By Mariels Almeda Winhoffer
People and businesses today are rapidly adopting new technologies and devices that are transforming the way they interact with each other and their data.
This digital transformation generates 2.5 quintillion bytes of data associated with the proliferation of mobile devices, social media and cloud computing, and drives tremendous growth opportunity.
Now more than ever, technology is driving businesses to create new products and channels to deliver accelerated growth. Yet, less than ten percent of organizations say they are fully prepared to address the explosive quantities of data, according to an Institute of Business Value (IBV) study released by IBM earlier this year.
Big Data places enormous demands on people, products and processes. In an effort to deliver improved economics and at the same time enable organizations to access and process any type of data, on any type of storage device, anywhere in the world, IBM has unveiled a portfolio of software defined storage products.
Codenamed “Elastic Storage”, the portfolio of products offers higher performance, infinite scale, and is capable of reducing storage costs up to 90 percent by automatically moving data onto the most economical storage device.
IBM also recently announced a new generation of Power Systems based on Power8 technology. These new systems are changing the game as they offer:
? Superior technology: The new scale-out POWER8 systems culminate a $2.4 billion investment and are built from the ground up to harness Big Data and cloud. The new chip runs more queries concurrently and faster, across multiple cores with more threads per core – up to 50 times faster than x86 with 4x more threads per core.
? Superior competitiveness: IBM is providing an easy migration path to IBM DB2-based solutions on their IT infrastructure offering superior technology and a client friendly pricing.
? Superior economics: The new Power8 systems scale to meet business needs, are easy to manage and have less hardware, lower energy and cooling costs and open cloud management tools. They offer 65 percent sustained system utilization versus the industry standard of about 35-40 percent.
? A computing platform available to all through IBM’s commitment to a truly open ecosystem and the OpenPower Foundation . By giving clients and partners access to more core IBM technology, IBM enables them to create highly customized and optimized solutions designed around their specific needs. Thus IBM provides its clients with a choice they have not had before.
2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the IBM mainframe. Throughout the evolution of business and IT, marked by continuous shifts in market trends, IBM mainframe technology remains a core foundation of today?s global infrastructure, enabling new ways for businesses to innovate and drive industry and societal transformation.
Today more than 70 percent of enterprise data resides on a mainframe and 71 percent of all Fortune 500 companies have their core businesses on a mainframe. Consider these facts:
? 92 of the top 100 banks use the mainframe to provide at-your-fingertip banking services to their customers.
? 23 of the world?s top 25 retailers use the mainframe to make sure they can provide what their customers customized service.
? 9 out of 10 of the top insurers use the cloud on the mainframe to save money for their consumers.
? More than 225 state and local governments worldwide rely on a mainframe to support police and fire departments, utilities, garbage collection, parks and hospitals.
As IBM looks ahead to another 50 years of mainframe computing, new applications for cloud, Big Data, and mobile computing are growing on this venerable computing platform.
The author is the president and country general manager of IBM Philippines
