International Business Machines Corp. announced details of the fastest computer chip - the microprocessor in a new version of the IBM mainframe that begins shipping to customers on Sept. 10. This world record-breaking speed is necessary for businesses managing huge workloads, such as banks and retailers, especially as the world becomes increasingly more inter-connected, data has grown beyond the world's storage capacity, and business transactions continue to skyrocket. The new zEnterprise technology is the result of an investment of more than $1.5 billion in IBM research and development in the zEnterprise line, as well as more than three years of collaboration with some of IBM's top clients around the world. The z196 processor is a four-core chip that contains 1.4 billion transistors on a 512-square millimeter (mm) surface. The chip was designed by IBM engineers in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and was manufactured using IBM's 45 nanometer (nm) SOI processor technology in the company's 300mm fab in East Fishkill, N.Y. There were also major contributions to the z196 processor development from IBM labs in Austin, TX, Germany, Israel and India. The mainframe processor makes use of IBM's patented embedded DRAM (eDRAM) technology, which allows IBM to place dense DRAM caches, or components, on the same chips as high-speed microprocessors, resulting in improved performance. This new IBM microprocessor technology has new software to optimize performance of data-heavy workloads, including up to a 60% improvement in data intensive(1) and Java workloads(2) Increased levels of system performance, in turn, increases software performance, which can reduce software license costs. The new system offers 60% more capacity than its predecessor, the System z10, and uses about the same amount of electricity.

International Business Machines Corp. won a contract to develop a manufacturing executive system (MES) for the Bhatinda greenfield refinery, which is under development in Punjab, India.

International Business Machines Corp. announced that the California Emergency Management Agency (Cal EMA) is gaining efficiency and saving costs in storing state-wide data by using a smarter solution from IBM and business partner Pancetera Software, Inc. that reduces the amount of data required to be backed up by 75% and accelerates backup to minutes rather than hours. Cal EMA relies on IBM Tivoli Storage Manager's centralized, policy-based enterprise class, data backup and recovery software. Recently the Agency rolled out the virtual storage optimization solution from Pancetera to further extend Tivoli's capabilities into VMware's virtual environment. Pancetera software recognizes the Agency's unique new data that needs to be backed up, eliminating the need to move large amounts of empty space and redundant data. This has translated to a 75% reduction in Cal EMA's data backup. It has sped backups in minutes rather than hours for the Agency's rapidly growing virtual machine infrastructure.