Enterprise IT vendor IBM today said it started shipping its Power Systems servers incorporating IBM’s POWER8 processor, targeting Big Data opportunities.
The company is offering two important benefits.
First, IBM promises that the new Power Systems line-up will perform at a sustained 65 percent utilization — a rate higher than common x86 utilization levels.
Second, with twice the data throughput compared to an x86-based server, the new Power Systems can help cut data center footprints in half, said IBM.
IBM’s POWER8 processor is available for license and open for development through the OpenPOWER Foundation.
The enterprise IT vendor has invested $2.4 billion in three-plus years to develop new POWER8-based Power Systems.
IBM’s test results indicate that the IBM Power Systems running BLU Acceleration on Power are capable of analyzing data 82 times faster than a comparably configured x86-based system.
Three out of four of the new Power Systems servers can run various combinations of Linux, IBM AIX or IBM i operating systems. The fourth model, the Power S822L, runs Linux exclusively.
Doug Balog, general manager, Power Systems, IBM, said: “Clients are choosing to run Linux on Power Systems because they are seeking a higher value, open server solution to help them better handle and leverage growing volumes of data.”
Last year, IBM committed $1 billion in new Linux and other open source technologies for IBM’s Power Systems servers. New products, network of five Power Systems Linux Centers, and Power Development Platform, a no-charge development cloud for developers to test and port x86-based applications to the Power platform will get this investment.