IBM Powerlinux Open Source Infrastructure Services Affordable End-To-End Infrastructure Applications Solution for Midsize Businesses
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IBM Systems and Technology IBM Power Systems Solution Brief IBM PowerLinux Open Source Infrastructure Services Affordable end-to-end infrastructure applications solution for midsize businesses Businesses demand IT solutions that are relevant, reliable and faster than Highlights ever. Infrastructure and business-specific workloads proliferate as com- panies grow and address new market needs. The result for data centers is ●● ●●Optimized, open source infrastructure increased server acquisition, expanded storage, new databases, increased workloads solution for faster services floor space and more power consumption. IT costs continue to grow, yet ●● ●●Exceptional reliability and security companies are forced to find ways to reduce expenses. with IBM® POWER7® technology and IBM PowerVM® virtualization Linux has proven that open source applications are as robust as software ●● ●●More throughput per server than developed in traditional ways. As a result, Linux is becoming the open x86 commodity servers standards choice for deploying new workloads that are flexible, secure, ●● ●●Compelling economics to reduce IT costs and cost effective. Organizations are transforming their IT infrastructures to Linux and open source applications to manage their business. By 2016, it is estimated that open source software will be included in mission-critical software portfolios in 99 percent of Global 2000 enterprises.1 To offset IT software costs, companies are replacing more expensive infrastructure applications with robust open source offerings running on Linux. Open source applications bring savings and flexibility but they can be daunting for companies to deploy and manage. Assembling a solution with components and technology from multiple open source community projects or vendors can result in a complex, hard to manage environment. Small IT organizations in particular do not have the bandwidth to archi- tect or maintain their own solutions. These companies are looking for affordable, ready-to-deploy, end-to-end infrastructure solutions. IBM Systems and Technology IBM Power Systems Solution Brief To reduce IT hardware costs, companies are leveraging virtual- ized environments to consolidate workloads on to fewer physi- cal servers. With virtualization, IT organizations are able to lower their x86 server sprawl (less floor space and energy consumption, and fewer servers to manage) but are also faced with new challenges such as virtualization system overhead, and high virtualization software costs. IT staff are looking for a more affordable, efficient virtualization solution. IBM PowerLinux™ Open Source Infrastructure Services is an ideal platform for fast delivery of essential email, web serving, file/print, and other infrastructure workloads. It provides all the components—key open source infrastructure workloads, Industry standards-based Linux, IBM PowerVM virtualization technology, and IBM POWER7 performance optimized for Linux in an end-to-end solution ready for you to deploy. IBM PowerLinux Open Source Infrastructure Services uses IBM PowerLinux reliability open source applications such as: IBM PowerLinux Open Source Infrastructure Services runs on the IBM PowerLinux 7R2 server, a highly secure, resilient ●●●Mail serving: Includes industry-leading open source mail Linux optimized system, enabling faster time-to-delivery. The serving applications such as Postfix, Dovecot, Cyrus, IBM PowerLinux 7R2 server is a dense, Linux-only two-socket Fetchmail, Procmail and SpamAssassin. rack form factor with sixteen POWER7 processor cores. ●●●Web serving: Leverages the LAMP architecture for open POWER7 technologies in the IBM PowerLinux 7R2 server source web serving functions with Linux, Apache, MySQL, such as Intelligent Threads and Active Memory Sharing can and PHP/Perl scripts also improve workload performance2 and server return on ●●●File/print serving: Using Samba this solution allows file investment. and print sharing between computers based on PowerLinux, Linux x86, Microsoft Windows and UNIX operating systems. ●●●Network infrastructure serving: Manages network traffic “ The effect of virtualization on productivity with advanced capabilities like virtual networking (virtio was astounding, astounding because it and vhost-net), next generation internet protocol, IPv6, and allowed us to concentrate on new services load-balancing with the BIND DNS server and Squid web to support GHY’s business strategy. We caching server. were able to add hundreds of thousands of dollars of value to the business as a result.” —Nigel Fortlage, Vice President of IT, GHY International 2 IBM Systems and Technology IBM Power Systems Solution Brief IBM PowerLinux rack servers are designed to allow more work Higher hardware utilization to be processed with less operational disruption.3 Reliability, IBM PowerLinux Open Source Infrastructure Services exploits availability and serviceability (RAS) capabilities include recovery industrial-strength PowerVM technology to fully utilize the from intermittent errors or failover to redundant components, system. IBM PowerVM for IBM PowerLinux is available detection and reporting of failures and impending failures, and exclusively for the IBM PowerLinux rack server. This is a new self-healing hardware that automatically initiates actions to edition of PowerVM that provides enterprise-level functionality effect error correction, repair or component replacement. In with comparable pricing to x86 virtualization solutions. addition, the Processor Instruction Retry feature provides for the continuous monitoring of processor status with the capabil- IBM PowerVM for IBM PowerLinux provides the capability ity to restart a processor if certain errors are detected. If to dynamically adjust system resources to partitions based on required, workloads are redirected to alternate processors, all workload demands, and allows virtual machines (VMs) to without disruption to application execution. And, with the Live access the maximum amount of memory and CPU cores Partition Mobility feature of PowerVM, IBM PowerLinux available in the server. PowerVM features such as Multiple rack server workloads can be moved between servers, while still Shared Processor Pools, Shared Dedicated Capacity and Active running, to eliminate planned downtime. Memory Sharing enable workloads peeks, whether anticipated or unanticipated, to be handled efficiently by the system’s IBM PowerLinux rack servers provide a secure environment resources. The result is greater throughput per server.6 for business critical and infrastructure workloads. In contrast to other architectures and virtualization solutions, IBM is The virtualization efficiencies of IBM PowerVM for known for its unique architecture that delivers the virtualized IBM PowerLinux enable consolidation of single workload environment from bare metal through the hypervisor. servers in a scale-out environment to fewer servers, thus IBM PowerVM is certified at an Evaluated Assurance reducing server sprawl, simplifying server management, and Level 4+.4 Zero vulnerabilities have been reported against decreasing IT costs. PowerVM5 making it a secure, stable environment for essential infrastructure workloads. “ With IBM PowerLinux Open Source Infrastructure Services, we can operate our OpenAFS system reliably, and there is still room to put other infrastructure services on additional virtual machines.” —Bodo Krause-Kyora, Head of Systems and Deputy Director at PHYSnet 3 IBM Systems and Technology IBM Power Systems Solution Brief Lower cost per workload ●●●Easy maintenance and support through a single point of IBM PowerLinux Open Source Infrastructure Services help IT contact for the solution. centers reduce costs. Open source infrastructure applications on ●●●Affordable financing terms. a Linux-optimized, proven enterprise-level platform deliver the advantage of POWER7 industry leading performance, reliabil- POWER7 performance, reliability and security in the ity, availability and serviceability capabilities that save planned IBM PowerLinux 7R2 server provide an affordable, high and unplanned outage time, fewer repair actions and higher quality platform for midsize businesses. Workloads that server utilization. previously relied on x86 based servers due to cost constraints can now benefit from the advantages IBM Power IBM PowerLinux Open Source Infrastructure Services lowers Architecture® has brought to large enterprises. cost per workload with: Industry standard Linux, solution tuned ●●●Four intelligent threads per core for thread intensive web to the task applications, resulting in fewer cores per application. IBM PowerLinux Open Source Infrastructure Services inte- ●●●High performance per core for greater aggregate throughput, grates Linux, open source applications, virtualization software resulting in fewer cores per application. and Linux-optimized hardware into a tuned solution for infra- ●●●Eight higher frequency cores per socket, enabling more structure workloads. Linux is an industry-standard operating workloads to be supported per server. system that runs on the IBM PowerLinux server and exploits ●●●PowerVM micro-partitioning at 1/10th of a core, allowing the advanced hardware and software capabilities of IBM Power up to 160 unique virtual machines on a single server. Systems™. ●●●Active Memory Sharing requires less memory for each workload, resulting in the need for less memory per server. More companies are choosing Linux for their Power platform ●●●Fewer disruptions for planned and unplanned outages. OS because