Grid and Grow Express Implementation

• Offers a fast, cost-efficient and low-risk introduction to grid computing technologies
• Provides application performance enhancements to support business initiatives
• Helps speed time to benefit and helps lower costs through faster deployment
• Provides access to IBM's grid computing expertise
• Supports business growth by enabling more complex grid infrastructures

A confident introduction to grid technologies

If you have complex applications with serious number-crunching processing demands, you know how important those applications are to your business. You probably devote considerable time and money to keeping the infrastructure behind the application up and running. And when processing demands exceed your infrastructure's capacity, you probably do what most businesses do - add more servers. But adding servers means adding to your infrastructure's cost and complexity.

Grid computing virtualizes a pool of servers and - using the collective processors, memory and data storage of those servers - significantly speeds application processing and, by extension, improves application performance. Grid computing ensures that appropriate resources are available as the demand for processing fluctuates, and it improves overall application resiliency. Though relatively simple in concept, building a grid infrastructure can present challenges to even the most capable IT organization.

The IBM Grid and Grow Express Implementation solution offers businesses facing application performance issues the opportunity to make a measured, yet confident, entry into grid computing. IBM Grid and Grow Express Implementation is a hardware, software and services solution designed to allow clients to quickly deploy a grid computing infrastructure to achieve improved application performance, flexibility and resiliency in support of business objectives.

The IBM Grid and Grow Express Implementation solution includes:

• An IBM BladeCenter® chassis and seven blades with choice of Intel®, AMD or IBM POWER™ processors
• A choice of operating systems - Red Hat or Novell SUSE Linux® Enterprise, IBM AIX® 5L® or Microsoft® Windows® operating systems
• A choice of grid scheduling software - the choice depending on the application to be installed on the grid
• Design, installation and knowledge transfer services to deploy the grid in your environment
• Application assessment in order to optimize the performance of the application within the grid

The solution does not include installation of the client application on the grid; that is available as an additional service.

Specific services included in the solution:

• Hardware and software procurement
• Site-readiness assessment
• Hardware installation, including network connection and troubleshooting
• Operating system installation and configuration
• Virtual local area network (VLAN) configuration
• Grid scheduler software installation and configuration
• Application assessment
• Performance testing
• Documentation
• Skills transfer

An investment designed to grow with you

We know that you need to make smart technology investments, ones that won't paint you into a corner. That is why the "grow" features of the IBM Grid and Grow solution are so compelling. The expandable hardware capabilities of the BladeCenter chassis allow you to expand your grid rapidly if necessary. And the Linux operating systems that are available with the solution can also support strategic IT directives to utilize open-source technologies. Once you've established a grid environment - and have soaked up IBM's industry-leading grid knowledge - you can grow your grid to extend its capabilities across geographies and organizational boundaries.