IBM unveils next-generation mainframe

IBM's new mainframe aims to assist midsize companies in emerging markets to jumpstart new application development efforts, consolidate IT servers, and give organisations a platform to build the mainframe as the foundation of their new enterprise data centre, says Market Watch.

Designed as an entry-level version of the IBM System z10 Enterprise Class mainframe released earlier this year, the IBM z10 Business Class provides midsize clients with all the attributes of an IBM mainframe.

The IBM z10 Business Class server delivers the capacity of up to 232x86 servers, with an 83% smaller footprint, up to 93% lower energy costs, and a much higher level of security, control and automation, allowing for up to 100% utilisation, according to IBM.

The RightScale Platform, a configuration and management tool, makes it easier for developers to deploy and control servers and images on Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) platform, states eWeek.

Programming for the cloud requires maintaining, not just the software, but the whole infrastructure that is supporting the software.

RightScale provides the RightScale Dashboard to help manage the infrastructure. The product comes with several price plans, including a free developer account that includes a free trial run of Amazon EC2.

Sun Microsystems rolled out four new storage and server blade systems to help boost its enterprise storage and server portfolio, says eWeek.

The new Sun blades includes Sun Blade 6000, which is capable of supporting eight SAS drives and as much as 1.2TB of data storage.

The offerings also include the Sun Blade T6340, which is based on Sun's UltraSPARC T2 Plus chip, and the Sun Blade X6240, which uses two quad-core AMD Opteron processors.