Every enterprise intends to increase its business. However, projecting the hardware needs that will accommodate that growth seem more in the realm of a psychic than that of even an experienced IT department. Linux offers solutions, but organizations like to have options in the form of both hardware and operating systems. Many of these companies rely on IBM's eServer blades as their hardware platform of choice—it gives them the option of choosing between Intel Xeon, AMD Opteron, or IBM's own PowerPC processors. Still, despite the architectural choices, yet more flexibility may be necessary.

To give organizations the options they hope for and the greatest ease in upgrading processing power, IBM offers Grid and Grow, a system that allows those entering the realm of grid computing a means to increase their grid implementations by adding more hardware as needed. Probably the most alluring benefits are that the blades themselves can be mixed and matched regardless of their base processor, and a variety of operating systems can be used based on the preferred configuration of a given enterprise.

The Way it Used to Be
In the past, large-scale server configurations were based on proprietary hardware that ran on proprietary operating systems such as HP's HP-UX, IBM's AIX, Sun's Solaris, and SGI's IRIX. This approach was in the best interest of the hardware vendors, but not really in the best interest of customers. If an organization bought into any particular hardware/OS configuration, they were pretty much committed to sticking with it, unless they were willing to completely abandon their hardware and switch to another proprietary system. It was not exactly a flexible situation for any organization. The problem still exists to a certain extent today. While the hardware/software paradigm has changed and most vendors give customers a choice between operating systems, customers are still often locked into a single processing solution. In other words, they have the advantage of choosing between Windows, Linux, various flavors of UNIX, and other OSs, but once they choose their hardware configuration, they are pretty much stuck with it. IBM's Grid and Grow philosophy seeks to change that situation. At the same time, it offers a number of grid scheduler options, giving company's even more choices.

Grid and Grow
The components in IBM's Grid and Grow offering start out with the IBM eServer BladeCenter with seven blades and a choice of three server architectures: Intel HS20 (based on the Intel Xeon with Hyper-Threading technology), AMD LS20 (based on the AMD Opteron family of single and dual-core processors), or POWER JS20 (based on the 64-bit IBM PowerPC processor). The blades can be mixed and matched in a single chassis and run Red Hat or Novell SUSE Linux OS, AIX 5L, or Windows. Additional blades can be added to fill out the existing chassis, or the system can be expanded to include multiple chassis for nearly unlimited scalability.

Grid scheduling is also and important part of configuring a server system because it enables application scheduling, efficient dynamic resource allocation, and resource sharing over multiple administrative domains. To help address this issue, Grid and Grow offers four options: Altair's PBS Professional, Platform Computing's LSF, DataSynapse's GridServer, or IBM's LoadLeveler. Rounding out the offering is a services package that includes a site readiness assessment, hardware and software installation and tailoring, grid application assessment, performance testing, documentation, and client training. With options and IBM support, a burgeoning enterprise can not only be up and running in a reasonable amount of time, but be prepared to add more blades easily as processing needs increase.

The Advantages of Flexibility
A number of different types of organizations can benefit from IBM's Grid and Grow. In fact, regardless of the projected size of an enterprise, the flexibility of the solution is very compelling because it has no real limitations on expansion. Customers with compute-intensive applications can improve speed and accuracy by enabling applications to be executed faster, more frequently, and on demand. Those in the finance, insurance, industrial, life sciences, and government sectors are among the types of companies that will especially benefit from ever increasing speed and processing capabilities. Others might include computer-aided drafting teams, motion picture special effects, and game development organizations. Business problems that could be solved include: time to market for portfolio analysis, wealth management analysis and risk reports for capital markets; speed and accuracy for actuarial analysis; bottlenecks in product design and development cycles; and elapsed time, accuracy, and frequency for engineering simulations and tests.

IBM also offers tools optimized for the Grid and Grow platform that include products from the IBM Tivoli and WebSphere portfolio. These tools can be used to implement aspects of server functionality that may be important to many customers. For example, dynamic provisioning can help organizations pool their resources and dynamically bringing them online and return them to the pool as needed. Dynamic software license tracking can allow users to pool software licenses and deploy them into the grid as needed, with a single point of tracking and control. In addition, users have the option of implementing a standards-based secure portal to dynamically access grid applications.

Support Makes a Difference
The various configurations in IBM's Grid and Grow portfolio also include support from IBM Global Services, which can be especially useful to companies who are just entering the realm of grid computing. IBM support can be helpful in identifying the appropriate resources in the enterprise, building consensus, and instilling governance rules—all of which can be as important as getting the right hardware and software in place. IBM's consultants, architects, and partners can help assess and develop a strategy and business case, design the solution, implement it, and support it.

The benefits inherent in taking advantage of IBM Global Services support include increased flexibility and scalability to help enable quicker response to market opportunities, increased knowledge and resource sharing to help enhance productivity, the assurance that open standards and protocols are used to address virtually any vertical market, optimization of current IT investments to reduce capital expenses, and the alignment of business strategy with existing technology to help reduce costs and improve operational efficiencies. Training is also included to be sure that IT personnel are able to keep the system running at peak perform during and after consultation.

Psychic Readings Not Required
A grid implementation, whether a point solution or a broader enterprise approach, virtualizes, pools, and centralizes computing resources. Grid projects are used to enhance collaboration, speed up analytics and access to data, and help organizations respond more quickly to market opportunities and threats. The true benefit in IBM's Grid and Grow is that, while the price of entry is relatively low, it allows for quick response to business needs. In addition, its flexible in hardware and software configurations allows organizations to configure the solution that best suits their needs and IT resources, with no proprietary hardware or software requirements. Blade systems are attractive to many enterprises because they offer the ability to add more hardware horsepower as needed, without relying on inaccurate growth projections. Grid and Grow is a unique solution in that it allows hardware "right sizing" at the correct time in a variety of flavors.