* IBM adds to high end of Unix server line
IBM recently announced some of its most powerful Unix servers, the eServer p5 595, p5 590 and the i5 595.
All three servers use IBM’s 64-bit Power5 processor. The p5 590 is a 32-processor box that is as much as 45% faster and as much as 45% less expensive than the p690, its predecessor that used the Power4 processor.
Each server also uses IBM’s Virtualization Engine, which lets processors be carved into as many as 10 micro-partitions. When partitioned, a single server can be used to consolidate entire data centers.
The p590 and p5 595 are designed for data center consolidation and large enterprise customers. The p5 595, according to IBM, is almost three times as fast and has twice the memory capacity of the eServer pSeries 690.
The p5 590 is half the size of the p5 595 – it has 32 processors and runs at 1.65 GHz. It supports 73G bytes to 9.3 terabytes of internal disk space and supports 8G bytes to 1 terabyte of memory.
The p5 595 has as many as 64 Power5 processors and is available at either 1.65 GHz or 1.9 GHz. It has 8G bytes to 2 terabytes of memory and supports 73G bytes to 14 terabytes of internal disk storage.
Both servers can support up to 254 logical partitions. The new p5’s support AIX 5L Versions 5.2 and 5.3.
The eServer i5 595, a 64-processor server, runs AIX 5L, i5/OS, Windows and Linux. It is four times as fast as its predecessor, the 890, according to IBM. Like the pSeries servers, the i5 595 supports as many as 254 micro-partitions per server. It also lets customers use and pay for only those processors they want. IBM’s Capacity on Demand lets customers use server resources in peak times and use only the processors they need. The i5 595 has between 16G bytes to 2 terabytes of memory and as much as 190 terabytes of disk capacity.
The servers are expected to be available in November.
