Doug & Intel Investors - IBM is DEEPENING their commitment to Intel Servers.
IBM is now attempting to improve their Intel-based Netfinity Servers with various enhancements (X ARCHITECTURE) to make them more robust and process applications that were formerly done on higher end IBM machines.
Looks like a definite PLUS for INTEL !
Paul
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news.com
X Architecture for IBM
servers
By Stephen Shankland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
October 29, 1998, 4:00 a.m. PT
IBM has begun an effort to increase the appeal
of its Intel-based Netfinity servers, adopting
technology from the company's more
sophisticated computers.
The effort, called X Architecture, is designed to
give Netfinity systems some extra muscle as
IBM vies for a larger piece of the increasingly
important Intel/Windows NT server market, a
company spokesman said.
IBM also is working
with Windows NT
maker Microsoft on a
technology called
OnForever that let
users "hot swap" not
just hard disk drives
but also fans, power
supplies, memory, and
even processors. Hot swapping is a fail-safe
scheme which allows defective components to
be replaced while the computer is still running.
Traditionally, server computers have to be shut
down for repairs, which can wreak havoc on
company-wide information systems.
Another X Architecture addition to the Netfinity
line is "clustering," the spreading of computing
tasks across several computer "nodes" to
make systems more expandable and better
protected from failures.
"I think it's the right thing to do," said John
Oltsik, an analyst with with Forrester Research.
"Intel-based servers will run [high-end
corporate] enterprise mission-critical
applications over time."
But while X Architecture could make Netfinity
more successful, that success could come at
the expense of IBM's in-house line of AS/400
servers, he said.
If the market wants to move sophisticated tasks
to Windows NT machines, "then IBM is willing
to follow that trend, even if it means stepping on
AS/400 along the way," said Oltsik. "That's a
healthy attitude for IBM. If they don't, they lose
both the AS/400 and the NT business," Oltsik
said.
IBM's Netfinity sales have grown, but not as fast
as its competitors' comparable offerings, Oltsik
noted.
Boston-based Aberdeen Group agreed, saying
in a recent paper that IBM's lack of attention to
its Netfinity line was a "strategic misstep that
has caused Netfinity to cede market share to
Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, and Dell."
IBM's Michael Liebow acknowledges that the
company "kneecapped" the Netfinity servers to
protect its mid-range server line--the AS/400
machines. But IBM "woke up and is throwing
everything" at the Intel server platform now, he
said.
Other X Architecture offerings in the works
include eight-processor systems based on
Intel's forthcoming 64-bit chips, special
connections to high-end IBM S/390 servers, a
"light path" system that automatically directs
troubleshooters to faulty equipment with a chain
of lights, and the MoST (Mobile Service
Terminal) Connect system of diagnosing an
ailing machine by plugging a diagnostic
computer into a special port.
However, Oltsik noted, IBM's migration of
top-end server technology to relatively low-end
Netfinity servers is nothing new for the industry.
"I don't think IBM is doing anything that Compaq
and HP haven't thought of many times," he said.
"Compaq and HP both have extensive
enterprise technologies and skills they're
looking to bring downstream as well."
Compaq, for example, is working with its
Tandem division and Microsoft to make NT
systems more fault-tolerant. Compaq also is
working on clustering technology, he added.
Oltsik also believes that the X Architecture
could be getting ahead of the software because
Windows NT isn't robust enough to benefit. "For
the most part, NT is not running mission-critical
applications in large companies. That's where
Unix and the mainframe own the environment,"
he said.
But when the next version of Windows NT
arrives and more companies put critical
functions on Intel/NT systems, IBM's X
Architecture could pay off.
The new technology, whether from IBM,
Compaq, or HP, is good for users, he declared.
"Ultimately, users get commodity boxes with
enterprise features," Oltsik said.
Intel is an investor in CNET: The Computer
Network.
Related news stories
• Compaq headed for high end October 12, 1998
• IBM readies networking tools September 21, 1998
• More Xeon systems arriving September 21, 1998
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