First Power5+ servers released

IBM last week released the first servers based on its new 64-bit Power5+ processors. The machines are aimed at small to midsize businesses and include several new products, notably a quadcore server, together with virtualization and systems management software.

The Power5+ chips come in clock speeds of either 1.5GHz or 1.9GHz with a maximum of 72M bytes of onboard cache memory, according to Jeff Howard, program director for IBM's p5 product marketing.

"We're heavily targeting SMBs," Howard says. "More than 58% of the Unix opportunity is in the SMB space." IBM typically defines SMBs as companies with 1,000 or fewer employees.

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

IBM last week released the first servers based on its new 64-bit Power5+ processors. The machines are aimed at small to midsize businesses and include several new products, notably a quadcore server, together with virtualization and systems management software.

The Power5+ chips come in clock speeds of either 1.5GHz or 1.9GHz with a maximum of 72M bytes of onboard cache memory, according to Jeff Howard, program director for IBM's p5 product marketing.

"We're heavily targeting SMBs," Howard says. "More than 58% of the Unix opportunity is in the SMB space." IBM typically defines SMBs as companies with 1,000 or fewer employees.

The new System p5 550 Q is powered by a 1.5GHz quadcore Power5+ chip, enabling the hardware to function as an eight-way machine, he says. The System p5 505 is IBM's first rack server for the Power5 or Power5+ architecture in a 1U form factor.

"We're starting with p5 and will extend [the Power5+ chip] to the midrange and high-end in 2006," Howard says.

IBM also upgraded two existing server models to feature the new chip - the two-way 1.9GHz System p5 520 and the four-way 1.9GHz System p5 550.

The servers are available with IBM's own flavor of Unix, AIX 5L, or in what Big Blue calls the OpenPower edition with the Linux operating system from either RedHat or Novell. The machines are part of IBM's Express line of hardware targeting both SMBs and start-ups.

IBM is dropping the eServer prefix from its p5 product line and replacing it with "System," a rebranding move begun in July when the company introduced its latest mainframe as the System z9.

Big Blue expects all the Power5+-based machines to ship starting Oct. 14. The System p5 505 has a starting price of $3,750, while IBM is still completing pricing for the other servers.

IBM announced two new software products targeted at SMBs. Integrated Virtualization Manager provides a browser-based interface for the company's virtualization micropartitioning capabilities. n

Big Blue also took the wraps off a pSeries version of its Director 5.1 systems management software, which it says would be free to its pSeries customers. Users can expect to download the software from IBM's Web site starting Nov. 25.

IBM is manufacturing Power5+ chips at its East Fishkill, N.Y., facility with a new 90-nanometer production process, Howard says.

In high-performance computing, IBM has unveiled a new workstation, the IntelliStation Power 285, based on the Power5+ chip, and a 16-way p5 575 for supercomputing applications, also powered by the new 64-bit processor.

Read more about data center in Network World's Data Center section.