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."

Comments

REALLY?!?

[Gherald]

Other suggested article titles:

"Intel promoting Pentium Systems"
"AMD Promoting Athlon Systems"
"Microsoft promoting Windows"

Now,

"IBM Promoting POWER Systems" ... film at 11 !!

Re:REALLY?!?

[henrywood]

Not quite that obvious. OpenPower refers to a line of servers specifically designed to run Linux (hence the "Open") part. This is a small, very small, part of the IBM lineup (which includes some serious heavy metal).

A more accurate comparison would be:

"AMD promoting Athlon64 Systems"

Even that is not much of a comparison as the Athlon64 range is a much greater percentage of AMD's product than OpenPower servers are of IBM's.

Re:REALLY?!?

[njcoder]

"Not quite that obvious. OpenPower refers to a line of servers specifically designed to run Linux (hence the "Open") part. This is a small, very small, part of the IBM lineup (which includes some serious heavy metal)."

Hate the name. Running linux doesn't make the architecture "Open". For an affordable power based workstation look here. It runs a few different distros of linux and other os's and more are in the works.

I don't really agree with all the hype around IBM's open source moves. Seems like a lot of what they are doing is using open source as a way to get salespeople in the door to sell proprietary IBM solutions. That's not necessarily a bad thing depending on how it's done. Look at some of the Apache projects, things like Jetty where IBM was a big supporter until they decided it was good enough to fork it internally for WebSphere Portal. That's not so bad, the license allows it but it's still a bit messed up in my opinion.

But other things like Derby and Geronimo are different all together. Take a look at the IBM Cloudscape pages. Cloudscape is not open source. It's "open source-based". They released the code as the Apache Derby project, but Cloudscape is not an open source project. The download link says "trials and betas". It may be free now but it has the potential of not being free when IBM senses it can charge for more than just support. Why would IBM release this? It's not because there weren't other open source java based RDBMS's out there. Hypersonic and Mckoi were already quite popular in that space and there are more. The difference is, Cloudscape has been designed to be a stepping stone to DB2. The java rdbms's have a niche market. One segment of which is users that want an easy portable system to develop on with little administrative requirements. These types generally outgrow the capabilities of such database systems and the user needs to migrate. If you're already using Cloudscape, the logical migration path is DB2. Which definately isn't free.

Also look at their recent acquisition of Gluecode. This gives them the developers of the Geronimo project. It's going to turn into Websphere-Lite. Same type of deal with Cloudscape. Both of these will be at the expense of open source software that is trying to be real open source, not just a carrot on a stick. Hopefully people see this and projects like Jonas and JBoss continue to grow.

I feel IBM is abusing the phrase "Open Source" in it's marketting where it's not appropriate. Like a couple of days ago when they announced they were moving to a more open source type of development for all their projects. They didn't say they were open sourcing all their projects, just that they will be using open source methodologies within IBM. I guess you could call it the Bazaar in the Cathedral. Yet so many mistakenly took the news to mean that ibm was doing more with open source and releasing more products via open source.

To me it looks like IBM is turning Open Source into shareware. They have their free versions to tinker around with but when you're ready for the real thing, a non crippled version, you have to pay for it. From Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog we have this quote:

"Jonas (Red Hat's app server) is just a toy, it's just for the low end" said IBM's exec at the Smith Barney Tech Conference I just attended in NYC.

A similar message is presented (though a little less harshly) when IBM compares AIX to Linix

Also look at Eclipse. It's used as an IDE but in many respects it is crippled in that regard, it's real purpose is as a tools platform. To get real productivity out of it you need to purchase plug-ins or upgrade to professional tools based on Eclipse like WebSphere Studio. The Eclipse Foundation is working on a number of open sourc

"Open" Power?

[chathamhouse]

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/

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/librar y/l-pow-portsolaris/
(Though it is a well written piece - good quick guide to Linux and Solaris system calls, signals.)

Re:How slow will this be?

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Yes but were they Power 5's? I doubt it. The Power5 is VERY fast. We have 3 LPAR's on our system and many processors....one LPAR has 6 dedicated processors and one has 10 processors. Total ram for the system is 106 GB and we split that up between the LPARS.

i dunno

[ed__]

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.

too little too late?

[CowbertPrime]

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.

PowerPC to the people

[rbanffy]

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.

I've got one here

[IGnatius T Foobar]

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.