January 16, 2008—IBM has unveiled technologies and services to improve energy and operational efficiency across a retailer’s entire IT operation, the company has announced.
The IBM “Green Retail Store” portfolio includes high-performance point-of-sale systems, industry- leading IBM blade servers, and system management software that allow retailers to deploy end-to-end solutions from the front of the store to the back office that benefit the environment.
The anchor of the IBM solution portfolio is the IBM SurePOS 700, the world’s number one selling point-of-sale (POS) system, explains IBM. It offers clients a choice of three high-performance, energy- efficient processors that help reduce power consumption by 36 percent or more.
Using IBM system management technology, practically all elements of the store—from point-of -sale, to advanced IBM AnyPlace kiosks, to self checkout systems—can be managed from a single location using the IBM Remote Management Agent (RMA), an enterprise-class management system that allows retailers to remotely monitor the POS device, track assets and distribute software.
When combined with IBM Director, an integrated, easy-to-use, suite of tools that provides clients with flexible system management capabilities for maximum system availability and lower IT costs, these functions can be monitored across one single location, or across multiple stores.
The power behind the IBM Green Retail Store is an IBM BladeCenter S system, with attributes designed to help retailers simplify the management of technology needed to operate a store. With its Store Integration Framework (SIF) certification, the BladeCenter S system enables more than 75 SIF- certified retail independent solution providers to create and run applications on the system. Even more, the IBM blade’s environmental features allow retailers to reduce their energy costs up to 20 percent, cut back office noise by 50 percent, and to run the system desk-side, enabling clients to maximize back office space for other mission critical application platforms.
Additionally, IBM offers services to help retailers evaluate their energy and thermal profiles in data center facilities through 3-D modeling and thermal analysis, assess the energy efficiency of their enterprise data centers, and move to virtualized infrastructures and emerging hybrid systems that utilize special purpose processors to reduce energy consumption.
For more information visit the IBM Web site.
