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 April 2nd, IBM announced that it is unifying its System i and System p servers — a path the vendor has
been on for years, but one it had yet to say was certain until today's announcement.
The customers most affected by the creation of the new Power Systems
hardware line are System i users, many of whom run core business
applications — often custom-built — on the venerable midrange platform.
Coming together
Incorporating the company’s POWER6 processors, the new IBM
Power Systems platform unites the formerly separate System i and System
p servers into a single system that can support AIX, i and Linux
operating environments simultaneously.
And while the name of the System i operating system is changing from
i5/OS to simply “i,” clients won’t have to worry: they still can run
their programs that were created on the first AS/400
in 1988 – or even on the first System/38 announced in 1978 – on the new
POWER6 processor-based Power servers or BladeCenters without
recompilation.
Look at the history of the System i to know why this is a unique system
The Power Systems family
 The first members of the new generation server family include
the IBM Power 520 Express, Power 550 Express and BladeCenter JS12
Express. All were designed recognizing and responding to the budget
constraints and limited administrative assets available to most SMBs,
while expanding their application choices and reducing energy and
systems administration costs.
Power Systems give clients access to POWER6 EnergyScale technology.
This architecture uses the basic power control facilities of the POWER6
chip together with additional board-level hardware, firmware and
systems software to provide a complete power and thermal management
solution.
Take a tour of the Power6
PowerVM
 PowerVM virtualization technology – also available on the Power Systems –
enables clients to create up to 10 virtual partitions per
processor core on the single system, dramatically improving server
utilization and further reducing costs to the SMBs.
The IBM Power 520 Express is ideal as a distributed application
server or as a small database server with its near-continuous
application availability at a lower price. Or for a complete
integrated business system, the Power 520 Express allows small or
mid-sized businesses seeking simplicity to use the i Edition with its
integrated features
The IBM Power 550 Express delivers outstanding performance as a
mid-sized database server or for consolidation of AIX, i, and x86 Linux
workloads. It also is ideal for medium to large-sized businesses
running the i.
The IBM BladeCenter JS12 Express is an alternative to
traditional rack-based servers, and provides proven BladeCenter
technology leadership for infrastructure consolidation. It features
EnergyScale technology to manage energy consumption and is easy to
deploy with built-in PowerVM virtualization.
Source: IBM Press, ComputerWorld, Yahoo News , IBM Power Systems
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