National Football League Gets Ready for Game Day With IBM

Marketwire: IBM announced the National Football league (NFL) has
standardized its business on IBM BladeCenter and System x servers. The servers
from IBM leverage X-Architecture — the company’s design blueprint for
x86-based servers.

The league standardized on IBM servers to run its media information systems,
facilitate distribution of game day video and run day-to-day operations for
dozens of applications including its unique salary cap management system and a
statistical analytics system.

A decade ago, companies typically used industry standard servers for simple
file-and-print services. IBM helped change the future trajectory of the x86
market by leveraging its mainframe and supercomputer chip experience to help
enhance the performance of industry-standard server components — processors,
memory and I/O — to deliver unparalleled capabilities to x86 computing. The
resulting “X-Architecture” laid the groundwork for IBM technology
advancements that have brought x86-based servers to the forefront of enterprise
computing, helping clients streamline business operations and do more with the
same IT dollars.

“IBM X-Architecture has evolved with superior engineering innovations
that have continued to deliver for the NFL year after year,” said Jonathan
Kelly, NFL Director of IT. “System x provides the performance and the
reliability we need to drive our diverse business applications. It enables the
NFL to deliver reliable information services to our 32 teams and our business
partners. In addition, the new x3850 M2 system is optimized for virtualization
which is critical to the NFL maximizing utilization and efficiency.”

The NFL is currently testing the new IBM System x3850, based on the fourth
generation of IBM’s chipset technology — X4. With the System x3850, the NFL
will have the ability to begin building a virtualized environment to reduce its
datacenter footprint and further improve its business operations.