IBM tackles Microsoft with blade servers and cloud services

Targeted mostly at midrange customers who might otherwise turn to Windows, the new IBM Express Advantage products rolled out this week include newer and faster models of IBM's BladeCenter Express servers, along with a new hardware/software bundle called the "Comprehensive Data Protection Solution,"
said Bob Kelly, TSM (Tivoli Storage Manager) product manager, in a briefing with Betanews.

In a separate announcement this week, IBM launched WebSpan, a fee-based, service-oriented software environment that's already drawing a lot of comparisons with Microsoft's Azure.

Although theoretically, WebSpan might be used by a customer of any size, the software as a service (SaaS) concept tends to hold particular sway with smaller companies not interested in running their own data centers. IBM's BladeCenter Express servers, on the other hand, see the most use in the data centers of medium-sized businesses, as well as in branch offices of big corporations, Kelly told Betanews.

The newly announced latest versions of the System X PC blade servers are able to run three non-Microsoft operating systems simultaneously: Linux and IBM's own i and AIX.

The new JS23 and JS24 servers come with new Power6 processors for "the fastest blade server performance anywhere," an IBM spokesperson contended.

IBM continues to provide blade server software such as IBM Remote Managed Services, Internet Security Systems (ISS), and Lotus Live, plus vertical market offerings like IBM Medical Devices Solution and Express Retail Solution. This time around, however, the ISS software incorporates Proventia Web Application security, and the Lotus Live collaboration software rolls in Live Meetings.

Kelly maintained that IBM is also now outdoing Microsoft with software for back-up and disaster recovery. IBM's new "Comprehensive Data Protection Solution" package includes TSM FastBack software now fully integrated with the DS3000, DS4000 and DS5000 Express series disk systems and the System X 3550 server.

TSM FastBack is based on Windows software garnered by IBM through its buyout of FilesX back in April of 2008.

"IBM has a strong brand, worldwide channel, and large customer base that it can leverage with FastBack," said Lauren Whitehouse, a senior analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group, in an earlier interview with Betanews.

"There are a number of other back-up and disaster recovery solutions out there," Kelly acknowledged this week. But the product evangelist differentiated FastBack from the rest of the pack based on both its granularity and ease of use.

"We take the complexities out of it. With FastBack, you can just 'set it and forget it,'" Betanews was told.

For full operational recovery in the event of a system crash, FastBack combines "point in time copy" with "true CDP," capturing changes at the smaller block level, as opposed to the file level. Systems administrators can recover even e-mail attachments and calendar items, all on a drag-and-drop basis, Kelly said.