IBM Unveils PureSystems (Expert Integrated Systems)

A few months ago, I was pulled aside in a Kansas City office, signed off on company non-disclosure before being briefed on Project Troy, an IBM confidential initiative for building and launching next generation platform (NGP) for converged and cloud computing. 

IBM today (2012.04.11) unveils PureSystems, the ground-breaking new family of expert integrated systems. Representing a $2 billion investment, involving thousands of IBMers in 17 labs in 37 countries, these solutions provide customers the flexibility of a general purpose system, the elasticity of cloud and the simplicity of an appliance tuned to the workload.  Throughout launch events in New York City, London, Sao Paolo, Mumbai, Shanghai and Tokyo, along with a global web broadcast and hundreds of smaller local events, IBM will showcase the first two members of the PureSystems family:

PureFlex System: integrates server, software, networking and storage nodes, and arrives pre-integrated and ready to deploy. Key attributes of PureFlex include:

• Factory integrated and optimized system infrastructure
• Management integration across physical and virtual resources
• Automation and optimization expertise
• Built for cloud, as a foundation for Infrastructure as a Service offering

PureApplication System: inherits infrastructure elements from the PureFlex System – like virtualization and hardware management – and delivers pre-integrated capabilities at the middleware stack to allow clients to handle a wide variety of workloads. The software stack includes web, database, and Java applications. It is built for cloud, offering simplicity, efficiency, and control – serving as a virtualized application platform that optimizes application workloads and accelerates time to value. Key attributes include:

• Built-in expertise pre-optimizes web, database, and application workloads, with elastic scalability
• Repeatable self-service provisioning, on a resilient, secure, scalable infrastructure
• Simplified platform management with a single consol
• A foundation for a Platform as a Service offerings

Expert integrated systems have three distinct characteristics:

• Built-in expertise: Systems must capture and automate best-practices and expertise, reducing manual steps that impact project’s time to value with an open architecture, allowing participating solution providers to optimize their applications workloads. For the first time, IBM is embedding technology and industry expertise through first-of-a-kind software that allows the systems to automatically handle basic, time-consuming tasks such as configuration, upgrades, and application requirements. This enables customers to consolidate and reduce their IT footprint and lower costs, facilitate the sharing of resources, and accelerate the movement to the cloud. 

• Integration by Design: All hardware and software components must be integrated by design, tuned in the lab, and pre-packaged in the factory into a single ready-to-go system – optimized for the business task.Each of the hardware systems can support a mix of server CPU (x86 and PowerPC) as well as operating systems (Windows,Linux, AIX) allowing the customer to configure the system to meet their specific needs and simplify migration of existing environments.

• Simplified Experience: IT staff and the lines of business that consume IT experience a simplified systems lifecycle. Collections of hardware, middleware, and application components will no longer need to separately be procured, configured, integrated, tuned, and managed separately. PureSystems are simply ordered, unpacked, plugged in and managed as a single system with a single interface.

PureFlex System and PureApplication System share technology with IBM SmartCloud and provide IaaS and PaaS capabilities out-of-the-box, dramatically reducing the time and effort it takes to create private/hybrid cloud environments. They mark an important step forward in  how customers will think about, and interact with, their IT environments in the future. With the hardware running the IBM SmartCloud, one could describe this offering as a cloud-in-a-box.

Customers will also be able to access applications optimized for PureSystems from more than 100 IBM partners and solution providers through the new online PureSystems Centre. Now, in the same way a consumer can view and download apps to their phone, the clients can select and install new software to their enterprise IT.




PureSystems represents a new and exciting mile marker in IBM's second century of innovation. There is much anticipation around what this next era of innovation -- and integration --  will bring. I'm excited that IBM continues to make ground-breaking investment in the fields of technical and cloud computing, first the acquisition of Platform Computing earlier this year and now the release of PureSystems this month.

Notable quotes:

• "A new era of computing requires a new kind of infrastructure. IBM PureSystems have been designed and engineered from the start to work together to be flexible, open and easy to manage.  All of this fundamentally improves the economics of IT for our clients."  - Rod Adkins, senior vice president, IBM Systems & Technology Group

• "When looked at as a TCO question over the life of the applications, the fact that applications get certified for operation in the PureSystems environment, and the potential that has to limit problems that can be encountered when one rolls their own solutions, IBM has a good argument for their design choices." - David Chernicoff, ZDNet (blog)

More from Journey Post:

• j-Tool for PureSystems

Blog Updates:

• 2012.04.11- original post
• 2012.04.12 - updated with more system features