IBM Intros New Office Ready Kit for BladeCenter S

By Stefania Viscusi

TMCnet Assistant Editor

 

To offer small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), the ability to lower their power bills, maximize their office space and grow their business, IBM (News - Alert) has combined its BladeCenter system for smaller firms with an “Office Ready Kit” that makes it possible to take blades out of the datacenter and put them into the front office.

IBM's BladeCenter S is a blade computing system designed to help smaller firms simplify the management of technology needed to operate a small business.

 

With the BladeCenter S system, which includes 1-2-3 Storage, an automated, three-step set-up tool offering clients access to enterprise-class storage without the need for storage expertise, clients are able to reduce storage set-up time from 30 minutes to two minutes. This also allows clients to save up to $10,000 on external hardware costs and makes it possible for business to grow their storage use gradually, along with their business.

The Office Ready Kit, officially called the IBM Business Enablement (Tower) Kit, is designed to optimize the blade system for smaller firms and is designed with the SMB in mind so it is inexpensive, quiet and helps to grow their business.

 

“IBM is radically expanding the blade market to enable a significantly broader set of customers to leverage the integration, flexibility and ease of management blade computing brings to help improve their competitive advantage in the marketplace,” commented Alex Yost, vice president of IBM BladeCenter.

                                                                                                                                  

The Kit for Blade Center S specifically includes, built-in air filters that block dust from entering the system. Dust can cause servers to overheat and use more power. The kit also features a noise attenuator. This muffles sound exiting the system so system noise is reduced to 60 decibels – the equivalent of a quiet conversation. This also leaves extra space for future growth and is built-in so the system can support components like storage libraries or power supplies as needed.

“BladeCenter S was designed with the requirements of smaller firms in mind. With its ability to fit into an office as well as its ease of use and installation, this is not a blade system turned on its side or chopped in half to just look like a small business solution,” Yost also commented.

 

The BladeCenter S system will be available in December 2007 and clients will be able to purchase it together with the Office Ready Kit.