Digging Into the Latest IBM Announcement

Edit: I wonder what was going on with the stock market or the election in 2008. The announcement links no longer work. I am leaving the post in the archives for completeness, but I am not sure how much interest there is in this hardware today.

Originally posted October 14, 2008 on AIXchange

In case you were busy watching the stock market or the election coverage and missed it, IBM issued this announcement on Oct. 7. Go here for the overview (.pdf). And for those who prefer pictures to words, here’s a video.

Each of these links is worth your time, but here are some highlights:

  • There are new options on the  Power 570, including 4.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz processor speeds. You can also choose to have 32 cores running at 4.2-GHz processor speeds.
  • IBM also announced a hot-node repair where a failed CEC can be “isolated and then removed without an IPL of the system. When the enclosure is repaired, it can be reintegrated to the system using the hot-node add feature previously announced. This new function can be used to upgrade memory on a system without powering the system down.” From what I can tell this will work on nodes 2, 3 and 4, but not node 1. I imagine you need the necessary machine resources to handle the workload for this feature, or else run live partition mobility to move some of the partitions to another server while this is happening.
  • In addition, a new  Power 560 express has 3.6-GHz processors in a possible 2-node configuration, 8 cores per node or 16 cores total with a maximum of 384 GB of memory.
  • I also see support added for the DS3400 and IBM Power Systems running IBM i, so this increases the available options for connecting the i to external storage.
  • Finally, I see you can “order JS12 and JS22 blades with AIX or IBM i pre-installed for faster deployment,” and that IBM i will run on a 4-core 520, a 2-, 6- and 8-core 550 and a 3.5 GHz 550.  Also, “AIX, i, and Linux can run concurrently across all entry power systems configurations.” I have machines using all three operating systems on the same hardware, and they run great.

As you’re  digesting this information, if you find something that I missed, feel free to add it in comments.