IBM PureFlex System and IBM Flex System

1 Based on IBM testing and documented in IBM System x Virtualization Server Consolidation sizing methodology. IBM Flex System x240 supports 2.7X more Peak Utilization Virtual Machines (VMs) than previous generation BladeCenter blades. PureFlex System provides better scaled performance than blades due to higher total memory capacity of Flex System x240 Compute Node.

2. 40% less energy is required on Flex System Compute Node x240 compared with earlier generation Intel x86 processor technology.

3. Based on customer interviews and IBM development estimates of utilization and performance for PureFlex System when compared to older generations of existing systems.. Customer’s existing installation comprises prior generation Unix and x86 servers which contain a total of 2010 processor cores. The PureFlex System scenario to support the same application set requires 448 cores, a 78% reduction. Source: International Technology Group (ITG) paper on PureFlex System. Specific client environments and results may vary.

4. From an International Technology Group (ITG, a third party) interview of a group of companies. “Before” PureFlex System and “after” PureFlex System. The results from the group of 6 companies had a peak predicted administrator efficiency improvement of 57% and an average of 42%. Sourced from whitepaper “Value Proposition for IBM Next Generation Platform System”, International Technology Group

5. IBM internal Research and Development estimate comparing VMControl’s ability to automatically provision storage to a VM (90 second duration) vs. 2 administrators (storage and server admins) allocating the storage manually without VMControl (2 hour duration). Specific client environments and results may vary

6. Based on IBM internal Research and development estimates and measurements. The management server setup for IBM Flex System takes 131 minutes. Equivalent setup for BladeCenter takes 388 minutes. This is based on the “build to order” approach, and is therefore very conservative, i.e. if we were to consider the pre-configured options (Express, Standard, Enterprise), the savings would be far larger. Solely the 66% saving claimed for conservatism. Compared with to previous generation blade servers. Specific client environments and results may vary.