Merck Selects IBM eServer For Next-Generation Drug Design

IBM eServer p690 Will Help Pharmaceutical Giant Identify Promising Compounds, Perform Massive Database Searches

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Armonk, NY - 05 Apr 2002: IBM today announced that Merck & Co., Inc., one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, has selected IBM eServer p690 systems to help develop a new generation of drugs.

"The IBM eServer has proven itself to be a powerful computing platform in our demanding technical environment," said Dr. Eugene Fluder, Director, Merck & Co.

Merck will use the IBM eServer p690 systems in the basic research aspect of the drug development process. This includes database searching, chemical property computation, sophisticated quantum mechanical computations and clustering.

IBM eServer Technology
Merck selected five 32-way IBM eServer p690 systems with a total of three terabytes of TotalStorage 7133 Serial Disk storage. The IBM eServer p690 implements a system-on-a-chip design that supplies tremendous power and reliability with comparatively few processors. Built with technology from IBM's Project eLiza initiative, the IBM eServer p690 offers multiple layers of self-healing technologies that allow the server to continue operating -- even through major failures and system errors. The IBM eServer p690 can either be operated as a single large server or divided into as many as 16 "virtual" servers, running any combination of the AIX 5L and Linux operating systems.

The new servers join a pair of IBM SP supercomputing systems, already in operation at Merck.

"Merck is very advanced in its use of powerful computers to develop the next generation of drugs," said Val Rahmani, general manager, IBM eServer, pSeries. "In meeting the computing requirements of Merck and the pharmaceutical industry, IBM is committed to helping some of the world's most brilliant scientists solve incredibly difficult scientific challenges."

According to the TOP500 Supercomputer List*, IBM systems account for 160 of the world's 500 most powerful high performance computers -- more than any other vendor. The list was published in November by supercomputing experts Jack Dongarra from the University of Tennessee and Erich Strohmaier and Hans Meuer of the University of Mannheim (Germany).