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Unisys Corp. on Monday is unveiling a new MCP-based mainframe with features that support the Business Blueprinting initiative the company touted in June.
The Business Blueprinting strategy is designed to enable enterprises to tie their business processes together with their software and hardware. The goal is to enable users to model their business processes, enabling them to streamline them, reduce them where possible and to build new ones. Then the businesses can create and deploy software to support the model, according to officials with Unisys, in Blue Bell, Pa.
Among the new features enabling the ClearPath Libra 185 server to support these goals is built-in support for both Microsoft Corp.s .Net and Sun Microsystems Inc.s J2EE application development platforms, which are coupled with Unisys Enterprise Application Environment, a software development tool set used by ClearPath customers. Users will be able to create applications combining ClearPath Cobol, .Net and J2EE, according to Rod Sapp, director of ClearPath marketing for Unisys.
The system also includes expanded support for such Web services standards as XML, Simple Object Access Protocol and UDDI—enabling customers to wrap legacy applications in Web services—and an increase in both memory and I/O throughput. In addition, Unisys created the infrastructure inside the server for a metering system that will enable customers to ramp up or tone down the amount of processing power, depending on business demand, and pay only for the processor power they use. Currently the software is in pilot testing and will be added later this year, Sapp said.
“All of the above is helping customers keep their business processes and IT infrastructure aligned,” he said.
Unisys also has redesigned its CMOS chip, enabling it to run 1,500 MIPS, or about 25 percent more than its predecessor, officials said. The Libra 185, which is available immediately starting at $1.13 million, can run up to 32 CMOS chips or up to 24 Intel Corp. processors and eight CMOS chips, and can scale from 4GB to 64GB of memory.