IBM Flips the Switch on Deep Computing on Demand; GX Technology Plans ......

Lycos - Business Wire ^ | Jun 26 , 2003, 09:43am ET | Ron Favali IBM

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

IBM Flips the Switch on Deep Computing on Demand; GX Technology Plans to Transform Business with Supercomputing On Demand
26 Jun 2003, 09:43am ET

- - - - -

ARMONK, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 26, 2003--IBM today ushered in the era of deep computing on demand with the start up of its first facility designed to deliver supercomputing power to customers over the Internet, helping to free them from the fixed costs and management responsibility of owning a supercomputer. Additional facilities are planned nationally and internationally.

IBM's deep computing on demand will offer scalable, highly secure systems that customers can access via a VPN connection over the Internet.

One of the first expected to use deep computing on demand is GX Technology Corporation, which produces high resolution subsurface images from large volumes of seismic data. These subsurface images provide vital information to petroleum exploration companies in their search for new oil and natural gas deposits. The service is expected to help enable the Houston-based company to expand the scope and the number of projects it can effectively handle around the world.

"With dry hole costs in the range of $5 million to $60 million each, companies exploring for oil and gas reserves use our high resolution subsurface images to significantly reduce their drilling risk. Shortening project cycle times allows our clients to gain a significant additional benefit from our services," said Mick Lambert, president and CEO, GX Technology. "IBM's deep computing on demand gives us the power to dramatically reduce project cycle times and increase our project capacity, while reducing infrastructure and operating costs."

With deep computing on demand customers can:

-- help avoid large IT capital outlays and long term depreciation or lease schedules --this is especially important for companies with short term projects

-- bring to bear, on a temporary basis, massive amounts of compute power that could be otherwise unaffordable and which helps provide strategic insight

-- help lower overall operating costs

-- help improve price/performance for compute-intensive applications and processing of massive amounts of data

-- off-load certain system maintenance to IBM

-- use the latest technologies to help maximize performance

-- meet the urgent computational needs of new business opportunities that could otherwise be cost-prohibitive

The new deep computing on demand facility is located in a highly secure section of IBM's Poughkeepsie, New York plant. Initially, the system consists of a cluster of IBM eServer xSeries Intel-based Linux systems with related disk storage, and is planned to include pSeries UNIX servers. Designed for scalability to meet increased demand, the deep computing on demand facility is also planned to incorporate a variety of blade technologies and AMD technologies over time.

The service is expected to find favor with a broad spectrum of companies that have peaks and valleys in their need for supercomputing power. These can include Hollywood studios that use supercomputing power to create animated movies as well as life sciences companies for genomic and drug discovery research. Financial services organizations, government agencies and national research laboratories are also likely customers.

"The on demand computing model helps allow customers to avoid technological risk as well as the financial risk associated with ownership," said David Turek, vice president, IBM Deep Computing. "Deep computing on demand is designed to fulfill those two goals, freeing customers to focus on growing their business."

About GX Technology Corporation

GX Technology Corporation was founded in 1989 and is the oil & gas industry's largest independent full-service seismic contractor. The company is a leading provider of Image-Driven(TM) seismic solutions which include seismic acquisition, time processing, prestack depth and time imaging, 4D and multi-component services. Oil and gas companies use GX Technology's services to produce high fidelity images of the subsurface, which can significantly help reduce the risk and cost of finding and producing petroleum. GX Technology's corporate headquarters are located in Houston, and the company's service centers are located in Houston, London, Aberdeen and Calgary. GXT's website can be accessed at www.gxt.com .

About IBM

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about IBM, visit www.ibm.com .

IBM, the e-business logo, e-Business on Demand, and eServer are trademarks or registered trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Intel and Intel Xeon are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. All other company/product names and service marks may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

"Image-Driven" is a trademark of GX Technology Corporation.

All statements regarding IBM's future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.

CONTACT: IBM
             Ron Favali, 914/766-4776

favali@us.ibm.com

SOURCE: IBM

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

OFFICIAL BUMP(TOPIC)LIST

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

ping!

[js1138]

IBM has always considered service to be the cash cow. Good luck to them.

[Blueflag]

If they're smart, they'll pursue a 'capacity services company' utility model -- like an ETHICAL Enron might have been. they won't make money as a provider of commodity gigaflop-hours and terabyte-days. Perhaps they'll get into the wheeling business.

Interesting.

[Dog Gone]

Great. But what's to keep foreign countries from renting the supercomputers?

[eno_]

Any enterprise big enough to need this has enough PC computing power laying around unused in their own PCs. Or, if using desktop computing power sounds too iffy, a Linux or *bsd server farm and and the appropriate clustering software will still probably be cheaper than renting this from IBM.

[Grampa Dave]

Ernest, thanks for this post. This is probably why IBM had such a good day today on the stock market.

Bob the Nailer, you might be very interested in this article re using IBM's new service to avoid dry holes.

[eno_]

Fuggedaboudit. The supercomputer horse has bolted the barn long ago.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

They probably will.

The company will have these in centers around the Globe and talking to each other via satellites!

[Blueflag]

Probably the conservative lawyers at IBM global services

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The Number One Supercomputer in the world is a monster put together by the Japanese for Earthquake and Climate Modeling!

[sinkspur]

Or, if using desktop computing power sounds too iffy, a Linux or *bsd server farm and and the appropriate clustering software will still probably be cheaper than renting this from IBM.

Why would a bunch of engineers or researchers want to mess with managing hardware?

[ikka]

If the problem is easy to split up among multiple processors, then yes. However, seismic data can literally be terabytes in size; this means that the tape libraries, disks, etc. all have to be able to pump sustained amounts of data at 1-2Gbps.

[eno_]

A Linux sysadmin is almost certainly cheaper, either on contract or on salary, than any contract with IBM Global Services.

The conundrum for IBM is this: IBM's cost base is so high, only the totally helpless and/or idiotic couldn't do it cheaper themselves. Hence the importance of government work for all these services organizations.

[Blueflag]

IBM has 6000 + employees in India (pretty sure they do). It is truly a global company. Yes, their US staff is pretty pricey, but they can off-shore a lot of tasks at low labor rates, especially help center and app maint.

I like thier position. I own a good bit of their stock to back up my opinion.

[Blueflag]

A big enough Beowulf can act as a supercomputer.

[ConfusedAndLovingIt]

only the totally helpless and/or idiotic couldn't do it cheaper themselves

There will always be the helpless and idiotic out there. What's wrong with making a little money off them? ;)

It's cheaper for me to change the oil on my car myself, but I just don't want to bother with it anymore. I'll pay someone else to do it for me. Sometimes convenience outweighs cost.

[AFreeBird]

It's not raw processing power that is the bottle neck, its the I/O. Like someone else mentioned, the amount of data to crunch is quite high; terabytes, and IBM's mainframe experience shows them how to do I/O.

[theFIRMbss]

>only the totally helpless and/or idiotic couldn't do it cheaper themselves

Some people don't want
the capital expenses
and maintenance costs

for such high power.
And some just want to focus
on end-user stuff.

For instance, I've heard
that some single film frames from
Resident Evil

took forty eight hours
to render... I think film guys
would rather rent time

that can be billed to
a studio, rather than
maintain stuff themselves.