IBM makes latest grid push

IBM, one of the loudest advocates of pooling computing resources with grid technology, has secured six new customers.

Big Blue is expected to announce today that the new customers will join IBM's stable of about 100 firms who have bought grid computing products and services. The new clients include Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley and business consulting firm Hewitt Associates.

Grid computing involves pooling the computing power of dozens, sometimes hundreds, of servers over a network to run programs more reliably and reduce the cost of maintaining data centres.

IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and a handful of others are each touting their grid computing prowess.

Oracle recently joined the fracas, announcing plans to release a version of its database software designed for grid computing by year end. At the time, Oracle executives argued that IBM's approach to grid computing requires expensive consulting services from IBM Global Services. Oracle promised to offer a more out-of-the-box grid computing experience. IBM executives countered that Oracle's grid computing effort is little more than a repackaging of its "clustering" technology.

Despite the competition IBM is eager to claim the market as its own.

An IBM spokesperson said: "While our competitors - Oracle, HP and Sun - are playing catch up, making promises of grid strategies to come, IBM has more than 100 live, in-production grid projects around the world and has introduced some 19 industry-specific grid products in just the past year."

IBM expects its grid computing push to bring in "multiple millions" of dollars in revenue this year from the sale of hardware, software and services, said Tom Hawk, IBM's general manager of grid computing.

The other new customers joining IBM's grid computing fold are NLI Research Institute, a unit of the Nippon Life Insurance Group in Japan; Ngee Ann Polytechnic, a college in Singapore; T-Systems, a unit of Germany’s Deutsche Telecom; and IN2P3, a French research consortium on nuclear physics.

Alorie Gilbert writes for News.com