SOURCE: IBM

June 11, 2008 06:01 ET

IBM Tackles Global Energy Crisis

New "Mini-IBM" Modular Data Centers Deliver up to 50 Percent Energy Savings

ARMONK, NY--(Marketwire - June 11, 2008) - IBM (NYSE: IBM) today said it would expand its efforts to deliver energy efficiency technologies to global businesses facing skyrocketing energy costs, environmental concerns and corporate sustainability requirements.

The company introduced new services, technologies and financing to help enterprises bridge the gap between the mandate for CIOs to build "greener" technology infrastructures that can meet growing business requirements and the desire of CFOs to realize rapid financial benefits from such investments. These new technologies, services and financing include:

-- Modular Data Centers: Essentially miniature versions of IBM's renowned data centers, these portable systems deliver the power and energy efficiency of facilities that serve a majority of the world's enterprises -- all in a movable, reusable package

-- Cool Chips, Green Software and Three New Services

-- IBM Global Financing will introduce a customized, all inclusive financial package for energy efficient IT services, infrastructure and business transformation projects

With roughly 60 percent of the capital costs and 50 percent of the operational costs of running a data center energy related, the ability to design, construct and activate a highly energy efficient data center has become a business imperative.

Today's announcement comes one year after IBM launched Project Big Green and committed $1 billion to deliver technologies that help clients dramatically increase the level of energy efficiency in their data centers. Data centers house computer servers and equipment that are consuming increasingly larger amounts of energy as demand for computing power grows worldwide. In the past year, IBM has engaged with more than 2,000 clients to deliver hardware, software and services technologies that have helped them reduce data center energy consumption and cut energy costs by as much as 40 percent.

IBM Modular Data Centers Go Anywhere; Slash Energy

IBM is introducing three main types of modular data centers.

-- Enterprise Modular Data Center (EMDC) -- an enterprise class data center 'shrink-wrapped" and standardized to between 5,000 square feet and 20,000 square feet. This approach enables clients to bring new data centers online three-to-six months sooner than a custom designed version. By building in smaller, standardized modules, clients can scale the starting data center capacity by up to 12 times while matching their capital and operational costs to their IT needs over time. This approach allows the customers to defer up to 40 percent of the capital expense and 50 percent of the operational expense until the capacity is required. Each EMDC is designed to achieve the world's highest ratings for energy leadership, as determined by the Green Grid, an industry group focused on data center energy efficiency.

-- Portable Modular Data Center (PMDC) -- provides a fully functional data center in a pod-like form with a complete physical infrastructure including power and cooling systems and remote monitoring. It also has all the elements of the secure operating environments found in traditional "raised-floor" data centers, including protection from fire, smoke, humidity, condensation and temperature changes. The PMDC can be shipped and deployed into any environment. It can support multiple technology vendors and multiple systems in an industry standard rack environment.

-- High Density Zone (HDZ) is a modular system that provides incremental cooling and power capability in existing data centers that are tapped out of capacity. The HDZ system can be swapped into an existing data center without disrupting current operations and can provide up to 35 percent cost savings compared to retrofitting an existing data center.

In addition, IBM is announcing three new energy efficient services to help clients with data center storage and virtualization needs. They include:

-- IBM Server Optimization & Integration Services for VMware server virtualization -- a comprehensive set of services that can help clients increase the flexibility of their server infrastructure, achieve utilization rates up to 60 percent, and significantly reduce the number of servers they manage. The service can help reduce energy costs by up to 30 percent and reduce total cost of ownership by up to 50 percent.

-- IBM Storage Optimization and Integration Services for process excellence -- a service that addresses challenges in the enterprise including skill transfer, change management, lack of uniformity and the impact of resource churn. This service builds on the storage infrastructure power consumption and carbon footprint reporting capability which is part of the new IBM Novus Storage Enterprise Resource Planner (SERP) v4.3.1 release.

-- IBM Softek z/OS Dataset Mobility Facility (zDMF) -- a service that enables clients to move data at the dataset level with minimal disruption to application availability. This automated approach provides businesses greater flexibility, faster adoption of better-performing, larger capacity disk volumes, and newer, more energy-efficient storage systems.

New Technologies: IBM Research Paves Way for Green Data Centers

IBM scientists have developed a method to cool computer chips that have circuits and components stacked on top of each other with tiny rivers of water, an advance that promises to significantly reduce energy consumed by data centers. Earlier this month, IBM Researchers, in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin, demonstrated a prototype that integrates the cooling system into the 3-D chips by piping water directly between each layer in the stack. These so-called 3-D chip stacks -- which take chips and memory devices that traditionally sit side-by-side on a silicon wafer and stacks them together on top of one another -- presents one of the most promising approaches to enhancing chip performance beyond its predicted limits, while simultaneously reducing the energy consumed by data centers.

IBM storage systems researchers are also studying ways to measure power utilization on the IT workload to help customers with data center planning. Ultimately, the scientists expect to integrate these new technologies into storage management tools for real-time power consumption management.

In addition, IBM service researchers are helping organizations use Component Business Modeling (CBM) to find opportunities for improvement and innovation around carbon management and can identify areas of the business with high carbon impact levels. For example, in a CBM map for the auto industry, there is an "IT Systems & Operations" component with high potential to reduce carbon footprint.

The new SAN Volume Controller (SVC) 4.3 software can significantly improve the flexibility and responsiveness of IT infrastructures by creating consolidated, virtual pools of information across the enterprise, enabling IT departments to centrally manage resources and respond more quickly to client needs.

Financing to Go Green

IBM Global Financing announced today a customized, all inclusive financial package for energy efficient IT services, infrastructure and business transformation projects. IBM financing helps preserve client cash flow for the entire scope of a client's green data center project including: hardware, software, services and maintenance with a single, comprehensive package. By financing green data center projects, IBM can administer all the clients' current and future IT investments, even paying off current financing contracts with other providers.

In addition to the energy efficient technology solutions announced today, IBM is focused on several areas related to energy and the environment, including sustainable supply chains, solar technology, carbon management services, advanced water management, intelligent utility networks and intelligent transportation systems, Visit www.ibm.com/green for more information.

Note to Editors: Images and broadcast-quality broll are available for download by registered journalists at www.thenewsmarket.com/ibm

Executive Quotes

"Since we announced IBM's Project Big Green a year ago, we've engaged with thousands of businesses, governments and educational institutions around the world to help them address critical energy challenges in their data centers," said Mike Daniels, senior vice-president and group executive, IBM Global Technology Services. "In the second phase of Big Green, we're unveiling the most advanced green technologies and services to help clients become much more efficient in how they consume and pay for energy, not only in their data centers, but across all their operations."