IBM ships 1,000th z900 mainframe - Linux system to replace server farmArmonk 24 September 2001 IBM has shipped its 1,000th IBM eServer z900 to Boscov's, the largest family-owned department store company in the U.S. Boscov's plans to consolidate its Windows NT server farm on a single z900 running Linux.
Boscov's, which operates 35 department stores in Pennsylvania,
Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Maryland, will initially move its
print and file server workloads from up to 44 servers to Linux virtual
servers on the z900. The company also has plans to move its e-commerce
and database applications to Linux on the mainframe and replace four
Web servers with WebSphere Commerce Suite Pro Edition for Linux for
z900. In addition, it will boost data storage throughput and
application flexibility and scalability by connecting the z900 to the
Linux-enabled IBM Enterprise Storage Server (code named "Shark").
Interest in Linux on the mainframe for server consolidation has
helped drive three consecutive quarters of double-digit growth in IBM
mainframe sales. In addition, industry analyst firm IDC recently
released its 2Q 2001 worldwide server market share report, which
showed that IBM gained 5.3 points of worldwide server market share,
while Sun, HP and Compaq all lost share. IBM also recently launched a
national television commercial to promote the advantages of Linux for
server consolidation on the eServer z900 mainframe.
IT analyst firms Hurwitz Group and Matterhorn Group have concluded
that the mainframe provides a cost-effective, energy-efficient
alternative to the server farm for businesses. While a typical
configuration of 750 Sun servers costs approximately $620/day in
electricity to run, a single z900 -- running the same workload --
costs only $32/day, a power saving ratio of nearly 20-1. The savings
are even more dramatic when floor space requirements of a server farm
are considered. The average server farm requires some 10,000 square
feet of floor space compared with only 400 square feet for a single
z900. At an average of 100 Watts per square foot, the savings can be
significant.
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