IBM extends POWER 6 servers

IBM's Power 570 can accommodate up to four modules which are coupled to form an SMP system. IBM is continuing its platform convergence programme with its new Power 570 servers based around the POWER 6 CPU. The new machines bring together the old iSeries (formerly AS/400) and pSeries (formerly RS/6000) ranges into one: they can run AIX, IBM's proprietary Unix, IBM i – the old OS/400 – and Linux, or all of them at once.

The new servers feature twice as many processor sockets and the highest clock speeds in the industry. In spring 2008, IBM was testing and demonstrating a POWER 6 processor with a clock speed of 5 GHz. Now, IBM can supply its Power series servers with the fastest variety. In addition, the vendor has designed new processor cards for the Power 570 that can take four dual core chips – twice as many as before. The system is available in two configurations: as a Power 570/16 with the old CPU board and two to 16 cores, and as a 570/32 with four to 32. IBM offers the POWER 6 CPU at 3.5, 4.2, 4.7 and 5 GHz. For the four-socket board, IBM has restricted the clock speed to 4.2 GHz because of the heat generated in the air-cooled servers.

A Power 570 consists of up to four modules, each of which can accommodate six SAS disks. Every box offers four PCI Express (8x) and two PCI-X expansion slots. The machines take DDR2 RAM, but the memory ceiling depends on the speed of the RAM used: for each 570 module, up to 192 GB of 400 MHz DDR2, 96 GB of 533 MHz DDR2 or 48 GB of 667 MHz chips. IBM supplies the systems with two Gigabit Ethernet connectors each; if required, each module can also be equipped with a 4-port GbE connector or a dual port connector for 10-Gigabit Ethernet. The individual computing modules are coupled internally to create an SMP system.

The Power systems, including the model 560 and the JS21 blades, can run IBM AIX, IBM i (formerly i5/OS and before that OS/400) or Linux. Specifically, they support AIX 5.2 up to the latest 6.1, IBM i from 5.4 up to the latest 6.1, and two Linux distributions: Novell SLES 10 SP1 or higher, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5 upwards.

In addition, IBM's hypervisor for POWER processors, PowerVM, is integrated into the machines' firmware and supports all these operating systems – so not only can the servers run any of the OSs listed, they can run any combination of them as well, even all of them at once. PowerVM comes in three editions (PDF): the free Express version, Standard and Enterprise. Express is limited to three VMs, or LPARs as IBM calls them. Standard increases this to ten and adds load-balancing, and the Enterprise edition add features that are still regarded as advanced in the x86 world, such as live migration of running VMs from one physical server to another and on-the-fly migration of AIX workload partitions (WPARs) from one instance of AIX to another, a feature that rivals HP and Sun Microsystems do not yet offer.

IBM plans to start shipping the new POWER 570 before the end of the year.

(lghp)