The Four Hundred

Sources familiar with IBM's plans say the company is readying its first entry servers using the Power4 processors that will make their debut in the iSeries Model 890 servers this week. Exactly when IBM will announce the pSeries 630 entry servers, which will probably offer uniprocessor, two-way, and four-way configurations, is unclear. It could be this week, or next, or after the July 4 holiday. If history is any guide, these pSeries 630 machines will very likely resemble a future replacement for the iSeries Model 270.

IBM has kept a tight lockdown on information about its Power4 announcements, but it is widely believed that Big Blue has been moving up server announcements to try to entice customers to spend money on new, more powerful servers. The pSeries 670 midrange servers--also known internally at IBM as the Regatta-M machines--were expected around October of this year, but were launched at the end of April. Similarly, the pSeries 630s, one of a few different Regatta-L machines that could be in the works, were expected about the same time. It is hard to say who was the prime mover, but in the Unix server market, IBM and rivals Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard have kept their server announcements pretty much in lock step. Sun is expected to soon deliver a new four-way server, code-named "Cherrystone," and it is probably not a coincidence that IBM has moved up the pSeries 630 announcement to steal some of Sun's thunder.

The exact configurations of the pSeries 630 are not known by the sources I have spoken with. There has been some talk of pSeries 650 machines that might offer six-way and eight-way symmetric multiprocessing using either the Regatta-L or Regatta-M chassis, but I have been unable to confirm that the announcement of these machines is impending. The rumors about the pSeries 630 seem a lot more solid, given that IBM is planning to update its pSeries sales force and reseller channel on the machines this week. The pSeries 630s will probably use a mix of single- and dual-core Power4 processors. The Regatta-H servers that are branded as the pSeries 690 and iSeries Model 890 come in 16- and 32-way configurations that employ 1.1 GHz and 1.3 GHz Power4 chips, which have two processor cores and a shared L2 cache on a single physical chip. The Regatta-M servers embodied in the pSeries 670s offer four, eight, and 16 processor configurations using a mix of single- and dual-core Power4s running at 1.1 GHz. In effect, if IBM finds a Power4 with one core not working properly, it is wisely putting that chip into a machine. Power4 chips are very expensive to make, and IBM cannot afford to waste them. When other chip makers get around to making dual-core processors--and they will--they will do exactly the same thing.

The pSeries 630 servers could be announced with the same 1.1 GHz processors used in the pSeries 670 and pSeries 690, or even the faster 1.3 GHz chips. IBM could use slightly slower Power4 parts in these machines, if they can be tuned at lower clock speeds to run in a balanced fashion. IBM could even surprise everyone and ship a faster Power4 processor in these entry machines. It is often easier to get one, two, or four fast processors to cooperate in a symmetric multiprocessing configuration than it is to get the same cooperation in 16-, 32-, or 64-way configurations. Whatever these machines have in them, very similar machines will very likely end up in the iSeries line at some point in the future.

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