IBM announced several new services and products to help clients build more dynamic infrastructures that will bring more intelligence, automation, integration, and efficiencies to the digital and physical worlds. As a result, it will enable businesses and governments to better respond to and manage challenges presented by today's globally integrated planet. In response, IBM announced products and services to address these requirements.

Today's physical infrastructure is becoming instrumented. Sensors are being embedded everywhere: In bridges and roads, cars, appliances, cameras, pipelines, even in medicine and livestock. At the same time, the Internet is allowing all of this embedded computing to be interconnected, leading to a trillion connected and intelligent things, and the massive volumes of data they will produce.

IBM is working with thousands of clients around the world, applying its deep industry expertise and experience, to link these increasingly more intelligent things to powerful new backend systems that can process all that data, and applying advanced analytics capable of turning it into real insight, in real time.

Building on that expertise, IBM announced new industry-specific services and software to help clients integrate their digital and physical infrastructure. Through the new services, IBM will help clients map and integrate intelligent things with backend systems, enabling them to gain new insight into their operations and provide better services as a result.

The new offerings include:

• A new software and services offering, IBM Service Management Industry Solutions, that is customized for seven industries: Utilities, chemicals & petroleum, telecommunications retail, banking, electronics and manufacturing. The new offering includes IBM service management software and services from IBM Global Business Services, IBM Global Technology Services and specialized IBM Business Partner capabilities.
• New services to help clients design and implement service management strategies. IBM's Service Management Implementation Enhancements & Accelerators design services and deployment planning. helping clients implement Tivoli software components.
• A new governance consulting practice. IBM works with clients to design governance systems to help mitigate risks related to business changes, changing market conditions and regulatory requirements.
• New Tivoli Service Automation Manager software, which automates the design, deployment and management of services such as middleware, applications, hardware and networks, tasks that are otherwise largely done manually.
• New Tivoli Key Lifecycle Manager software, which helps organizations manage encryption key processes.

Managing Staggering Amounts of Information

IBM is announcing new technologies to help clients more securely and efficiently manage skyrocketing data:

• To reduce data proliferation, IBM announced an integrated appliance, including a server, storage, and "data deduplication" software. The new IBM TS7650 ProtecTIER Deduplication Appliance helps eliminate redundant copies of the same data, reducing it to a single instance of the data and eliminating duplicative copies.
• IBM announced enhancements to the IBM XIV Storage System, including a new lower point of entry and interoperability enhancements. The new, 65 percent smaller minimum capacity configuration is designed for mid-range customers and enterprise organizations with initial smaller capacity needs. XIV's design provides fast access to information even as data grows across traditional applications, such as financial services or health care, or new workloads, such as digital media and Web 2.0.
• IBM is announcing Full-Disk Encryption on its IBM System Storage DS8000. The DS8000 series combines the DS8000 with its full-disk encrypting drives and the flexible Tivoli Key Lifecycle Manager.
• IBM Internet Security System's new data security services are designed with next-generation security technology to help clients secure their sensitive information from the enterprise to the edge of a network. With these new security offerings, IBM can help prevent information loss via: Network extrusion prevention; implementing and managing encryption solutions to help protect data even when an endpoint device is lost or stolen; securing data more effectively while it's in use on an endpoint device; monitoring and controlling the use of external storage devices for storing and transporting data; and enhancing the security of inbound and outbound email.
• New InfoSphere Warehouse for System z beta software, designed to help clients make real-time decisions based on core business data for driving better customer management. System z customers can use this new software to more easily and cost effectively design and run a data warehouse that supports business intelligence applications, such as Cognos 8 BI.

Reducing Massive Inefficiency, Building Resilience

IBM announced new software reported to make infrastructure more resilient, virtualized, green, and efficient, while helping clients reduce costs.

IBM Systems Director software enables customers to realize major increases in the efficiency of UNIX, Windows, and Linux server platforms. The software's advanced tools can help IT managers control and automate large numbers of physical and virtual servers across the full range of IBM hardware (and non-IBM platforms as well) including AIX, Windows, Linux, Power, VMware, Microsoft Virtual Server, Xen, and z/VM. Through a single Systems Director interface, users can map virtual resources to physical servers; throttle energy consumption up or down as needed; and collect data on hardware temperatures and data center energy use. Systems Director can automatically monitor remote hardware operations and take proper action based on alerts.

Building on the benefits of IBM Systems Director, IBM also announced new Tivoli Monitoring for Energy Management software, which brings automation to the management and reporting of energy consumption by non-IT assets.

IBM also introduced a new initiative to help Business Partners develop and deepen their competencies and skills that can enable them to better respond to clients' business and IT transformational needs. The new "Dynamic Infrastructure Specialty Program" provides education, sales, marketing and technical guidance to advance Business Partners' skills in key business challenge areas such as virtualization, information management and energy efficiency. The first wave of Business Partners is already gaining certification, including Sirius, Mainline, Vicom, MicroStrategies, Agilysis and Computer Integrated Engineering System.