Technology

Hosted IBM offering runs on blades

IBM is teaming with VMware and Citrix Systems to create a hosted client environment based on IBM`s BladeCenter blade servers.

03 January 2006

IBM`s Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure, announced last month at the VMworld show in Las Vegas, marks the company`s first step back into the client space since it sold its PC business to Lenovo earlier this year. It also follows through on several strategy initiatives at IBM, including greater use of virtualisation and expanding its blade form factors.

The offering will work in a similar fashion to PC blades and thin clients, said Juhi Jotwani, director of xSeries and BladeCenter solutions at IBM. Centrally located blade servers running VMware`s virtual machine technology will house the critical components – such as the memory and processors – and data, which desktop users could access from a desktop device via Presentation Server from Citrix.

It will have the benefits of thin clients and PC blades – better security and easier manageability – while giving users what they need on the desktop. “It gives the users full desktop functionality from pretty much any access device,” such as a thin-client appliance or desktop PC, Jotwani said.

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