Finnish Academica to Use IBM PureSystems for Data Center

IBM Corporation announced that
Finnish IT outsourcing services and data center services provider Academica
will use PureSystems to power its new datacenter.

The integrated design and management capabilities of IBM PureSystems will allow
Academica to rededicate time formerly spent on IT maintenance and support to
driving customer service support and developing new services.

As a result of this new allocation of resources, Academica will be
able to focus on expanding its business by improving services to meet evolving
customer requirements, while maintaining the performance of its systems
well into the future.

"Academica is expanding
rapidly, and IBM’s new PureSystems technology enables us to make a significant
leap forward to a new, sturdy production environment," said Marko
Vanninen, MD, Academica. "Our
solution, built around the IBM PureFlex and XIV storage system, has the
scalability required to meet our future needs."

The new technology platform underpins Academica’s strategy to develop business
models and serve its customers. The integrated
design reduces system maintenance and management requirements, providing
improved business agility so that new services can be developed and deployed
more rapidly. Academica also expects improved levels of customer service, as
they exploit the system capabilities to satisfy individual
customer needs through different service level packages, as well as to provide customized reporting and billing. Similarly, customers can
benefit from a more detailed view of the acquired capacities all the way to the
virtual machine level.

"IBM PureSystems is a
flexible architecture to support client needs today -and tomorrow. Its simple,
integrated management keeps operational costs down whilst delivering the
performance and flexibility you need now," said Mika Vainio-Mattila, systems
and technology group country executive, IBM Finland. "It is designed to support multiple generations of future technologies so
also delivers long-term investment protection."

Announced in April, the IBM PureSystems portfolio includes PureApplication,
PureData and PureFlex Systems. The systems family offers clients an alternative
to current enterprise computing models, where multiple and disparate systems
require resources to set up and maintain. PureFlex System enables organizations
to create and manage an infrastructure. PureApplication System helps
organizations reduce the cost and complexity of deploying and managing
applications. PureData System is tuned for cloud computing and can consolidate
more than 100 databases on a single system. In addition to the common web
application patterns supported by PureApplication System, the combination of
both PureData and PureApplication Systems can be used for end to end
transaction workloads.

For IBM Business Partners, PureSystems creates an
opportunity to help clients solve the complexity of enterprise IT, reduce costs
and encourage innovation. From resellers to distributors and ISVs, more than 700 business partners are supporting
PureSystems. They currently run tens of thousands of existing ISV
applications across four operating environments including Windows, Linux, AIX,
and IBM i. Additionally, business partners have created more
than 200 new solutions and applications that are optimized to run on
PureSystems.

These patterns of expertise, which span 20 industries, can be
accessed through the IBM PureSystems Centre. They include solutions from some
of the world’s largest ISVs, including ERP systems and applications for the
banking, marketing, healthcare and energy industries To help address the new
opportunity that PureSystems presents, the company is also providing training,
marketing, certifications and technical validation support to business
partners. For instance, dozens of IBM Innovation Centers in cities such as
Bangalore, Dublin, Johannesburg and Shanghai are helping business partners
develop and test their applications using PureSystems. Business partners
can also bring their clients to IBM Innovation Centers to see PureSystems
technology at work.