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IBM Promoting POWER Systems
A reader writes:"IBM has launched a Open Power Project to
increase awareness around its Open Power product line for Linux.. The
site includes technical information, forums and provides the ability to
tinker w/ Open Power platforms at the University of Augsburg and Peking
University. Both Universities are hosting POWER5-based servers and are
providing free SSH account access to the Open Source development
community. There are rumors of additional Universities to come. They are
also hosting special showings of the War of the Worlds in San Francisco
and NYC. Looks like there are a couple of hundred pairs of free tickets
to each showing on a first come first served basis to those that register."
Other suggested article titles:
... film at 11 !!
"Intel promoting Pentium Systems"
"AMD Promoting Athlon Systems"
"Microsoft promoting Windows"
Now,
"IBM Promoting POWER Systems"
The unofficial
Both Universities are hosting POWER5-based servers and are providing free SSH account access to the Open Source development community.
The servers at my school ran painfully slow with a few dozen people connected through SSH and compiling assignments.
Imagine the whole Open Source community logged in compiling code.
Are IBM withdrawing the OpenPower Line?
Realistically I feel that if IBM really want to premote the Power line or processors they will have to have a Apple style lower end system that can be purchased at a reasonable price. That will get people to buy.. Especially if for a time you could run MacOSX Linux, AIX , xBSD and whatever other Operating systems run on the PPC reliably.
>provides the ability to tinker w/ Open Power platforms at the University of Augsburg and Peking University.
I prefer to tinker with my x86 box at home.
You can buy power from... IBM. And it's not cheap. And it doesn't run AIX, only Linux. Sort of. Many applications require some porting love, as per the bounties on http://www.linuxonpower.com/
r y/l-pow-portsolaris/
I generally like what IBM does, and use their x86 servers, storage, and software.
But "Open" is pushing it here.
I'd never be able to justify a recommendation to buy Open Power, that is, unless the sales guy left a flashy car in my parking spot...
Jonathan Schwartz (Sun CTO) had it right when he noted that that was as silly as them shipping Open Sparc boxes. Mind you, there are Fujitsu SPARC64 chips, and OEM sparc-based system builders.
Of course, IBM is just loving Solaris, particularly Solaris 10. Some assistance in your Solaris to Linux on Power migration? http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/libra
(Though it is a well written piece - good quick guide to Linux and Solaris system calls, signals.)
synergy.
They're leveraging a cross-brand multi-market upscale potential to maximize their mindspace and returning revenue streams.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Maybe they should give away a few hundred or so low-end servers. I wouldn't mind getting one. I'll even pay for the shipping.
I have doubts about any effort like this working if people can't get their hands on systems of their own. A login with strings attached just isn't all that compelling. With Apple switching to Intel, the prospect of the continued availibility of only-a-little-overpriced, mass-market PPC (ie POWER-ish) systems is fading. Mac systems will be available for some time now, but Apple's Switch casts a pall over the whole affair.
If IBM wants to push their system they may do well to subsidize cheap PPC systems to this particular niche to gain mindshare, familiarity, and visibility with people who may be in a position to drive iseries server purchases later on.
I know they have eval systems, does anyone know what the costs are?
Or maybe it wouldn't help; it'd still be nice.
Except, you're talking about the USA.
*ducks*
home
Historically, putting "Open" in a product name or service has been a useful warning sign, similar to "Honest" on a used card dealer's lot.
...
For example, "OpenVMS", "MVS Open Edition", "Open Desktop" or "Open Server",
Unfortunately this is no longer a reliable guide, as some open systems and open source organizations have muddied the waters by using it in the previous (and, for a time, obsolete) sense.
No, but I've been dragged into too many "let's try to make money off tom's public domain code" to know buzzspeak. I usually have self-defense mechanisms [re: shut ears off] when they start in on "getting the market traction going"...
I've been lucky so far and nobody has caught on that I spent over half my time in meetings mentally undressing the cutest female in the office [which varies with location] or just playing SMB1 in my head... which I can do fairly well at this point...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
If you've ever worked on an IBM server, then you know why they are popular. The things are built rock solid, redundant everything, monitoring out the whazoo. In short, if it wasn't for the ever increasing processor speeds, then it would be a server that you plan to use for ten years.
We have an IBM netfinity server, dual p3, and all we've ever had to do to it was replace one drive in our 1/2 TB array. It's an absolute beauty to use, and worth every penny we paid for it.
But an attempt to get some applications ported to Linux for the power series.
I've been evaluating Linux at my present employment, and what was lacking most in the IBM solution was available software for the POWER series Linux OS.
At the moment, many large enterprise, infrastructer applications have been ported to linux for Intel (most even come with RedHat and SuSE packages), but of the 5 applications we require, only TSM backup was offered for Linux on power arch. This list includes BMC, EMC, and BindView.
IBM is in a pretty good position to market Linux, because they support both RedHat and SuSE on the very same hardware that AIX runs on, and you can use some of the advanced features like dynamic LPAR and virtulization.
But I think in the long run, its just too much trouble for companies to port to yet another linux distribution.
Clock for clock, for pure computational demands, very little beats 64bit POWER architecture with real vector instructions. I'd definitely like to see IBM sell something like an apple xserve for us relatively poor scientists who want POWER for doing lots of raw number crunching: fft and molecular dynamics in particular.
Without entry-level, inexpensive and interesting (i.e. "Xenon-based" or dual-core FreeScale G4s), PPC Linux will starve to death.
Nobody will pay more than what a entry-level x86 costs for an entry-level PPC system.
IBM and FreeScale (the current most affected by Apple's switch) should think about getting simple Linux based PPC desktops at rock-bottom prices in the hands of developers, even if it means selling them at a loss.
When developers lose interest in a platform, it is doomed.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
We've got an OpenPOWER 720 in our data center as part of IBM's push to get everyone to try it out, and let me tell you, this architecture is fast. Blazingly fast. From the zippy CPU's to the efficient bus design, it just crunches through the most demanding data tasks effortlessly.
There are some caveats, though. One is that it does run hot. I wouldn't recommend keeping this type of machine running anywhere other than an air conditioned data center. You can feel the hot air blasting out the front of the chassis. The other thing is that because it's designed for virtualization, getting it booted up can be somewhat cumbersome. It actually requires a separate computer (an ordinary PC, as shipped) to run the software that configures partitions and manages the boot process.
Other than that, though, this is a great way to get a smaller version of what "big iron" can deliver, at a decent price.
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If IBM was really serious about this, they'd make a system that you could buy for a couple hundred bucks.
I'd buy a PowerPC motherboard that had standard ATX power connections, IDE/SATA, maybe some PCI slots, maybe SMP. But I'm not going to spend >$3k thank you very much. I, and I'm sure others, would love to tinker with PowerPC chips if it wasn't cheaper to buy a Mac instead.