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IBM To Demo OpenPower 710 At SCALE 3x

Posted by timothy on from the linear-expansion dept.

An anonymous reader writes "IBM will demo their PPC based servers including their new OpenServer 710 at SCALE 3x this week. In addition they have their i5/520 running Power Linux, Intel Linux, AIX, i5/OS (OS/400), and Windows all simultaneously. SCALE will be held this weekend in Los Angeles at the LA Convention Center. Speakers include Kevin Foreman (Real Networks), Jon Hall (Linux International), Larry McVoy (CEO BitMover), Marc Hamilton (Sun) & 30 other sessions. In addtion to the talks there will be over 40 exhibitors including IBM & Novell. If you're in LA drop by on 2/12-2/13. There will also be a dinner and GPG Key Signing party. (For a free exhibit hall pass register with the promo code "FREE" or a discounted full access pass with "NEWSP".")

101 comments

  1. OpenServer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Isn't OpenServer a name for one of SCO's versions of UNIX? Not that this really helps SCO in the grand scheme of things, but I find it surprising that IBM's lawyers let them release a product with that name.

    1. Re:OpenServer? by zootman · · Score: 1

      I think they meant OpenPower............

    2. Re:OpenServer? by jack_csk · · Score: 1

      Maybe Timothy is smelling SCO here.

  2. Go PPC! by keeboo · · Score: 0, Troll

    Go PPC, go!
    One step more towards the x86 scum extinction (I hope). ;)

    1. Re:Go PPC! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's so different about your PPC than x86 or x86-64? They are both CISC/RISC chips.

    2. Re:Go PPC! by Eric604 · · Score: 1

      It's way more fun and easier to use the PPC instruction set than the x86's.

    3. Re:Go PPC! by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why? x86-64 does pretty well in benchmarks, and it's cheap as hell.

      Even if you pick your chips for assembler elegance, x86-64 isn't too bad. Most of the x86isms that hampered performance are either not used anymore (e.g. segmentation) have been fixed to some extent or no longer matter much in a modern chip running modern code.

      In the "fixed to some extent" I'd include the lack of integer registers - x86-64 has twice as many, the nasty FPU architecture - x86-64 uses SSE2 instead. Also, variable sized instructions can be executed efficiently if you transform them into uops and give a higher code density than a typical Risc, so you get better cache hit rates for a given cache size.

      And by "modern code on a modern chip" I mean that if you look at the code that comes out of a modern compiler, it's almost as good you would have got on a clean Risc design, but you run it on a chip with a clock rate that is much faster than Risc chips manage, because the x86-64 world now has two companies competing, and they can both afford high end fab plants.

      In fact I'd say that x86-64 will eventually kill all the Risc chips, PPC included in the desktop/server world. The embedded world is different of course.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    4. Re:Go PPC! by fitten · · Score: 1

      Yeah... for all the people who write assembly these days....

      I've written PPC assembly but no x86. I've never been a fan of x86 but these days, so few people program in assembly it's not an issue.

    5. Re:Go PPC! by Eric604 · · Score: 1

      For subset of users it is a useful or valuable quality. btw, Some people think that programmers should know at least 1 assembly language and the PPC is a good cpu to learn it.

    6. Re:Go PPC! by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      "but you run it on a chip with a clock rate that is much faster than Risc chips manage,"

      My PowerMac G5 runs at 2.5Ghz - how fast do Opterons scale up to now?

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    7. Re:Go PPC! by fitten · · Score: 1

      I agree... it was actually a part of our class schedule in college. In high school, I tought myself 6502 assembly on an Apple ][+ and I learned M68000 family and MC6800/6809/6811 assembly some on my own but some for classes. Later, I dallied in PPC and SPARC and a touch of MIPS. I think many programmers would benefit from retaking data structures in assembly :)

      However, the fact is that there isn't that much call for assembly outside of embedded systems these days.

      PS: I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to learn x86-64 assembly. I'm afraid it might be too much like x86 which I think is just ugly, but I haven't looked at it enough to decide yet.

  3. Benchmark recomendation by Leroy_Brown242 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think they should use the distributed.net client for benchamarking. maybe they can take a few decades off of the RC5-72 challenge, or finish up OGR. :)

    --
    Pretty Pictures!
    1. Re:Benchmark recomendation by Junta · · Score: 1

      Just get the Top500.org to switch to distributed.net work units as the benchmark, and suddenly things would change...

      I would personally like to kick off a bunch of folding at home on a large cluster, too bad time on these clusters is a very precious commodity...

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    2. Re:Benchmark recomendation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      folding at home may be a better benchmark than distributed.net work units since I should imagine it uses more algorythm types.

    3. Re:Benchmark recomendation by cg0def · · Score: 1

      hey fag do you mind whe spam? If I needed hosting I would ask you. Change you stinkin' sig ... As far as the article is concerned I want one of these ... well it was about time that IBM shows some new toys. Beat that Sun ...

  4. Prizes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They offer "The Sims for Linux" as a prize. It is, in fact, The Sims for Windows and WineX, as The Sims has not been ported to Linux. As usual, Linux gaming is just a Windows portability layer. Lame.

    1. Re:Prizes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      The sims was ported to Linux using winelib, so you don't need winex or the windowsversion of seems to play.

  5. YAY! by Tufriast · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    1)What hawt chix are gonna CosPlay Jobs and Torvalds? 2)Where is the all night Lan Party? Cons=the win!

    --
    Help me, help you. - Jerry McGuire
    1. Re:YAY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LinuxChix will be there. And the FlightGear team will be demoing a full sized 747 cockpit powered by their opensource flight simulator.

  6. very nice ...... by Retep+Vosnul · · Score: 0

    BUT IT'S WRONG..... why post at all ? Empty hollow stuff that does not matter. put /. down while you can.

    --
    -- forget /. It's gone.
  7. Luke Skywalker working at Sun? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Marc Hamilton (Sun)
    I guess Luke is Sun's only hope?

    1. Re:Luke Skywalker working at Sun? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is still another

  8. Re:Hey ! I can run that with my pc by Fr3d · · Score: 1

    I seriously doubt the ability of your 3 yr old pc to run all five operating systems simultaneously. It might be able to into any one of them at different times but any processor you might have would be unable to handle multiple OSs.

  9. But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    how many linuxes does it run?

  10. God, our industry needs to leave the acronyms at by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    the door. Just reading those sentences made my head hurt. :(

  11. Imagine.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    a beowulf cluster of linuxes, all of them running on the same machine.

  12. Nooo!!! by aoeu2 · · Score: 1

    Register before Feb 6th for a chance to win a copy of "The Sims" for Linux

    Now you tell me! You twat.

    1. Re:Nooo!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its good for a few more hours... its the 6th at midnight.

  13. Some OpenPower by mnmn · · Score: 0, Troll

    I called IBM a while ago and checked their minimum price for an openpower server. 30 grand.

    To make it worthwhile, they should really bring the costs down to something like the xSeries 206 ($500) for PPC servers to compete using Linux. An openpower server running SuSE with SCSI disks and POWER3 or POWER4 processor and a gig of ram for around $1000 will sell and overtake both x86 and sparc platforms. But 30grand will not sell. Thats more expensive than the minimum pSeries server with AIX 5.3

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
    1. Re:Some OpenPower by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      $30K seems a bit pricey, which model # did the IBM guy quote for u?

      http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/openpower/h ar dware/710_browse.html

      9123-710A POWER5 / 1.65GHz 1-way 36MB 2048MB 2 x 73.4GB Ultra320 10K rpm $4,713.00 IBM Web price*
      9123-710B POWER5 / 1.65GHz 2-way 36MB 4096MB 4 x 73.4GB Ultra320 10K rpm $8,428.00 IBM Web price*
      9123-710C POWER5 / 1.65GHz 2-way 36MB 8192MB 2 x 73.4GB Ultra320 10K rpm $12,766.00 IBM Web price*

    2. Re:Some OpenPower by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 4, Informative

      Maybe you got quoted a different model? The 720 model is made to fit 64GB of RAM, and fits four CPUs.

      From The Register:
      Big Blue bills its OpenPower line as a serious threat to Unix gear from the likes of HP and Sun Microsystems. But at a starting price of $3,449 the OpenPower 710 will also rival systems running on Intel and AMD processors.

    3. Re:Some OpenPower by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 0, Troll

      Just because IBM isn't selling it's openPower to you, doen't mean that openPower wont sell.

      Personally I find it rather revolting that you would even suggest they sell their new architecture for $1,000. If only because I am sick of people like you who call me and tell me I should sell my services for some ungodly low and very insulting rate to somehow fit their non-existent budget. And you know what? I tell these people to ever so politely go fuck themselves and for some reason, I do quite fine with clients who pay my rates without question.

      So get some fucking respect for the fact that YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

    4. Re:Some OpenPower by xlark · · Score: 1

      HA!

      Look at the prices for _good_ SCSI hard drives, and already your close to $1000. Segate 75 gigabyte 10k disks are around $300. $600 for 140ish gigabytes.

      Next thing you've got to look at is processor cache. It's expensive anywhere you put it, so most low-end Intel processors have around 1 to 2 megabytes of it. A 30 grand OpenPower machine is likely to have double or triple that (he said not knowing).

      Plus a lot of other things I don't feel like rattling off right now.

      A $1000 OpenPower server would be nice, though. So would a Cray that fits in my pocket that costs $25.

    5. Re:Some OpenPower by scriptie+the+kid · · Score: 1

      If they would make more money at a lower price then they probably would sell them cheaper. Lets just say an openpower server costs them $1000 to build. If they sold 100 of them for $10,000 they make $900,000. If they sell them for $2000 they would need to sell 900% more of them while competing with a million other low cost, somewhat lower preformance, server solutions. If they sell them for $10,000 then anyone to whom it's worth paying for the extra preformance in saved operating costs will pay alot more for that somewhat better preformance, whether they charge $20,000 or $10,000, so might as well charge them 20.

      --
      I for one welcome our new vengeful sith overlords.
    6. Re:Some OpenPower by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      OK, this is a troll, while the parent is INFORMATIVE?
      Alrighty... guess I'll be doing a lot less reading on ./

      What a crock of shit.
      I mean, IBM needs to sell their new architecture for 1,000 or they'll never sell any! gets +5?!?!?!?

      if only their was a way to delete my entire fucking account right now. /me signs out

    7. Re:Some OpenPower by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lord have mercy! The price of the components is the least consideration. What you're looking at is the cost of the QA, the QC, the technical writers, the printed manuals, the service manuals, the technicians, the engineers, the support infrastructure. This isn't a rice box. This is the McCoy.

    8. Re:Some OpenPower by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A) You are a troll because you are not IBM and nobody gives a fuck about your business problems. Do you spaz like that to your customers?

      B) Please tell us why a slower, less supported Linux POWER server is worth twice the price of an equivilant IBM Linux Intel/AMD server. What exacty are you "getting what you pay for"?

    9. Re:Some OpenPower by Junta · · Score: 1

      Others have mentioned the prices go lower, but additionally, if you have a blade infrastructure or are building a large scale network and can benefit from blade infrastructure:
      http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs /stores/servlet/C ategoryDisplay?categoryId=2586156&storeId=1&catalo gId=-840&langId=-1
      A Power server that is actually priced competitively with the Intel blade servers. True the bladecenter
      chassis isn't well suited to some environments, but there is an option.

      Oh, and there is always Apple...

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    10. Re:Some OpenPower by tesmako · · Score: 1

      So... Basicly what you are saying in this post is that cutting the price down to 3% of what they are currently asking would make more people buy the machines? Pure genius.

    11. Re:Some OpenPower by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, those are *really* good prices for POWER5 hardware.
      Hell, those are cheaper than Sun's closest Opteron equivalents, even when you equate one Opteron to one POWER5 (despite the POWER5 being two cores on one die and having 36x as much cache).

    12. Re:Some OpenPower by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i for one realy would not mind if they were to skim the milk.
      a real replacement for anything x86 would be nice and if i dont have to fall victim to reality distortion fields to get it well that would be a bonus.

    13. Re:Some OpenPower by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
      Next thing you've got to look at is processor cache. It's expensive anywhere you put it, so most low-end Intel processors have around 1 to 2 megabytes of it. A 30 grand OpenPower machine is likely to have double or triple that (he said not knowing).

      Double or tripple that for $30K?
      More like 72x that for $23K. IBM doesn't mess arround when it comes to cache.
    14. Re:Some OpenPower by BiAthlon · · Score: 1

      If only I had some mod points today I'd mod you up for sure. We just developed a custom app with about 3000 hours at $125 an hour. By my math that is $375,000. Do you really think they care if the server is $1000 or $10,000 if the $10,000 is supported better? No, of course they don't. This guy is more with it than 90% of the slashdot posts that I read.

    15. Re:Some OpenPower by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, you get a troll status while the parent (the real troll) gets informative? Man, I have said time and time again that the majority of ./'er are nothing but home linux monkeys*, and the parent post just validates this. Next thing you know, he is going to want the motherboard for $100 so he can build a home-brew POS.

      *You know the type, they gots a POS VIA chipset emachines computer that has some workstation linux on it. They type a few variations of the ls command and think that they are so l337 for it.

  14. Info source? by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 1

    The anonymous reader doesn't bother to state where that info came from. I would assume to be a member of the group putting on the expo/convention.

    1. Re:Info source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Check IBM's profile on the exhibitor page...

  15. Re:Yes, but does it run Linux? by }InFuZeD{ · · Score: 1

    Hi Luke.

  16. Did they say windows???? by LWATCDR · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Are they running it under emulations or is there once again a PPC version of windows?

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    1. Re:Did they say windows???? by devinoni · · Score: 3, Informative

      The system running the Intel Linux and Windows is an i5 520, that's not the same system as an OpenPower 710. iSeries servers have optional integrated Intel servers http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/iseries/integ ratedxseries/

    2. Re:Did they say windows???? by rve · · Score: 3, Informative

      There's a xeon server on a plugin card in the machine.

    3. Re:Did they say windows???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > is there once again a PPC version of Windows?

      I assume so. XBox2 development systems supposedly run on a Macintosh, and I also think it runs something Windows-like.

      You can't buy that Windows version, though.

    4. Re:Did they say windows???? by rdean400 · · Score: 1

      The "i" in "iSeries" stands for integration. On that one box, you can run i5/OS (OS/400) (a truly remarkable OS, the core architecture was developed in the 70s and has features that are still ahead of Linux and Windows), Linux POWER, and AIX in dynamic partitions. If you add an Intel card, you can also run Windows and Linux x86. There is a serious TCO case to be made by putting all the hardware in one reliable box.

    5. Re:Did they say windows???? by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      Okay I was thinking that we might be seeing a PPC version of Windows again. I know the new XBox will run one so I was wondering if IBM had gotten it and put it on a server.
      As for OS/400. I used it on the System 38. Hated it. It took from 12 am until 11 am just to run end of night on it. I left before they replaced it with an AS/400. Friends told me it was a lot faster and end of night finished around 4am.
      The big question is why would you run Linux x86 when you have AIX and Power Linux?

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    6. Re:Did they say windows???? by janic · · Score: 1

      Support.

      Would you beleive there is a certain "one world" of HR software by an IBM business partner out there whose applications are java and run on websphere, but insist that they will only run on RedHat linux on x86 or Win2K/2003?

      (sigh.)

      Other than our iSeries, [1] we are a Netware [2] shop. So for us, it makes sense (because of licencing, etc.) that we go to SuSE Linux as we upgrade/migrate machines. What really irritates me though, is that [6] there are still vendors out there who insist their product only runs on RedHat. Of course, that assertation becomes even more assinine when you have done the digging to find out that their product is nothing more than a set of java servlets on tomcat!

      Sorry, where was I going? Right. We are moving to SuSE over the next while, and dropping our RedHat machines. Part of the reason is that there is alot more consistancy between the x86 and POWER ports than on RedHat[7]. I have a hunch that IBM will bring the major vendors around though.

      Cheers! (and sorry for the rambling...)
      John

      [1] LPAR'd [4] i5 Woohoo!
      [2] soon to be OES - which is nothing but SLES9 [3] running the netware services on top of it
      [3] = SuSE Linux Enterprise Server
      [4] Not to start a flamewar, but I rather like IBM's partitioning tools. [5] They feel alot better than Sun's
      [5] One exception is that you get the feeling some parts are not entirely "finished". There are a couple of things that are clearly stubs for future functionality. For example, I challenge anyone to post instructions on how to get the "frame management" to do something useful.
      [6] ...Despite the fact that IBM has dropped some big bucks into Novell, and has made it clear to pretty well everyone that that is their preference...
      [7] I am even an RHCE, would you beleive. I am not bashing RedHat, just pointing out what we are doing based on our actual, first hand experiences with both platforms

    7. Re:Did they say windows???? by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      "Would you believe there is a certain "one world" of HR software by an IBM business partner out there whose applications are java and run on websphere, but insist that they will only run on RedHat linux on x86 or Win2K/2003?"

      Actually yes I can. The only reason I think of is support. Each Linux distro is just a little bit different. I can imagine trying to support a commercial product under Linux has it's challenges.
      What distro, kernel, and patches are you running?
      If you have never seen that combination before then you are left trying to figure it or worse setting up a server at your office to duplicate the system your customers are using.
      This is one area where the classic proprietary model has an advantage.
      How if you are using all open source software and rarely use support for it open source gives the customer an advantage.
      Yes I agree it would drive me nuts to have a nice POWER 5 server and have to use a plug in card to run Linux x86 on it. It is almost enough to make you hope that IBM comes out with an IBM distro. Okay the thought does make me cringe but for supporting big iron style apps it would make life simple. Just make sure that the customers POWER box is running the latest and greatest IBM Linux and is updated and you are good to go. I guess nothing in life is perfect.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    8. Re:Did they say windows???? by rdean400 · · Score: 1

      The System38 was god-awful slow, I'll give you that. Throughout it's entire CISC existence, it was pretty slow. Once they went RISC, things started improving, but the POWER4 finally made it usable for compute-intensive workloads like most Java stuff (we run Websphere on a POWER4 and it hums). The POWER5 puts it out on the leading edge.

  17. i5 520 Linux by af_robot · · Score: 2, Insightful

    To run Intel Linux / Windows on i5 (ex AS400/iseries) you need to purpose either card with intel cpu/memory (like blade) or special kit which can be used to connect i5 box to the intel (xseries) server. The main benefit of running intel apps on i5 is single-level storage.
    Anyway it is a great box - i'm happy having one near my desk for two weeks. It is black, heavy, and rather quiet (for server) :)

    1. Re:i5 520 Linux by Donny+Smith · · Score: 1

      > The main benefit of running intel apps on i5 is single-level storage.

      How is this insightful?

      And how is this different from running virtual servers in VMware ESX on a quad AMD64 box (lots of memory and cheaper than AIX)?

      Single-level storage is nothing but virtualized storage which means there's an I/O bottleneck in this sytem, which in turn makes those virtual servers suitable for CPU and RAM intensive Win/Lin apps (and a very expensive virtualization platform).

      (And the fact that the stupid /. editor posted that blatant ad under disguise of a story makes me sick).

    2. Re:i5 520 Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You sir, are not familiar with the glory of the iSeries/AS400 legacy. Your puny AMD64 quivers in fear of iSeries awesomitude.

    3. Re:i5 520 Linux by janic · · Score: 1

      First, OS/400 != AIX but the price tag still hurts.

      I think the GP has a few wires crossed, but from what I have seen, one of the big benefits is that you can tap into the big-arsed IO pool of the iSeries.

      "how is this different..." you ask? Well, the iSeries is basically one giant transaction engine. It does not have the time to deal with pithy little issues like disk IO, so _all_ the IO tasks are delegated to IO processors. Not just stuff like "calculate parity on these blocks written to disk", but higher level tasks like "keep this file which exists at these blocks on disk in sync with the chunks in memory at this location as I ask for them" and so forth as I understand.

      As you mention, the iSeries is hidiously expensive if you just want to run Linux at full tilt. But it's the right choice to collapse a bunch of other Linux boxen down on to [3] if you are already paying to use OS/400 (i5/OS these days) on part of the machine. If you want to run a db server or app server full tilt on the machine, you would do better with an OpenPower machine. If you want to do virtual machines without the Virtual IO bottleneck on those, just assign one of the RAID controllers (no separate IO processors here...) to the other partition and let 'er rip[1].

      As far as an ad in disguise as a story, well, I'm interested.

      Cheers!
      John

      [1] Keep in mind that if you are doing that, you probably need an IO tower for extra disk and cards, etc. [2]
      [2] But then again, if you don't need that much high speed disk or partitioned hardware, maybe you are looking at the wrong platform, and VMWare is the better solution for you.
      [3] it costs $1,000 to activate an extra CPU on the machine, IIRC. Then set up your favorite distro, and voila, your machine is doing more useful work for you, and using otherwise unused resources, without paying for another CPU worth of OS/400. For the midrange guys that bareley knew that Linux exists, it's huge news

  18. Re:Wow, that's a list of people I don't want to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Kevin Foreman (Real Networks)
    I've heard about this guy. First he bores you with a really long intro, talks to you about stuff you've already told him you're not interested in and frequently takes over the conversation. Then, when you think you've finally got rid of him, he pops up every so often to tell you he's still there.

  19. Nah... by bhsx · · Score: 2, Funny

    He's just A New Hope.

    --
    put the what in the where?
  20. Re:God, our industry needs to leave the acronyms a by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It was all clear to me. Maybe you should reconsider your industry.

  21. Re:Wow, that's a list of people I don't want to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Jon Hall is actually a cool guy. He did all sorts of good stuff involving Digital with Alpha Linux.

    I do concur about the spyware creeps at Real and the empty-headed propaganda spouters at Sun.

  22. Hey, ya know... by dspeyer · · Score: 2, Insightful
    A $1000 OpenPower server would be nice, though. So would a Cray that fits in my pocket that costs $25.
    The original Cray C1 ran at 80MHz and had 4MB of RAM. The PalmOne Zire 21 runs at 126MHz and has 8 MB RAM. And it fits in your pocket.

    Sadly, it costs $40 plus shipping on ebay, but it'll come down soon.

    Not relevant, but highly amusing. And yes, I know the C1 has archetechtural advantages over the Zire 21 (parrelelism, floating point...). It'll happen to the OpenPower servers too.

    --

    Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right

  23. Re:Wow, that's a list of people I don't want to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    I just really can't see why these people were picked to talk somewhere where they are supposed to be supporting Linux.

    Maybe there's someone else they were trying to please, instead of you.

  24. Key signing party by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I went to one of those Key swapping parties once, great night - highly reccomend it.

  25. Operteron gets it ass handed to it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By none other than a power5. x86-64bit will never displace the high end cpu architectures because they do not scale.

  26. Re:Wow, that's a list of people I don't want to me by Bri3D · · Score: 3, Informative

    Jon "maddog" Hall was one of the first supporters of linux way back in the early 90's. If I remember correctly he was the one who donated a DEC Alpha(I think he worked for DEC) for Linux's first port. I may be wrong...

  27. First-hand experience with OpenPower by winmonster · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I just read this entire thing at -1, and there hasn't been one post that indicates anyone has even seen an OpenPower box. We purchased an OpenPower 720 box a few months ago. 2x 1.65 GHz procs, 4 GB RAM, 2 73 GB drives, 6 146 GB drives for about $22,000. We run SLES 9 on it, and use it for ITSM. I chose it opver and x86 box for one reason: I/O, which is pretty much where all big-iron architectures trounce x86. There have definitely been growing pains, though. I had to work with SUSE on a fix for installation onto an IBM RAID array. Also, I cannot utilize all of the disk space that was purchased. Both of those issues are results of IBM controllers requiring you to format a drive with 522 byte sectors. The results are workable and perform well, but not quite the "certified" solution I was expecting. Anyways, my 2 cents. I still think I made a good choice, considering management wouldn't go for a PSeries/AIX box.

    1. Re:First-hand experience with OpenPower by winmonster · · Score: 1

      "I chose it opver and x86 box"

      Oops, my brain temporarily shut down. You can probably deduce that I meant to say, "I chose it over an x86 box".

    2. Re:First-hand experience with OpenPower by Donny+Smith · · Score: 1

      >I chose it opver and x86 box for one reason: I/O, which is pretty much where all big-iron architectures trounce x86.

      Used to be that way - now you can use cluster file systems to run I/O intensive workloads on x86 servers (Google does it 24 x 7).
      For example, you can parallelize Oracle databases using Oracle RAC, you can do the same for file and Web servers using a parallel file system like PolyServe Matrix Server, and most application servers have built-in clustering support.
      It is a bit more management-intensive, but I've seen Intel-based parallel clusters realize big improvements in performance over expensive UNIX systems they replaced, especially in regard with I/O performance.

      A cluster of 8 basic Intel boxes can push data at a rate of 1GB/s. I seriously doubt a pSeries box can do better than that.

    3. Re:First-hand experience with OpenPower by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A cluster of 8 basic Intel boxes can push data at a rate of 1GB/s. I seriously doubt a pSeries box can do better than that.

      I haven't worked with pseries in a little while, but... Depending on the packaging... A fully populated 8-way POWER4 MCM has 4 GX buses at 2 GB/sec (bytes not bits) each. I/O drawers are attached to the GX buses via RIO bridge chips. Even if 75% of it was wasted, you could still beat 1GB/sec. Since I'm talking about a generation back, I think the POWER5 boxes could do it easily!

    4. Re:First-hand experience with OpenPower by janic · · Score: 1

      Question, do you have the machine LPAR'd or are you using it stand alone?

      Guessing by the price, I wouldn't think you have an HMC, but I am interested nonetheless.

      Thanks
      John

    5. Re:First-hand experience with OpenPower by winmonster · · Score: 1

      It's stand-alone. We will be moving to an LPAR configuration in the future as continue to grow. That's one of the great things about this box. Add another processor card, an I/O drawer with some drives, some more memory, and a HMC and we have another identical logical server.

  28. G5 = Opteron by PlusFiveTroll · · Score: 1

    http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=335
    Athlon FX-55 - 2.6GHz.
    I would say thats faster than a G5. AMD and IBM have been sharing alot of processor technology lately, its not suprising that there processors run about the same speed. more info

    1. Re:G5 = Opteron by lakeland · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It would be a small win to the opteron. I did some informal benchmarking a few months ago of the G5 and the opteron, and found that clock-for-clock, the opteron got slightly more done. So I'd be very surprised if a 2.6GHz opteron didn't do more than a 2.5GHz G5. Of course, the G5 would be dual processor, so we'd have to go with dual opteron as well to compare prices.

      Apple clocks in at $2999 for the base configuration. Taking that same configuration to newegg is required quite a few substitutions: I went for kensington wireless keyboard and mouse, XP pro, LiLian case and PSU, 2.4GHz opteron (no 2.6 in stock), and a sony DVD burner 16x. The total was $3124. I would put the price at a draw. I.e. go with whichever you prefer the OS of.

      Naturally, if you're going to be running linux, that puts the opteron a fraction cheaper.

    2. Re:G5 = Opteron by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      Yep, that's faster. It's not "much faster" though, is it?

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    3. Re:G5 = Opteron by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Intel chips are x86-64 too, and they run up to 3.8Ghz.

      Not that it helps them much on Spec benchmarks -

      http://www.aceshardware.com/SPECmine/top.jsp

      But for most of the last couple of years, the best performing x86 managed to run at a higher frequency than the best performing Risc, or turn in better SpecInt benchmarks - at least for single CPU, or sometimes both.

      PC hardware tends to suck for multi CPU stuff though - even Opterons are a bit disappointing to be honest, considering that decent SMP performance was supposed to be one of the design goals. On the other hand, I don't think switching instruction sets would help here, it's something that will be fixed with multicore chips (because they make SMP more mainstream and thus more important) and better bus protocols - maybe AMD will license the Power5 one like they did for Alpha.

      FP performance is a bit disappointing too - especially as the Athlon FX-55 result is with a decent 64 bit compiler - it's still a fair bit behind Itaniums and POWER5. On the other hand, how much mainstream computing is limited by FP performance?

      Actually, Power5 does better than I'd expected - much better than PPC970, but it isn't enough to get people to switch from x86. Back in the Alpha days, Risc chips had a advantage in virtually all benchmarks, and conventional wisdom said that it would increase, but it still wasn't enough of an incentive to get significant numbers of people to switch over.

      Which is my point really. It's not that x86 has an particularly good, it is that PPC and other Risc chips no longer better enough to make people switch.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    4. Re:G5 = Opteron by i41Overlord · · Score: 1

      Back in the Alpha days, Risc chips had a advantage in virtually all benchmarks, and conventional wisdom said that it would increase, but it still wasn't enough of an incentive to get significant numbers of people to switch over.

      Which is my point really. It's not that x86 has an particularly good, it is that PPC and other Risc chips no longer better enough to make people switch.

      It's also worth noting that modern x86 chips like the Athlon are essentially RISC chips at heart. Internally the chip converts x86 instructions into RISC-like instructions. The Athlon design is similar in many ways to the Alpha's , and even uses the Alpha's EV7 bus.

      Here's some good info:

      http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/module3e08a. ht m

  29. Re:Wow, that's a list of people I don't want to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Jon Hall is one of the guys responsible for geting Linus his first alpha. He heads up Linux International, hes done a ton for the OSS community. Anyways, theres are 30 other talks on everything from becoming a kernel developer to SAMBA 4 to a talk by the EFF.

  30. DLPAR by rshimizu12 · · Score: 1

    One of the really fascinating features of this server is that uses IBM DLAR (Dynamic logical partitioning). This means that new instances of any of the supported OS's can be instantiated or removed as needed.

    1. Re:DLPAR by Donny+Smith · · Score: 1

      SW-Soft's Virtuozzo has been capable of doing that on x86 servers for years.

  31. Re:Hey ! I can run that with my pc by iggymanz · · Score: 1

    your pc can run OS/400 and AIX? roflmao

  32. NOT Apple G5 (power970), these are Power5. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    Remember these aren't Power970..

    These are NOT the Apple G5's proccessors.

    These are POWER 5 proccessors and they have transistor counts that would make your head spin. Much larger and more powerfull then any AMD64 setup.

  33. POWER 5 Opteron. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    These IBM OpenPower machines are MUCH more powerfull then a Opteron, or a Apple g5.

    They are NOT Power970 proccessors used in Apple machines, these are POWER 5 proccessors used in Unix big Iron. Opterons aren't even in the same catagory.

    They get spanked by quite a large margin in Opteron vs POWER. Comparing a Opteron vs a POWER 5 is like comparing a Intel Xscale proccessor vs a Pentium 4 "Extreme".

    The transistor counts are astronomical in the POWER vs Opteron for one thing.

    See here:
    http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=650 00325

    Notice how the low-end Power 5 proccessor dominates the top of the line Opteron in all catagories.

    In Specfp2000 you have a single proccessor vs single proccessor. A 1.65ghz Power5 gets 2138 PEAK score while the 2.2ghz Opteron gets 1691

    In the 4 proccessor setup a 1.9ghz Power5 proccessor scores double in floating point performance then what is possible with 4 2.4ghz Opterons.

    Plus the Power 5 proccessor scales up to 32 in standard configuration, while the Opteron is limited to 4 cpus.

    There is no comparision between the proccessors. The Power5 dominates every single catagory.

    Including heat, power requirements, and expense.

    However if you notice that the prices for Opteron Sun Solaris hardware falls with in the range of pricing for IBM's OpenPower servers.

    Seems like IBM is going to use dirt cheap prices for Power to run Sun's opteron setup out of town.

    Also, unfortunately for Sun.. higher end POWER setups dominate their nicest Sparc machines, also.

  34. OpenServer? by mrbill1234 · · Score: 0

    Do IBM know that OpenServer is an SCO Product? :-) http://www.sco.com/products/openserver507/

  35. integ_ratedxseries, go slashcode by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    integ_ratedxseries, go slashcode

  36. The POWER5 procs have 36MB L2 cache per CPU by janic · · Score: 1

    No shit!

    2 CPU cores per module, 6MB? L1 cache and 36MB L2 cache per core, all on one P3 sized module.

    John

    1. Re:The POWER5 procs have 36MB L2 cache per CPU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      36MB L2 cache per core

      No, its L3 cache and its a separate chip. The bus ration is 2:1. Some of the lower end models do not come with this cache.