Big Blue to ship its fastest server

IBM (IBM) will announce a new RS/6000 Internet server on Monday while it also beefs up its current servers and upgrades its Internet software offerings.

IBM will announce its fastest Internet server yet, the IBM RS/6000 Model F50. The F50 supports up to four 166-MHz PowerPC 604e processors. Pricing will start at $28,900 and will ship starting April 25.

This will be the first time for IBM to ship version 4.2.1 of its AIX Unix-based operating system. This comes with improvements to speed up performance for Web serving, according to the company.

Also, IBM will add more support for its Network Station network computer, running on RS/6000 servers. To date, Network Stations have only been supported as X terminals. Now they can be used as more fully functional NCs, which can upload and download applets to and from servers, the company said.

IBM is also upgrading other RS/6000 servers to 200-MHz 604e processors. Furthermore, it will announce two new RS/6000 Internet Powersolutions for Lotus Domino Server and Netscape Calendar Server Version 1.0. Both of these RS/6000 Internet Powersolutions are available on any RS/6000 server.

IBM RS/6000 Internet Powersolutions are turnkey, ready-to-run Internet and intranet server packages for content management, collaboration electronic commerce, and security.

In addition, IBM also announced that the following products are available with RS/6000 Internet Powersolutions: IBM Firewall 3.1 for AIX for enhanced enterprise security; IBM Net.Commerce version 2.0 for expanded e-commerce opportunities; and IBM Internet Connection Secure Server version 4.2.