IBM Power Systems Get Power Processor, Virtualization Makeover to Compete Against HP, Sun

Within the Power Systems portfolio, IBM added in a new server on Oct. 7 called the Power 560 Express, which is a midrange system that sits between the Power 570 and Power 550 servers. The IBM Power 560 uses IBM’s Power6 (3.6GHz) processors, and the company offers configurations that allow for up to 16 processing cores within the box. The system also scales from 8GB of DDR2 (double data rate 2) RAM to 384GB. Since each Power 560 is made up of two nodes, each node supports six SAS (serial-attached SCSI) drives that offer 2.7TB of data storage.

IBM also revamped the configurations of the Power 570 server. This system now can support 16 Power6 processing cores with the chips running at 5.0GHz or 32 Power6 cores with the chip running at 4.2GHz. At maximum configurations, the Power 570 supports up to 768GB of DDR2 RAM and 24 SAS drives.

IBM listed the starting price of the Power 560 Express with the AIX operating system at $47,216. There was no pricing information for the updated version of the Power 570.

In addition to the new hardware, IBM also rolled out several management and virtualization features of its Power Systems. These include an update for IBM’s PowerVM—the company's virtualization software for Power Systems—called Active Memory Sharing. While only in beta now, Active Memory Sharing allows the system to access more memory in virtual environments by pooling compute resources between the partitions.

IBM is also offering a new management console called Systems Directory. This management tool works across all three operating systems—Linux, i, and AIX—and allows IT managers to control and check the resources both in the physical hardware and within virtual environments.

Finally, IBM is rolling out an Enterprise version of the AIX operating system, which includes the OS itself plus Tivoli and PowerVM software.