POWER7+ I/O and More From Announce Day

Last week I told you this week’s blog would focus a bit on the hardware and I/O that was announced, from the IBM i point of view. To get that perspective, I asked Mark Olson, the IBM Power Systems Product Manager, to make a guest appearance, and he kindly agreed. So, let’s get to it. Here’s Mark.

Tuesday, February 5, we announced some really sweet hardware enhancements to the Power Systems product line. Let me point out the highlights. Continuing with the POWER7+ introduction started late last year with the Power 770 and 780, we carried this POWER7+ refresh into the popular Power 710, 720, 730, 740 and 750. We also created a new model 760. This POWER7+ refresh was the biggest part of the announcement, but there were several other things that added to banquet.

Though you can find IBM i clients using any and all of the Power Systems models and there are significant price performance improvements for all these models, the Power 720 is the model selected by a large percentage of IBM i clients. So let me focus on it as an example. The POWER7+ refresh provides the 720 with faster GHz and up to 2X the maximum memory. The POWER7 720 is a 3 GHz server. The POWER7+ is a 3.6 GHz server. And the POWER7+ chip proves 150% more L3 cache (10MB vs 4MB per core). Combined with some very attractive pricing on the processor features and new memory features, clients are really going to appreciate the price performance improvements.

For those clients who haven't yet stepped up to IBM i 7.1, IBM i 6.1 is supported on the POWER7+ 710/720/730/740/750/760/770/780. But there is a new twist to this support statement. We are announcing a new optional hardware feature code on the POWER7+ 710/720/730/740/770/780 called IBM i 6.1 Native I/O Enablement (#EB34). If ordered, #EB34 generates a VET code that enables the IBM i 6.1 to directly access its I/O with or without using an IBM i 7.1 partition or using VIOS. There is a modest price for #EB34. If you want to run IBM i 6.1 without #EB34 on the POWER7+ server, you can do that. However, in that case all the I/O for the 6.1 partition (disk or SSD or tape or LAN, but not WAN comm adapters) has to be owned by either an IBM i 7.1 partition or VIOS. IBM i 6.1 will be a client only partition with this scenario.

There were some nice solid state drive (SSD) or flash memory enhancements. First, the most powerful, most dense SSD drawer Power Systems has ever introduced was supported on the POWER7+ models. This is the EXP30 Ultra SSD I/O Drawer. It has some impressive headlines: up to 480,000 I/O Operations per Second, up to 11.6 TB capacity in only 1 U of space with zero PCIe slots. Second, we announced IBM i 7.1 TR6 support of this SSD option. It is a very powerful addition to our existing SSD options IBM i clients already enjoy. Finally, we introduced 6-pack and 4-pack SSD features that provide a 20-percent list price reduction and can be ordered with a new server.

There were a number of removable media enhancements. For convenience, IBM i 7.1 TR6 supports USB memory sticks in the USB ports of the POWER7/POWER7+ system units. SAS LTO-6 tape drives are introduced for the half-high bays of the 720/740 and in the 1U 7226 media drawer. An LTO-6 drive provides 2X the capacity and improved performance for a price only slightly higher than the existing LTO-5 drive. For entry save/restore clients, a new 1.5 TB RDX cartridge provides 50 percent more capacity.

Two new high performance PCIe Gen2 adapters were announced. The first is a 2-port 16Gb Fibre Channel adapter. This card can also be used with existing 4 Gb and/or 8 Gb FC switches for clients who already have 16 Gb switches or who prefer to buy an adapter with the flexibility to support larger capacity links in the future We also introduced a 4-port Ethernet card. Two of the ports are 10Gb SR optical and two of the ports are 1 Gb RJ45 ports. It's like having two Ethernet cards but only using one PCIe slot. The 10 Gb ports can run both NIC and FCoE data streams, but IBM i supports just the NIC at this time. IBM i leverages VIOS for support of both of these cards.

The last hardware highlight I'd like to point out is enhanced support of the SVC, V7000 Storewize and V3700. NPIV (N_Port ID Virtualization) is added to the existing VSCSI support of these IBM storage solutions. Plus we shared a statement of direction (SOD) for planned native support of the V3700 with IBM i 7.1.

February 5 was a really good day!

 

 

 

 

 

Announce Day for IBM i 7.1 Technology Refresh 6

It’s announce day at IBM for a long list of new systems, expanded initiatives and, of course, for IBM i 7.1 Technology Refresh 6. In keeping with the IBM i Information Strategy I talked about in August, my blog today will highlight the contents of the announcement, from an i viewpoint, and I’ll point you to some other sources of more detailed information.

One big theme of this announcement relates to one of the clear trends in our industry: IBM i access from mobile devices. Some of the biggest news relates to the Statements of Direction that are being made about IBM i support for the Connections and Traveler products. Tim Rowe will be covering that topic in his blog this week. It’s a great story of the customer community making their needs known. But that’s not the only announcement related to mobile. Zend Server for IBM i Version 6 is also being announced, and it, in conjunction with Zend Studio 10, contains significant new function for creating and supporting mobile applications. Additionally, we’re talking more about the IBM Mobile Database, which is a free application for an Android device that can attach to DB2 for i.

Of course, one of the biggest parts of the announcement is the introduction of the POWER7+ systems in the low and middle range. I’m not going to delve deeply into that this week, however, as my guest blogger next week will give you all the details. Related to hardware and I/O support, though, you might find the USB Flash Drive support interesting, and Dawn May will have an article on that in her blog this week.

No IBM i announcement would be complete without discussing new DB2 function. There are enhancements in function, performance, manageability, availability and security. Our DB2 for i blogger, Mike Cain, will have details in his blog, but you really ought to take a look at developerWorks for the DB2 details.

In fact, let me re-emphasize something I wrote back in August: developerWorks is a key source of information when you’re looking for the details for the IBM i function that is being delivered between releases. The starting page is https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/ibmi/ and it is there, in just a couple of weeks, that Tim Mullenbach, the lead designer of the newly announced Transport Layer Security 1.2 support, will post a detailed article on that topic.

Finally, I want to mention some new support our PowerHA SystemMirror is announcing. Again, this topic will be covered in Dawn’s blog, though not until next week. We’re adding support for additional storage devices, including IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC) and IBM Storwize V7000, V3700 and V3500, and you’ll want to get the details in the blog and in developerWorks.

In coordination with this announcement, we have been preparing a set of new videos around the “Why i?” theme. There are four new videos available on YouTube:

• “Why IBM i – Designed for Business” – I give an overview that talks about the key architectural elements.
• “Why DB2 for i?” – Mark Anderson talking about the key attributes of the integrated DB2.
• “Why IBM i for Security?” – Jeff Uehling discusses how security and integrity on IBM i is powerful and differentiated from security on other platforms.
• “Why IBM i for Applications” – Cheryl Renner, an expert on ISV enablement, talks about the application and solution picture for the platform.

And speaking of videos, Alison Butterill created a video that specifically does an overview of IBM i 7.1 TR6. I hope you’ll also go check that out.

So, lots of information today. Check out the details the IBM i Power Systems Web page, and if you’re on Twitter, follow me on Twitter (@Steve_Will_IBMi) and I’ll let you in on new things as I know about them.

Until next time, enjoy all the new information from IBM, especially the new announcements from the IBM i team.