IBM To Release PowerPC G5-powered Blade Servers

According to documents on IBMs Web site, the company will shortly release its first PowerPC 970-based blade server line.

As previously reported in eWEEK, IBM is planning to unveil its first server product based on the companys own Power PC 970 processor. This chip is also used in Apple Computer Inc.s Power Macintosh G5 line of desktop machines.

/zimages/2/28571.gifApple may also be prepping a PowerPC G5 version of its Xserve server line. To read the full story, click here.

Targeted at high-performance distributed computing environments and enterprise customers, the IBM eServer BladeCenter JS20 units will each be built around two 1.6 GHz Power PC 970 processors with full-speed 512 KB ECC L2 cache.

As described in the documentation posted this week on IBMs support site, a base configuration will include 512MB of ECC memory, expandable up to 4 GB; dual Gigabit Ethernet connections with teaming and failover support, and integrated management processor for remote monitoring of components and an ATA-100 IDE controller for up to two 40GB IDE hard disk drives.

/zimages/2/28571.gifBig Blue is prepping a new clustered supercomputer called Blue Gene/L, which is based on its low-cost PowerPC 440GX processor. See more about the project and the announcement here.

Hardware prerequisites for the BladeCenter JS20 will include an 1,800-watt power supply, a network switch module, a rack and a BladeCenter chassis. The last, also a new product, will support the installation of up to 14 hot-swap BladeCenter JS20 blades in a 7U rack space.

According to IBM, the BladeCenter JS20 will run SuSE Linux Enterprise Service 8 (Service Pack 3) and Turbo Linux Enterprise Service 8 (Service Pack 3). However, reports indicate that IBM will certify the hardware for use with AIX within a year.

IBM was unavailable for comment.