Tech giant IBM has introduced a concept in system design called PureSystems, an infrastructure as a service system that integrates servers, storage, networking and virtualisation into an automated machine.
According to IBM, PureSystems is the result of a $2 billion investment in R&D and acquisitions over four years, in order to integrate and simplify IT infrastructure.
The company indicated that PureSystems will be a key part of its channel strategy this year, and has rolled out a training programme to its channel partners - more than 100 partners are already on the system.
During a press briefing, Oliver Fortuin, IBM SA country manager, explained that PureSystems will address the challenge of companies spending more than 70% of their IT budgets on maintenance.
He pointed out that two-thirds of corporate IT projects are delivered over-budget and behind schedule, and only one in five corporate IT departments are able to spend the majority of their IT budgets on innovation.
“The reality is that, today, everything in IT takes time. It takes between six and 12 months to deploy an application. And it takes a minimum of 90 days in order to provision new systems. However, PureSystems can reduce this number to a few days,” noted Fortuin.
PureSystems is built for cloud deployments, and is said to enable enterprises to rapidly build private, self-service cloud offerings that can automatically scale up or down, depending on an enterprise's requirements.
According to IBM, PureSystems can handle twice as many applications compared to some IBM systems, doubling the computing power per square foot of data centre space.
It adds that the solution provides an alternative to traditional computing models where enterprises required significant IT resources to set up and maintain multiple and disparate systems.
Robert Gamero, VP of SWG expert integrated systems technical professionals, described PureSystems as “cloud management in a box” and said it is the most significant initiative IBM has rolled out this year.
He said the solution also manages energy consumption to allow businesses to optimise and change processor clock speed.
“If IT had to decompose PureSystems into independent components and buy separate software licences and networking, it would cost more than two times for what we sell it for.”
He added that PureSystems will help organisations that are struggling to acquire skilled IT staff to manage IT infrastructure because the system is integrated, automated and maintained as a single product.
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