Unisys Corp. last week unveiled the Libra 185, a new ClearPath Master Control Program mainframe with features that support the Business Blueprinting initiative the company touted in June.
The Business Blueprinting strategy hopes to enable enterprises to tie business processes together with software and hardware. The goal is to let users model business processes thus enabling them to streamline the processes. 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 Libra 185 to support these goals are built-in support for both Microsoft Corp.s .Net and Sun Microsystems Inc.s J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition) application development platforms. These 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, officials said.
The system also includes expanded support for such Web services standards as XML, Simple Object Access Protocol and Universal Description, Discovery and Integration—enabling customers to wrap legacy applications in Web services. It also features an increase in memory and I/O throughput. Unisys also 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 for only the processor power they use. Currently the software is in pilot testing and will be added later this year, 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.
United Fire Group Inc., in Des Moines, Iowa, is installing a Libra 185 to back up the ClearPath NX6822 it currently runs and to operate as the insurance companys application development platform. “We bought a dual-domain machine,” said Bob Kenward, vice president of information services. “Part of it we can use for our application development, the rest we can have it on standby so if anything happens to our main machine, we can quickly move over to this one.”