IBM Brings Mainframe Virtualization Power to Servers

At an analyst conference today in New York, IBM will preview a new "cloning" technology that has been in development for three years. The "virtualization Engine" technology, a combination of hardware and software, allows customers the ability to partition as many as 10 servers per processor.

While this capability has been offered on IBM mainframes, this is the first time it will be available for UNIX systems and other IBM servers, executvies said.

This type of capability has been a feature IT users have been asking for as they demand improved economics and better utilization of their IT infrastructure. According to IBM, this technology allows a customer to focus less on individual operating systems and more on a complete operating environment.

IBM will also preview as part of the Virtualization Engine, new integrated ystem services. This includes an embedded version of Tivoli's provisioning technology that allows a ustomer to add or "provision" new servers in minutes instead of days to eet business demands.

IBM plans to roll out the Virtualization Engine technologies and services across ts servers and storage products beginning this year. The "Virtualization Engine" technology will be embedded into IBM's upcoming POWER 5-based servers, officials said. IBM will embed Tivoli provisioning and WebSphere Grid capability into every server and storage offering it ships to customers, officials said. The Virtualization Engine technologies will appear first in IBM's new iSeries servers expected in the second quarter. The company expects to include a capability to simplify the management of mixed environments of IBM and non-IBM systems.