IBM Launches 'Blue Hammer' Web Server Cluster

IBM Monday unveiled Blue Hammer, its powerful new system for clustering Web-based servers. IBM said Blue Hammer will allow e-commerce companies to more easily manage their multiple, high-performance IBM computers used to host Internet sites.

Blue Hammer combines the company's two top Unix high-end systems into a clustered server, which features up to 16 of IBM's RS/6000 S80 enterprise servers and its Parallel System Support Program software, according to a company statement.

IBM said the Blue Hammer system allows e-commerce firms to manage all the S80 servers in the cluster simultaneously from a single point of control. According to IBM, the S80 clustered system meets the critical e-business need for uninterrupted growth on the Internet.

"The new high-performance Unix cluster from IBM integrates the world's best supercomputing software with the awesome power of the the S80 to create an easily managed and highly scalable powerhouse for today's e-businesses," Michael Kerr, vice president of products, IBM Web servers, said in a statement.

Blue Hammer is already working for the Virginia Community College System, which is using the system to build its student information database. The system covers 23 colleges and 39 campuses -- 250,000 credit students and 100,000 noncredit students -- in Virginia.

"We bought two of them . . . and we're betting the farm on [the system]," said vice chancellor Larry Hengehold. "It's a tremendous horse. We have gone through stress-testing and other testing to make sure it meets our needs, and we can't even make it breathe hard. It's a big engine."

Available immediately, the price of the base configuration of two six-way clustered S80s with a control workstation begins at $US705,000. IBM said it also plans to expand the S80 cluster system to include its 80-class Unix midrange servers -- the M80 and H80 -- by the end of the second quarter next year.