Tackle Data-Intensive Applications with IBM POWER7 Systems

fact sheet Vendor: IBM Vendor's Information: About IBM vendor resources IBM Takes Command of the UNIX Data Center: POWER7 Enables Growth, Lower Costs POWER7 will allow IBM to take a clear leadership role in the deployment of UNIX systems in the data center. POWER7 will also enable IBM to supercharge the System i platform, enabling it to deliver more performance and functionality for Linux on Power Systems. Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability Survey The ITIC 2009 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability Survey polled C-level executives and IT managers at 400 corporations from 20 countries worldwide. IBM AIX UNIX running on the Power or P series servers scored the highest reliability ratings among 15 different server OS platforms, including Linux, Mac OS X, UNIX and Windows.

IBM's new POWER7 systems incorporate a number of technologies for the demands of applications and services that rely on processing an enormous number of concurrent transactions and data while analyzing that information in real time. If your business isn't yet working with such applications, POWER7 systems can still help you get the most out of your investment by allowing you to manage current applications and services at less cost, thanks to technology for virtualization, energy savings, more cost-efficient use of memory, and better price performance.

IBM is also demonstrating continued momentum for Power in the $13 billion UNIX market, in which IBM has experienced a 14-point revenue share gain since 2005.

IBM Takes Command of the UNIX Data Center: POWER7 Enables Growth, Lower Costs POWER7 will allow IBM to take a clear leadership role in the deployment of UNIX systems in the data center. POWER7 will also enable IBM to supercharge the System i platform, enabling it to deliver more performance and functionality for Linux on Power Systems.

IBM says it achieved the industry's highest ever TPC-C (transaction processing) benchmark using a Power Systems configuration with DB2, hitting 10,366,254 transactions per minute, which beat HP's best result by more than 2.5 times and Oracle's best by more than 35 percent. The IBM result represents 2.7 times better performance per core than the Oracle result, 41 percent better price performance, and 35 percent better energy efficiency per transaction. HP's best result is over twice as expensive per transaction as the IBM result.

A record 285 customers moved critical business workloads to IBM systems and storage from the competition in the second quarter of 2010, the company announced, including 171 from Oracle and 86 from HP. More than 2,600 companies have switched from the competition to IBM Power Systems since IBM established its Migration Factory program four years ago. IBM also says its business helping customers reduce x86 server sprawl by consolidating to Power increased four-fold over the first quarter.

The latest systems — servers, software and IBM's industry-leading PowerVM virtualization capabilities — allow customers to better manage ever-increasing amounts of data in an interconnected world and to conserve energy and floor space in burdened data centers. They are part of a year-long rollout by IBM of workload-optimized systems for the demands of emerging business models such as smart electrical grids, real-time analytics in financial markets and healthcare, mobile telecommunications, and smarter traffic systems.

IBM Power® 795
New technology from IBM includes the new high-end IBM Power 795 system; four entry-level POWER7 processor-based servers designed specifically for mid-market clients; and a POWER7 processor-based workload-optimized Smart Analytics System that helps businesses draw real-time information from massive amounts of data.

The 256-core IBM Power 795 offers more than five times better energy efficiency compared to servers from Oracle and HP. It uses IBM's EnergyScale™ technology that varies frequencies depending upon workloads and supports up to 8 terabytes of memory and provides over four times the performance in the same energy envelope as the fastest Power 595 IBM POWER6 processor-based high-end system.

The latest POWER7 technology supports four times as many processor cores as prior systems and uses the latest PowerVM virtualization software to allow customers to run over 1,000 virtual servers on a single physical system, enabling a substantial improvement in operating efficiency. IBM says that many customers nearing capacity limits for energy, space and cooling in data centers, consolidating older systems to the new high-end Power 795 could result in more headroom — with energy reductions of up to 75 percent for equivalent performance capacity — allowing for workload growth in existing data centers and helping companies to potentially avoid or reduce the cost of expanding or building new data centers.

Another new addition for IBM is Power Flex, a new environment composed of two or more Power 795 systems, PowerVM Live Partition Mobility and a Flex Capacity Upgrade on Demand option. This solution enables clients to shift running applications from one system to another to perform system maintenance without downtime, helping to balance workloads and more easily handle peaks in demand. There is also a new version of IBM's UNIX® operating system, AIX® 7.

Express Servers
The four new Express servers from IBM — IBM Power 710, 720, 730, and 740 Express — offer mid-market clients the performance, energy efficiency and other benefits of POWER7 technology in compact rack-mount or tower packages. These high-density, cost-efficient servers minimize complexity and provide the memory capacity, internal storage options, I/O expandability and RAS features needed for demanding workloads in today's high-growth midsize business.

Pricing for the Express servers starts at $6,385. They are available from IBM and IBM Business Partners, and allow clients to choose the configuration that satisfies their requirements and receive half the processor core activations at no additional charge.

Smart Analytics System
The IBM Smart Analytics System 7700 with POWER7 technology delivers a single, optimized system with the right balance of software, systems and storage capabilities for workloads generating unprecedented amounts of data at extreme speeds — providing a powerful analytics platform that can be deployed and customized for clients in a matter of days. This solution helps clients quickly draw insights from vast amounts of data to anticipate emerging business trends, capture new opportunities and avoid risks.

The Smart Analytics System, which features several pretested Power Systems 740 Express server configurations, IBM DB2® powered and InfoSphere™ Warehouse software and AIX, analyzes data where it resides. This is important as clients seek to shorten the cycle time between processing and results, and seek to avoid the costs of migrating data from one system to another.

For IBM i clients, IBM is also offering four new IBM i Solution Editions, integrated and optimized for rapid ERP deployment. These packages feature software from SAP, JD Edwards, Infor and Lawson and offer significant savings for customers running older versions of the i operating system who are looking to upgrade.