IBM Rochester
Encyclopedia
Rochester, Minnesota
Rochester is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Olmsted County. Located on both banks of the Zumbro River, The city has a population of 106,769 according to the 2010 United States Census, making it Minnesota's third-largest city and the largest outside of the...
, not to be confused with the IBM Global Services facility in Rochester, NY. The initial structure was designed by Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen was a Finnish American architect and industrial designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project: simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or machine-like rationalism.-Biography:Eero Saarinen shared the same birthday as his father,...
, who clad the structure in blue
Blue
Blue is a colour, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 440–490 nm. It is considered one of the additive primary colours. On the HSV Colour Wheel, the complement of blue is yellow; that is, a colour corresponding to an equal...
panels of varying hues after being inspired by the Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
sky. IBM being known as "Big Blue" was undoubtedly no small factor. These features and the facility's size has earned it the nickname "The Big Blue Zoo" from employees. The building was first dedicated in 1958, but has been expanded considerably since then. The mile-long facility is best known as the plant that produced the AS/400 computer system, which later was marketed as the eServer iSeries or System i5. Today the hardware is IBM Power Systems and the operating system is simply "IBM i". RS/6000
RS/6000
RISC System/6000, or RS/6000 for short, is a family of RISC and UNIX based servers, workstations and supercomputers made by IBM in the 1990s. The RS/6000 family replaced the IBM RT computer platform in February 1990 and was the first computer line to see the use of IBM's POWER and PowerPC based...
, now System p, and hard disk development has also occurred at the site at points in the past. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., it is expected to be sold to Western Digital in third calendar quarter 2011. Hitachi GST developed hard disk drives, enterprise-class solid state drives, and external storage solutions and services used to store,...
, although having been spun off from IBM Storage Technology, remains on-site, leasing otherwise unused space from IBM. Along with the Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a not-for-profit medical practice and medical research group specializing in treating difficult patients . Patients are referred to Mayo Clinic from across the U.S. and the world, and it is known for innovative and effective treatments. Mayo Clinic is known for being at the top of...
, the IBM plant is one of the biggest employers in the Rochester area, reportedly numbering around 5,000 in 2002.
The AS/400 division at the plant received the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recognizes U.S. organizations in the business, health care, education, and nonprofit sectors for performance excellence. The Baldrige Award is the only formal recognition of the performance excellence of both public and private U.S. organizations given by...
in 1990. In November 2004, the facility claimed the top spot in the TOP500
TOP500
The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful known computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year...
list of fast supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
s with a prototype Blue Gene/L system containing 32,768 processors. It clocked in at 70.72 teraflops. The manufacturing output of the site is so great that if it were a separate company, it would be the world's third-largest computer producer.
Groundbreaking
Groundbreaking, also known as cutting, sod-cutting, turning the first sod or a sod-turning ceremony, is a traditional ceremony in many cultures that celebrates the first day of construction for a building or other project. Such ceremonies are often attended by dignitaries such as politicians and...
for the facility took place on July 31, 1956. When it was first completed, there was 576,000 square feet (53,500 m²) of floor space. There is 3.1 million square feet (290,000 m²) today on the main campus, more than half the size of the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
in Arlington, Virginia. Employment at the site has gone through several cycles of growth and collapse, but is over twice what it was in the 1950s. Rumors have appeared over the years suggesting that the structure was designed to look like a punched card
Punched card
A punched card, punch card, IBM card, or Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions...
from above, but this is more due to the facility's expansion over the years rather than an intention by Saarinen.
The plant, which is near U.S. Highway 52 in the northwestern part of Rochester, was recognized in 1990 by the National Building Museum
National Building Museum
The National Builders Museum, in Washington, D.C., United States, is a museum of "architecture, design, engineering, construction, and urban planning"...
as one of the significant contributions of IBM to the built environment of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, along with IBM's New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
headquarters and the IBM building in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
.
Site Features
- Cafeteria
- Bank
- Medical Center
- Courtyards
- Convenience Store -- Serves coffee, espresso drinks, and snacks.
- Scattered Foosball and Ping Pong tables
- Private Dining Rooms with Catering
- Print Room
- Mail Room
- 9-Hole Disc Golf Course
- Tennis Courts
- Basketball Courts
- Volleyball Courts
- Grilling Pits/Picnic Areas
- Softball Fields
- Football/Soccer Fields
- Outdoor Walking Path
- Pond
- Executive Briefing Center
- Benchmark Center
- Education facility with numerous classrooms