IBM introduces Grid computing capabilities in newest version of Websphere

"In the increasingly complex data centres in the region, clusters of servers that run business applications often do a poor job of juggling unpredictable workload. One server may sit idle, while another is overloaded," explained Bashar Kilani, Manager of IBM Software Group for Middle East, Egypt and Pakistan. "This leads to a Catch-22 where companies often plan for the highest possible spikes in demand, then watch as all those servers operate well under capacity most of the time. Organizations in the Middle East are looking for better ways to use the hardware and software they have already purchased."

IBM has developed a first-of-its-kind "traffic cop-like" software product that automatically and intelligently monitors application workload and routes traffic to one server or another according to its workload at a given time. It allows a cluster consisting of many servers - from dozens to hundreds - to operate as a single environment that automatically adapts to sudden changes, much as the electrical grid works.

This can improve network performance - for example, eliminating some of the missed server connections that can be a mystery to Web users - and allow companies to get more value out of their existing server resources.

The technology was developed by IBM Research and the company's software development teams over the past two years, and is available in the IBM WebSphere Application Server. WebSphere was recently named by a top analyst firm as the best-selling Web application platform.

The "traffic cop" is easily installed by an IT administrator with a simple point and click as part of the WebSphere software setup.

The new technology is the latest example of IBM's work to take Grid computing into the commercial mainstream. IBM is offering technology and bringing together business partners, developers, system integrators and IT vendors of all sizes to form a standards-based Grid ecosystem that will accelerate adoption in the enterprise.

In Grid computing, all of the disparate computers and systems in an organization or among organizations become one large, integrated computing system. That single system can then be turned loose on problems and processes too large and intensive for any single computer to easily handle in an efficient manner.

Under non-grid circumstances: mainframes might lie idle 40 percent of the time; Unix servers are sometimes "serving" less than 10% of the time; many business PCs may be under utilized as much as 95% of a typical day.

Capabilities such as those in the new WebSphere software help a Grid gather untapped power and functionality and make it available to users across the grid as needed.

Future versions of IBM WebSphere will extend the "traffic cop" capability to disparate parts of a company and automatically coordinate multiple clusters of servers running various business applications, rather than just single clusters running a particular application such as online trading.