IBM Power Systems

Power Systems Software

Deploying Power Systems Software technologies enables businesses to fully exploit Power Systems servers. Realize the benefits of leadership IBM PowerVM™ virtualization with AIX, IBM i and Linux operating systems options on a single server—as well as IBM PowerHA® for availability, and IBM Systems Director for energy, security and platform management. IBM’s integrated approach to developing the Systems and Systems Software together enables unique benefits that deliver the higher system utilization, availability and flexibility that clients have come to enjoy with Power Systems.

• Power is Virtualization Without Limits

  Enterprise clients are leveraging virtualization not only to reduce the costs and maximize their IT infrastructure investments but also to provide more flexibility, higher application availability and improve response time to business needs. The unique capabilities of PowerVM are enabling clients to achieve extremely high levels of sustained utilization—80 percent to 90 percent in some cases—while delivering greater flexibility in deploying your virtual machines—all built upon the advanced resiliency features and uncompromising performance of the Power Systems platform.

  PowerVM offers Micro-Partitioning® with the ability to run up to 10 partitions per processor core, and dynamically move processor, memory, and I/O resources between partitions to support changing workload requirements. PowerVM Live Partition Mobility enables active partitions to be moved between servers—no matter what size of partition you are running—virtually eliminating application downtime for planned systems maintenance. Live partition mobility can also be used to upgrade workloads between POWER6 and POWER7 processor-based servers without an application outage.

  VMControl™ complements PowerVM by providing automated virtualization management that minimizes time to provision virtual machine images and enables management of system pools. With POWER7, PowerVM and VMControl virtualization software supports up to 1,000 virtual machines on a single system, providing massive consolidation capability for exceptional costs savings.

• Power is the Future of UNIX with AIX

  AIX is an open standards-based UNIX operating system designed to comply with the Open Group’s Single UNIX Specification Version 3. AIX exploits decades of IBM technology innovation and is designed to provide the highest level of performance and reliability of any UNIX operating system.

  According to ITIC’s 2010 survey, AIX scored the highest reliability ratings among 15 different server operating system platforms.1 According to IDC, Power Systems with AIX leads in worldwide UNIX server revenue share.2 In addition, with the introduction of POWER7, there has been an acceleration in client migrations to Power Systems through the IBM Migration Factory in order to take advantage of the exceptional performance, scalability, virtualization and resilience of POWER processor-based systems and Power Systems Software.

  The latest AIX 7.1 release features new cluster-aware integration with PowerHA, as well the ability to run AIX 5.2 Workload Partitions to facilitate application migration and reuse. The AIX operating system is available in three Editions for a range of capability and flexibility for both mid-sized and large enterprises.

  AIX 7 and the previous release, AIX 6, are binary compatible with previous versions of AIX including AIX 5L™. This means that applications that ran on earlier versions will continue to run on AIX 7 or 6—guaranteed.

• Power is Total Integration with IBM i

  IBM i is an integrated operating environment with a more than 20-year reputation for exceptional cost effectiveness, security and business resilience. IBM i integrates a trusted combination of relational DB2® database, security, web services, networking and storage management capabilities. ITG reports that costs to use Power Systems and IBM i 6.1 average 41 percent less than x86 servers and Microsoft® Windows®.4

  The latest IBM i 7.1 release includes enhanced DB2 support for XML and column-level encryption, automatic movement of hot data to solid-state drives, enhancements to RPG to extend applications to mobile devices and web services, plus enhanced virtualization and resiliency options.

  IBM i 6.1 included expanded options for virtualization, upgraded storage and availability management, breakthrough Java™ performance, support for POWER7 and POWER6 and BladeCenter®, and a broad range of middleware and tools to help drive application transformation.

• Power is Scalable Linux, Ready for x86 Consolidation

  Both Red Hat and Novell SUSE Linux run natively on Power Systems, offering a scalable alternative for open source applications. Reducing x86 server sprawl through consolidation and virtualization is a key priority for many companies today. Linux on Power Systems with PowerVM provides a scalable, virtualized alternative to running Linux on x86 servers.

  PowerVM Lx86 cross-platform virtualization technology also enables x86 Linux workloads to run without recompilation and take advantage of the scalability of Power Systems. This means Power Systems clients can immediately benefit from the latest Linux applications.

• Power is Resiliency Without Downtime

  Power Systems solutions benefit from decades of IBM experience in designing and deploying high availability hardware and software. PowerHA SystemMirror disk clustering solutions are available to help keep your systems—and your business—running 24x7x365.

  PowerHA SystemMirror for AIX and IBM i Editions are data center and multisite resiliency solutions designed to help protect critical business applications from outages: planned or unplanned. PowerHA is integrated with cluster aware capabilities in both the AIX and IBM i operating environments. PowerHA pureScale™ technology delivers levels of database scalability and availability unmatched on UNIX or x86 systems, and is offered as a component of DB2 pureScale.

• Power is Security and Compliance

  IBM has years of experience providing integrated hardware and software systems that are designed to be secure and compliant to security standards. The unique capabilities of PowerSC are designed to further enhance security protection and accelerate compliance for the data center virtualized with PowerVM. The PowerSC offering combines compliance automation with key virtualization aware trusted features to simplify management, reduce the cost of compliance and increase the visibility of non-compliance.

• Power is Sustainable IT Infrastructure

  Many companies are running into floor space and energy challenges in their data center due to the explosion in data and growth in IT applications. Analysts have projected that up to 70% of large enterprise clients will face the need for major changes to their data centers in the next few years. It is becoming critical for these clients to begin to create a more sustainable and cost efficient IT infrastructure. In addition, being socially responsible yields real business benefits. The POWER7 based systems deliver extraordinary new capability to expand an enterprise’s IT capability without expanding their floor space or even energy consumption. As an example the Power 795 delivers over four times the compute capacity of the Power 595 in the same space and energy envelope. POWER7 technology can potentially quadruple the capabilities of a data center without having to change the size, configuration or power and cooling infrastructure. Efficiencies in space, power, costs, and labor as well as the potential for new market opportunities await the company that focuses on building a more sustainable business and IT infrastructure. Enable the sustainability of your business by improving the efficiency of operations, assets and people, while reducing costs, improving your public image, and opening the door to new opportunities.

  Power Systems energy management solutions monitor and control energy usage to help you manage energy efficiency in your data center. Each Power server has EnergyScale™ technology built into the POWER7 processor. Through consolidation and virtualization with PowerVM, businesses have realized dramatic energy savings. And with IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager™, you can identify trends in your energy usage and thermal profile, turn off processor cores or limit the energy draw across one or a group of Power servers, and track environmental data from applications used to monitor air conditioning units, Uninterruptible Power Supplies and Intelligent Power Distribution Units.

• Power is Management with Automation

  With platform management technologies on Power Systems, businesses not only get a complete picture of their systems and how well they are operating, but also the tools to deploy, optimize and maintain these systems at maximum effectiveness and efficiency. The result is optimized workload performance, energy efficiency and cost control. On Power Systems, server virtualization management is integrated with network and storage management for complete resource control.

  IBM System Director Editions for Power are sized for every data center. It is simpler than ever for a single operator to manage both physical assets and virtual resources. With IBM Systems Director for platform management and Tivoli® for enterprise service management solutions, Power Systems offer a unified systems management solution that can improve service delivery. VMControl provides automated virtualization management and minimizes the time it takes to provision virtual images and manage system pools.

  Leverage “performance plus” by deploying virtualization, availability and management software to fully exploit Power Systems servers.