1.5 IBM Linux clusters

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Today's e-infrastructure requires IT systems to meet increasing demands, while offering the flexibility and manageability to rapidly develop and deploy new services. IBM Linux clusters address all these customer needs by providing hardware and software solutions to satisfy the IT requirements.

1.5.1 xSeries custom-order clusters

Clustered computing has been with IBM for several years. IBM, through its services arm (IBM Global Services), has been involved in helping customers create Linux-based clusters. Because Linux clustering is a relatively recent phenomenon, there has not been a set of best practices or any standard cluster configuration that customers could order off-the-shelf. In most cases, each customer had to "reinvent the wheel" when designing and procuring all the components for a cluster. However, based on the IGS experience, many of these best practices have been developed and practical experience has been built while creating Linux-based clusters in a variety of environments. Based on this experience, IBM offers solutions that combine these experiences, best practices, and the most commonly used software and hardware components to provide a cluster offering that can be deployed quickly in a variety of environments.

1.5.2 The IBM eServer Cluster 1350

The IBM ™ Cluster 1350 is a new Linux cluster offering. It is a consolidation and a follow-on of the IBM Cluster 1300 and the IBM xSeries "custom-order" Linux cluster offering delivered by IGS. This new offering provides greater flexibility, improved price/performance with Intel Xeon™ processor-based servers (new xServer models x335 and x345), and the superior manageability, worldwide service and support, and demonstrated clustering expertise that has already established IBM as a leader in Linux cluster solutions.

The Cluster 1350 is targeted at the High-Performance Computing market, with its main focus on the following industries:

Industrial sector: Petroleum, automotive, and aerospace
Public sector: Higher education, government, and research labs
Life sciences
Financial services
Service providers
Communications/media: For Web server farms, e-business infrastructures, collaboration, and digital content creation

Also, with its high degree of scalability and centralized manageability, the Cluster 1350 is ideally suited for Grid solutions implementations.

Chapter 2, "New Linux cluster offering from IBM: Cluster 1350" on page 21 provides a great deal of information on the IBM Cluster 1350 as well as on the xServer models x335 and x345

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