Linux mainframes** are expensive, and pocket-sized devices may be sufficient.
IBM releases another new member of the LinuxOne enterprise Linux family, hoping to have recognition in the small and medium-sized business market, but 13$50,000** is probably still beyond the psychological capacity of most buyers.
The LinuxOne system uses the same Telum processors as the IBM Z16 mainframe family, but is smaller and runs only Linux. Big Blue also launched the Rockhopper 4 series last year, with standard rack-mounted pallets to lower the barrier to integration with other infrastructure.
LinuxOne 4 epxress continues this design line, but IBM emphasizes that the new product is designed to bring LinuxOne's enterprise-class capabilities to small and medium-sized businesses and more data center environments.
The starting price for this new product is 13$50,000, that's incomprehensible. And this includes only the basic hardware configuration, not additional items, maintenance, operating systems, and other software.
According to the introduction, the LinuxOne system emphasizes high availability and is designed to meet the severe elasticity needs of customers for critical workloads. IBM says that the Linux One 4 Express system is capable of delivering 99999999% (eight nines) availability means an average annual downtime of less than 1 second.
Since the Telum processor also features an on-chip accelerator for AI inference, IBM will certainly introduce new AI capabilities and hybrid cloud options.
"With the latest Linux One 4 system, IBM combines the power of hybrid cloud and AI into a single, easy-to-use form factor for a wide range of data center scenarios," said Tina Tarquinio, vice president of product line management for IBM Z and LinuxOne. ”
She added that as the business grows, LinuxOne 4 Express can scale to meet growing workloads and performance requirements. In addition, the new product provides mission-critical data and AI inference for a growing number of AI use cases.
According to the specification sheet published by IBM, Linux One 4 Express offers a single processor bay that can hold up to 16 configurable cores with a maximum memory capacity of 1 TB; In comparison, the Rockhopper system can support 2 TB of RAM, and the multi-rack Emperor 4 can support 4 TB, making the Linux One 4 Express the smallest system in the family.
Linux distributions supported by IBM include Canonical, Red Hat, and SUSE.
As a loyal IBM customer, UCL praised the benefits of the new system and hinted at the target deployment environment for the device.
Dr. Owain Kenway, Director of Computational Research at University College London, said, "We are pleased to see that LinuxOne 4 Express is able to support high-IO workloads such as next-generation bioscience sequencing; It also supports a wide range of workloads in the Trusted Research Environment (TRE), such as AI workloads running on top of medical data. ”
He added, "The high performance and scalability of the system can meet our critical research needs; The economic advantages also allow us to offer the test platform to university research and other players in the industry. ”
Another big selling point highlighted by Big Blue is the ability to integrate databases into LinuxOne systems to simplify the IT environment and reduce costs. The company explains that migrating Linux workloads from x86 servers to IBM Linux One 4 Express has helped customers save more than 52 percent in total cost of ownership over five years.
IBM Linux One 4 Express will be available through IBM and its Certified Business Partners starting February 20 this year.