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IBM has made available some new services to make life for customers implementing Linux and Grid computing technologies easier. IBM's new Implementation Services for Linux Service Product and Grid and Grow Express Implementation Service Product both utilize a new IBM Research-designed automated web-based tool that can reduce implementation time and expense, according to IBM.

For Linux implementations, IBM Implementation Services for Linux Service Product provides clients access to services that are designed to enable rapid and consistent implementation of the Novell SUSE Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system (OS). The service product includes:

    * IBM Implementation Services for Linux distributions -- designed to enable faster implementation of the Linux OS on all IBM System x, System p, System i, System z and BladeCenter servers.

    * IBM Implementation Services for Linux server consolidation -- designed to reduce costs and enhance reliability by providing clients with a consolidated Linux server environment for dispersed applications and data.

    * IBM Implementation Services for Linux high performance computing clusters -- helps clients optimize the computing power of their IBM System x and BladeCenter server clusters.

The Implementation Services for Linux Server Consolidation helps customers to do what a lot of the IBM press releases say they should do: migrate applications to Linux and consolidate them onto virtualized server instances. And finally, if you want to build a parallel Linux cluster to run supercomputing, data warehousing, and similar workloads, then the Implementation Services for Linux High Performance Computing Clusters is for you. This latter offering is only available on System x and BladeCenter servers, however. So if you want to build a Linux supercomputer cluster on Power iron, IBM does not have a shrink-wrapped services offering for you.