented to help provide X M L hardware acceleration, and to streamline and secure valuable SOA (service-oriented architecture) applications.
Now, in the next step of its road map, IBM is moving to incorporate select IBM System x technologies, originally targeted for the first half of 2011.
In a statement to its EMEA base, IBM said: “The reaction to delivering IBM System x capabilities has been very positive, with our clients also asking that we support Microsoft Windows. Therefore, today we are revising our road map to include planned support for Windows on System x as well as a revised schedule for IBM System x blade delivery on the IBM zEnterprise Systems.”
For more, read the eWEEK article: IBM to Support Windows on System z Mainframes.
