IBM offers virtualisation to SMBs

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IBM is looking to help small and medium businesses to virtualise, by offering its PowerVM platform in smaller, cheaper form.

The PowerVM Express, a new virtualisation platform, will let SMB customers cut costs, improve energy efficiency and better manage resources, IBM said.

PowerVM Express is one of three editions of the platform - the first aimed at SMBs. The Express version allows three partitions on the server, while the Standard edition allows 10 partitions per processor core. The Enterprise edition features live partition mobility.

Scott Handy, vice president of marketing and strategy for IBM Power Systems, said the combination of the virtualisation software with the company's POWER6 servers would give SMBs the same class of virutalised technology as enterprise.

"Virtualisation has typically been in the domain of large enterprises. Today we aim to simplify the adoption of virtualisation technologies, making it available to small and medium-sized businesses," he said.

IBM said that combining the platform with their POWER6-based servers or BladeCenter servers - both of which are positioned for the SMB market - would allow for the creation of up to 160 virtual partitions in a single system.

IBM also announced two new POWER6 processor-based UNIX servers, the entry-level System 520 Express and System p 550 Express.

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