IBM license management - insight into a microcosm

Anyone who needs to delve further into software license management in the course of his professional life, can quickly get the impression that delve into a microcosm own.

Whether Microsoft, Oracle or IBM, each provider has developed other methods for licensing its software. The license terms from IBM are among certainly the most complex. Besides nested software products (the so-called software bundling) is available from IBM around 100 different metrics, based on which the software may be licensed - and rising.

In addition to the legal protection can the effort, periodically to review the existing license conditions, worthwhile for companies financially well, especially since the various licensing options are continually adapted and changed by the manufacturer.

Potential for cost savings

A variation that has a high potential for cost savings, is the licensing on the basis of so-called PVU metric (Processor Value Unit). Here the cost of the software are determined not on the number of users or installations, but on the performance of the processors. After a points table each processor model is depending on the performance and configuration associated with a certain number of points, which forms its PVU value. This value is then multiplied by the number of available cores. From these figures the required number of PVU licenses that will be charged as a basis for calculating the price to be licensed Software.

IBM puts billion again in Linux and open source for our own "power" server.

This was announced by the Group on the LinuxCon, Linux Foundation in New Orleans. With the dollar billion to According to an announcement will be financed in the cloud for Linux on Power, among others, a new customer center in Europe as well as a development environment.

The Power Systems Linux center in Montpellier, France, is to make it easier for software developers in the future, new applications for big data , cloud, mobile and social business to develop open technology components with Linux and Power7 processors and provide. The first such center opened IBM in May in Beijing, there are already more in New York City and Austin, Texas.

The Linux on Power Development Cloud is a development environment for the Power Systems cloud. About the free cloud service companies to Linux applications (but which for AIX or System i) build on the Power platform, porting and testing.

Overall, the billions invested in research, design and development should flow and help to support training, information sessions and go-to-market programs for customers, developers, business partners, entrepreneurs, academics and students financially. Goes on to say.

IBM brings HPC concepts into business

IBM has announced the IDF together with Intel a new high-density server system, which houses more than 2,000 computing cores in a standard rack.

The "Next Scale" system recommends "Big Blue" for the currently fastest growing workloads such as analytics, cloud delivery, social media or technical computing. It is based on the currently most powerful Intel Xeon processors (Ivy Bridge E5 with feature sizes of 22 nanometers) and to supercomputer performance permit for each data center. Here is a simple, flexible and open architecture offer many options for processing power, memory, graphics acceleration and coprocessors. The bottom line is to get the maximum performance outcome in the smallest space, and that too with high energy efficiency.

The new Next Scale platform
IBM includes many features that had so far known especially in the HPC environment.

Next Scale brings in a rack
As many three times cores under such a version with conventional 1U servers.

The Compute Modules for Next Scale
The equipped with the current are most powerful Xeon processors (Ivy Bridge E5, 22 nm) from Intel.

Next Scale packs up to 84 x86 based systems with 2016 cores in an EIA 19-inch rack.  I/O cards and top-of-rack switches conform to the industry standard. IBM delivers with a software package that contains inter alia the General Parallel File System, GPFS Storage Server, xCAT and Platform Computing for functions such as scheduling, management and optimization , There are Solution Starter Kits for among other Ansys, MPI-BLAST or OpenStack. With "SmartCloud Entry" IBM also offers a software product, with the overall platforms and product lines a private cloud with heterogeneous hypervisors should be implemented quickly and cost effectively in a single system.

IBM researchers tackle new personal data protection in the cloud

Developed by IBM Research in Zurich, Identity Mixer is available from spring 2015 for beta testing in the Bluemix -Cloud.

The IBM announces on the occasion of today's International Privacy Tags. The Identity Mixer, for short “Idemix” to personal information such as date of birth or credit card information can be protected better at web and mobile transactions. Cryptographic algorithms enable a privacy-friendly authentication to online services, in which the user disclosing as little data as possible. Idemix is loud IBM already in two pilot projects with the German Red Cross and the National Science Authority of Australia (CSIRO) tested in practice.

Users can give loud Big Blue over service providers in the network often disclose personal data, although this would not be necessary for the provision of the requested power. With the Identity Mixer, the user can select exactly what data he wants to share with whom, explains Christina Peters, Chief Privacy Officer at IBM. The technology also provides for online service providers advantages they can improve their risk profile and strengthen the confidence of customers. With the cloud version of the technology is also integrated in the future easier for developers.

New Oracle Engineered System for application virtualization

Oracle today announced the Virtual Compute Appliance on a new integrated system can virtually practically any (x86) workloads with the user.

The Virtual Compute Appliance is the latest addition to the family of so-called Engineered Systems, which Oracle demonstrate its expertise in the integration of software and hardware and wants to sell its customers an advantage. It should , according to an announcement enable fast and repeatable installations of full-stack infrastructure. The wire-once system comes completely pre-configured. Production workloads should be possible to set up with little effort on a software-defined configuration - IBM has its similar concept Pure Systems for quite some time in the market.

The Virtual Compute Appliance, Oracle is built around an InfiniBand fabric around. Connection to existing Ethernet and Fiber Channel networks, the system finds more than pooled interconnect modules that can use any virtual machine transparently. The system has to start no single point of failure, virtualized applications can at a hardware or software errors automatically.