IBM will resell the Force10 Networks' E-Series E1200/600 high density Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet product family under a worldwide partnership agreement announced by the firms. In addition, IBM Global Services will provide end-to-end support for the E-Series switch/routers -- including consulting, implementation, and technical assistance center (TAC) support -- for enterprise customers worldwide.
Force10 Networks and IBM also entered a manufacturing partnership whereby IBM builds the EtherScale ASICs used within the E-Series platform. In addition, Force10 augments its E-Series system with IBM's PowerPC processors.
Force10 Networks said its E-Series is purpose-built for high performance grid, clustering and utility computing applications. Grids allow geographically distributed organizations to share applications, data and high capacity computing resources. IBM is active in many of the largest grid computing projects worldwide.
http://www.force10networks.com
- In April 2003, The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) selected IBM to help build a massive data-management system built on Grid computing. IBM's “Storage Tank�? virtualization technology will be used to manage huge amounts of data using a single file namespace regardless of where or on what operating system the data reside. IBM and CERN will work together to extend Storage Tank's capabilities so it can manage and provide access from any location worldwide to the torrent of data -- billions of gigabytes a year -- that CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is expected to produce when it goes online in 2007. The Large Hadron Collider is a particle accelerator that aims to recreate -- on a tiny scale -- conditions that existed shortly after the Big Bang.
