IBM has put together a number of services to help companies implement Grid computing and autonomic computing technologies. Grid computing links IT resources so that they can be leveraged as a whole instead of as discrete components. Financial services firms that run complex investment simulations, for example, can churn out results in just minutes with a Grid computing system compared to several hours using a few servers. "There are a lot of underutilised resources they can tap into," says IBM Grid strategy and business development vice president Dan Powers. "People have got applications that in many cases they want to run in more locations or quicker." Printing company Bowne & Co. worked with IBM to set up a Grid system that processes financial reports 50 percent faster than the old system, for example. Autonomic computing is a complementary technology that allows IT departments to shift basic management tasks to the computers themselves. Powers says CIOs report that as much as 80 percent of their budgets go toward maintenance tasks such as ordering, testing, and connecting new servers. With autonomic computing technologies such as IBM's Intelligent Orchestrator, new servers can be added to an application automatically. IBM fields a number of services, backed by approximately 2,000 IBM Global Services and research employees, to get these technologies rolling in client firms, including IBM Grid Value at Work, which uses techniques developed by IBM researchers to estimate the cost benefits of Grid computing. With IBM Grid Solution Deployment Services, consultants create a plan to implement grid and autonomic technologies within the infrastructure. Powers says that at any given time, IBM is working on about 100 Grid computing projects. Copyright 2003 INFORMATION, INC. |
