The iSeries Gets Power5+ Chips and the New System i5 Moniker

Published: January 31, 2006

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Whenever IBM sits down to revamp the iSeries product line, it has a number of different factors it needs to weigh against each other. With the iSeries in particular--which is now called the System i5, by the way--Big Blue wants to create a relatively simple line of machines that employ sophisticated technology. It wants to make them competitive, but also because of the sophistication, it wants something it can charge a premium for. And it wants something that its existing reseller channel can absorb and sell quickly.

With the debut of the Power5-based i5 line in the summer of 2004, IBM delivered a pretty good product line, one which gave many existing OS/400 shops much better bang for the buck, but which also gave business partners a chance to make a buck. But the inevitable grind of Moore's Law crushes everyone in this IT racket, and even the impressive i5 line of 2004 was no longer competitive with new dual-core offerings based on X64 architectures from Intel and AMD, and companies like Microsoft, Oracle, and even IBM were treating dual-core processors as if they had only single cores in regards to software licensing. This had the effect of making the i5 line look a little too pricey compared to the Wintel and Lintel competition in the entry and midrange server space. And today, IBM is making moves to get the System i5 more in line with the alternative platforms in the market. Exactly how close remains to be seen, and will be the subject of stories in future issues of The Four Hundred. For now, let's just focus on what IBM has done to turn the iSeries i5 into the System i5.

First of all, the basic form factors and model designations in the System i5 are the same as the iSeries i5s you already know. There are machines with 520, 550, 570, and 590 designations, which come in Value, Express, Standard, and Enterprise Editions. The new thing you have to get used to is the name "System i5," but all of the other eServer brands are making the same transition--there is the System z and the System p5 already, and presumably at some point IBM will rebrand the xSeries as the System x or something like that. The return of the "System" in the moniker is meant to convey that IBM makes systems--complete machines with hardware, operating systems, virtualization, and middleware that can act as hosts, hubs, and infrastructure boxes depending on what customers need--not servers, which are generally single-use machines, like the kind that have sprawling in your company for the past decade. The new System naming convention harks back to the System/360, the first general purpose computer made by IBM, and indeed, the computer that made IBM. It also allows IBM to easily change the name going forward. It is not hard to envision System i6, System i7, and System i8 product lines, although "the system I ate" product line sounds a bit ominous. Could lead to heartburn or market share gains. Hard to say.

The entry System i5 520 Value and Express Editions are now based on the single-core, 1.9 GHz Power5+ processor, which is a bit faster than the single-core 1.5 GHz and 1.65 GHz Power5 processors used in the i5 520 Value and Express Editions in the 2004 product line. But considering that IBM already gears down the processors in these machines, that extra speed was not really required. Moving to a smaller, cooler Power5+ chip is just as important as a little more peak performance. The first i5 520 Value Edition comes with a 1.9 GHz Power5+ chip that has 1.9 MB of L2 cache and its L3 cache deactivated, while the second one has 36 MB of L3 cache turned on. The first Value Edition comes with 30 CPWs of green screen performance and 600 CPWs of raw batch and server performance (which can be used to run WebSphere, Domino, WorkPlace and other workloads). The Value Edition supports up to 32 GB of main memory (and comes with none, as is the case with all System i5s and the iSeries i5s before them), and supports up to 39 TB of disk using a few internal disks and up to six external I/O towers. The base i5 520 Value Edition costs $8,300. (These are preliminary prices, which are subject to change. I will give you official prices in next week's issue of The Four Hundred.) This machine is in the P05 software tier, and like all of the System i5 machines, it can run either the existing i5/OS V5R3 or the new i5/OS V5R4 (for more on the new operating system, see "Features Galore Inside i5/OS V5R4").

In last year's product line, customers who needed to add performance to an i5 520 Value Edition had to spend $24,700 to upgrade to a machine box with 60 CPWs of green-screen and 2,400 CPWs of server performance, or do a box swap to a 1,000/60 CPW machine, which cost $22,200. (These prices include the cost of one year's Software Maintenance, which is a rollup of software concurrency updates and the former SupportLine tech support, you will remember.) That upgrade or box swap necessitated a move to a P10 software tier, which often caused more pain than the move to new hardware. That's why with the System i5 announcements, IBM has created a little golden screwdriver trick it is calling the IBM Accelerator for System i5. With the i5 Accelerator, you keep the same basic i5 520 server and IBM turns up the server capacity from 600 CPWs to 3,000 CPWs and you get to stay in the P05 software tier, too. Best of all, the extra performance costs $13,500. The accelerated base i5 520 Value Edition costs $21,800, and delivers 29 percent more server performance (but half the green-screen performance).

The Value Edition also includes another machine with 60 CPWs of green screen power and a base 1,200 CPWs of server power--twice the performance of the entry box--which costs $21,900. It is in the P10 software tier. And for the same $13,500, you can accelerate it to have 3,800 CPWs of server performance (keeping the same 60 CPWs of 5250 power) and still be in the P10 software tier. The fully activated Value Edition would cost $35,400, which is a bit more pricey than the $32,900 of last year's machine, which had a 2,400/60 CPW rating. You are paying 8 percent more for 58 percent more server performance--which is a pretty good deal by the percents. One other bonus: You do not need a Hardware Management Console to turn on the i5 Accelerator. (Hooray!)

By the way, IBM plans to launch seven different System i5 520 Express configurations based on this chassis; details were not available as we went to press. All of them come in the same i5 520 tower and rack form factors that debuted last year.

The System i5 520 Standard Edition, which comes with one or two cores activated, is also available in the same tower and rack flavors, and similarly sports the new 1.9 GHz Power5+ dual-core module (DCM) that made its debut last fall in the System p5, formerly the pSeries, server line. Last year, the 520 Standard Edition came in three flavors--a single-core machine with either 2,400 or 3,300 CPWs of server capacity and a dual-core machine with 6,000 CPWs of power. That 2,400 CPW box had no L3 cache (making it not a good choice for running Java, Domino, and other cache-sensitive workloads) and cost $33,000, whereas the 3,300 CPW box had the L3 cache turned on and cost $54,000. To upgrade to the two-core version, customers had to pay $9,000 to activate the second core, which actually required a server upgrade, and if they wanted i5/OS, they had to pay another $48,000.

In this year's System i5 product line, it only costs $24,000 to add i5/OS to that second core on the i5 520 Standard Edition. And pricing is a lot lower for the hardware. A base machine rated at 3,800 CPWs has L3 cache activated and costs $35,000; this machine can only have one core activated ever. A bigger box with one core out of two possible cores activated (and rated at the same 3,800 CPWs) costs $40,000, and now instead of upgrading, IBM does a capacity on demand microcode switch and turns on the second core in the box, boosting the speed to 7,100 CPWs for a mere $1,800. You do not need a Hardware Management Console to add that capacity. (Hooray again!)

So now, you can get a 7,100 CPW i5/OS machine (mind you, one without any 5250 green screen capacity) for $65,800. I am not sure why anyone would pay that much money for such a machine, but in last year's lineup, it cost $111,000 to get a similar machine rated at 6,000 CPWs. The single-core i5 520 Standard Edition is in the P10 software tier, while the 1/2-way machine (which means the machine with the possibility of activating the second core) is in the P20 tier, even if only one core is activated. This machine uses DDR2 main memory, which is expandable to 32 GB, just like the other 520s.

The System i5 520 Enterprise Edition has full-on green-screen processing capacity, and as such, it is pricier--just like it was last year. There are four different models, and they all use the 1.9 GHz Power5+ chip with full L2 and L3 caches turned on. Two with geared-down 5250 capacity, and two with full-on 5250 capacity. The base machine is rated at 1,200 CPWs for green-screen and server workloads, is in the P10 tier, and costs $50,500. The second machine is also in the P10 tier, is rated at 2,800 CPWs, and costs $92,900. The 1-2-way version of this machine comes with the same 3,800 CPWs and 7,100 CPWs you would get with similar i5 520 Standard Edition machines, and is in the same P20 software tier, but the 5250 processing capability raises the price to $129,900 for the machine with 3,800 CPWs of performance, and to $131,700 for the machine with 7,100 CPWs. Adding i5/OS to the second core costs $24,000 on top of this.

The new System i5 550 comes with from one to four 1.9 GHz Power5+ cores and spans up to 64 GB of DDR2 main memory. Processors are activated using capacity on demand features, and upgrades are not required. The machine offers from 3,800 to 14,000 CPWs of performance, which is more than enough to cover the vast majority of the AS/400 and iSeries installed base, at least in terms of OS/400 processing requirements. This server has eight internal drive bays and can support another 540 external disks, giving it a total potential capacity of 77 TB. Like 2004's i5 550, this year's is in the P20 software tier, and i/OS Standard, Enterprise, Domino, and Solution Editions will be available for it. With this round of announcements, IBM is adding a High Availability Edition to the i5 550 as well. The base System i5 550 with 3,800 CPWs costs $70,000 with i5/OS Standard Edition (down from $78,000 for a slightly slower processor in the 2004 product line), and costs $270,000 with i5/OS Enterprise Edition. Processor core activations cost $2,100 (down from $3,500 in the prior model), and i5/OS costs $44,000 per core (down a tiny bit from $45,000). It costs $50,000 per core to activate the Enterprise Enablement features on each core, which allows 5250 applications to run full speed.

The System i5 570 is based on a 2.2 GHz Power5+ chip, which has not even seen the light of day in IBM's AIX-based p5 servers yet. It has the same 1.9 MB L2 cache and 36 MB L3 cache as the slower 1.9 GHz Power5+. The i5 570 has also been rejiggered slightly to make the price/performance curve more smooth, a process that IBM started last summer when it simplified the way i5/OS and Enterprise Enablement features worked. Now there is no single-core i5 570 (which was not necessary once the i5 550 was there anyway), and the line starts at a 2/4-way machine, which is rated at 8,400 CPWs or 16,000 CPWs and can have up to 128 GB of DDR2 main memory and support up to 77 TB of disk capacity. It is in the P30 software tiere and costs $145,000 with i5/OS Standard Edition and $449,000 with i5/OS Enterprise Edition. The i5/OS operating system is actually more expensive on this box, costing $59,000 per core compared to the $51,000 per core IBM was charging as 2005 ended. Processor core activations are not cheap, either, at $16,199 per core. The 4/8-way version of the box has a base 16,700 CPWs of performance and can scale to 256 GB of main memory; it costs $220,000 with i5/OS Standard Edition and $533,000 with i5/OS Enterprise Edition, and is in the P40 software tier. The 8/16-way version of the System i5 570 has a base 31,100 CPWs, scales up to 512 GB of main memory, and costs $380,000 with the Standard Edition of i5/OS and $735,000 with the Enterprise Edition. Enterprise Enablement features cost $50,000 per core; it used to be $150,000 per core last year. And to turn on full Enterprise Enablement on an i5 570, IBM is now charging $150,000, down from $250,000 last year.

According to Ian Jarman, product manager for the System i5 line, IBM will be running SAP Business Warehouse and SPECjbbApp benchmarks on the new i5 570 to show it off.

The System i5 595 is essentially the same box as the 2004 model, except that it now has 1.9 GHz Power5 (not Power5+) processors. IBM is also allowing for main memory to scale up to 2 TB on the biggest machines (using DDR1 main memory), and says that it is including more I/O expansion, with up to 96 I/O towers and up to 31 HSL2 loops on both the existing 1.65 GHz machines and the new 1.9 GHz models. The i5 595 comes in three versions: an 8/16-way, a 16/32-way, and a 32/64-way, which support 512 MB, 1 TB, and 2 TB maximum main memories, respectively. The i5 595 family now scales from 26,700 CPWs with eight cores to 184,000 CPWs with 64 cores. The two smaller machines are in the P50 software tier, and the largest version is in the P60 tier.

In next week's issue of The Four Hundred, I will give you the salient characteristics charts you need to size up the new System i5s, and after that, I will size the new machines against last year's models and begin the long process of comparing them to other boxes out there in the entry, midrange, and enterprise server markets. All of the new i5 models are going to be generally available on February 14. Happy Valentine's Day.