Unisys Announces New Solutions-Led Technology Strategy
Unisys Corp. has unveiled a new technology strategy aimed at helping clients evolve their organizations into real-time enterprises, in which business requirements directly drive information technology use. This solutions-led strategy integrates services, software and hardware from Unisys and partners to meet clients’ specific requirements and it enables organizations to retain and extend their current IT investment as they transform the IT infrastructure to support continually emerging business demands.
As part of this strategy, Unisys has rolled out the first in a series of solutions to help clients dynamically shift IT resources as needed to meet the strategic needs of the business while reducing costs and energy use. The new solutions include Unisys Infrastructure Management Suite, a set of data center solutions enabled by Unisys services and underpinned by new software.
The new Unisys Infrastructure Management Suite solutions address a key client requirement, that of automated management of IT infrastructure in a way that enhances real-time services to the business while reducing operating costs. Using leading-edge middleware from Unisys and its partners, along with Unisys services, the Infrastructure Management Suite solutions include Virtual Orchestration; Disaster Recovery Automation and Repurposing; Test & Development Infrastructure Automation; Automation and Efficiency for Production Infrastructure; Servers as a Utility; and Data Center Migration.
“We will deliver to our customers what is required within their specific environment,” Colin Lacey, vice president of Systems and Storage, Unisys, told 5 Minute Briefing. “I think it is very important point to highlight that the solutions we are delivering here are hardware technology-agnostic so that they are not tied specifically to running on Unisys hardware platforms and can be deployed across existing investments that our customer have made in their infrastructure - be that Unisys or third-party suppliers - and it also runs in a heterogeneous operating system environment so you can deploy this across Windows, Linux, as well as Unix operating systems.”
The middleware underpinning the new Unisys Infrastructure Management Suite solutions is based on software from key partners as well as from Unisys. It allows clients to create a sense-and-respond infrastructure for automated, real-time infrastructure management. The key components available include Unisys uAdapt software, which enables repurposing of server assets on demand in real time. “It allows us to take a server and change its personality on the fly by putting a virtual layer on top of the network connections and the storage connections,” said Al Bender, vice president of Real Time Infrastructure Solutions, Unisys. It is based on software from Unisys partner Scalent Systems.
Other components include Unisys uOrchestrate software, based on software from Enigmatec Corp., which automates key IT processes that run the business – for example, keeping service level agreements (SLAs) within policy. Finally, there is Unisys uChargeback software, developed by Unisys, said Bender, which “solves the problem of understanding how the resources are being consumed in physical and virtual machines so you can take appropriate actions with that information to potentially charge back the users.”
In 2008, Unisys also plans to add software capabilities for service governance and provisioning to the suite to control the way IT resources support critical business applications and automate allocation of IT resources according to application needs, respectively. Those solutions will be uGovern and uProvision, said Bender. For more information, go here.
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New Unisys Servers Increase Client Options for Deploying Cost-Efficient Solutions
In related news, Unisys also announced new blade and mid-range servers, expanding clients’ choice of high-performance platforms for solutions in real-time environments. The servers are designed to reduce server sprawl, provide maximum efficiency in use of computing resources, and reduce power consumption and associated costs. “We have done a pretty significant overall on our server family,” Colin Lacey, vice president of Systems and Storage, Unisys, told 5 Minute Briefing.
“We have introduced a new family of blade servers, which we are calling the ES5000 Blade Server family,” said Lacey. With flexible I/O configuration options and advanced local and remote management interfaces, the new ES5000 family of blade servers is well-suited for real-time infrastructures, according to Unisys. It enables computing resources to be added on demand, cutting down on idle resources in the data center and delivering increased power and cost efficiency.
Additionally, Unisys has also enhanced its ES3000 family of mid-range servers with a new model and three upgrades. The new model, ES3215L, is a two-socket quad- core server using Intel Xeon processor technology. Unisys has also upgraded the existing ES3220, ES3220L and ES3420L servers to the latest quad core Intel Xeon processors with Intel Virtualization Technology, which optimizes performance in a virtualized environment.
Unisys plans to expand its ES7000 family of high-end enterprise servers with a quad core eight-processor server in the second quarter of 2008. In the latter part of the year, Unisys plans to deliver its next generation of highly scalable ES7000 servers, the first development to leverage the Unisys/NEC strategic alliance for server design and manufacture. For more information, go here.
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UNITE Announces UNITE 2008 Conference Registration Savings; Call for Presentations Continues
UNITE has announced new opportunities for UNITE 2008 Annual Technology Conference attendees to save on registration fees. The conference will be held October 19-23, 2008, at the Caribe Royale Orlando in Orlando, FL. For every full paid 2008 conference attendee an organization sends, an additional person may register for only $400. Organizations that sent delegates to either the 2007 Valley Forge conference or the 2006 Anaheim conference are eligible for this program. Additionally, new attendee organizations are eligible to register either one or two delegates for the Orlando Conference for $400 each. New attendees are individuals from organizations that did not send representatives to either of the last two UNITE conferences.
The call for presentations for the UNITE 2008 Annual Technology Conference continues. Presentations are due by April 24 and can be submitted at the UNITE Web site.
The UNITE Web site features UNITE Wish Lists to assist in developing an abstract;
Guidelines for Preparing an Abstract, including tips and hints on preparing an abstract; a Lab Information Requirements Questionnaire Form; and an Abstract Entry Form to submit a session abstract for the UNITE Technology Conference.
For more information on registration opportunities for the Orlando conference, go here. For more details on submitting an abstract for the conference, go here.
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Unisys Developing Virtualized Solutions from Server to Desktop Based on New Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Technology
Unisys Corp. announced that it is developing new offerings in support of the new Windows Server 2008. These solutions are designed to offer enterprise clients record-setting performance for critical applications across their enterprise - from high-end servers in the data center to desktop systems.
A key Microsoft alliance company, Unisys is also one of the largest enterprise users of Microsoft technologies. The new solutions, to be announced over the course of 2008, will consist of architectural and implementation services, software, and appropriate hardware to help enterprise organizations rationalize their IT environments. The resulting simplified infrastructure will enable Unisys customers to more effectively migrate to a Windows Server 2008 environment, saving them time and money while mitigating the risk of business disruption, Unisys stated.
”Unisys continues to develop solutions aimed at integrating our proven services and server platforms with Windows Server 2008 so that our customers immediately experience the most optimized infrastructure available,” said Mark Feverston, vice president, Microsoft Solutions, Unisys. “The combination of our longstanding enterprise focus, experience with Microsoft platforms and scalable architecture make Unisys servers ideal for achieving database scalability with SQL Server 2008.”
The new Unisys professional services, solutions and capabilities that will support the Windows Server 2008 rollout include Unisys Infrastructure Management Suite, a suite of software tools that efficiently repurposes and orchestrates both Windows Server 2008 and other resources according to application demand;Infrastructure consulting; Security and networking; Disaster recovery services; and Identity and access management.
For more information about Unisys services and technologies and its strategic relationship with Microsoft, including information on the companies’ Solutions Alliance Technology Center, a joint development center in Bellevue, WA, visit here.
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