IBM Cuts Power Systems Shops a Linux Price Break

Published: August 23, 2010

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Big Blue has wanted you to run Linux and AIX on your OS/400 and i platforms for the better part of a decade now, and maybe you have and maybe you haven't. Maybe Linux is now commercial enough that you feel like ditching Windows for certainly infrastructure and application serving jobs. If you do, and you have some latent capacity sitting around in your Power6, Power6+, and selected Power7 machines, then IBM has a deal for you.

In the Linux on Power Systems Capacity Upgrade on Demand offering, announced as part of the August 17 announcement blitz, which you can read about in announcement letter 310-240, IBM is offering customers up to eight free processor activations and up to 32 GB of free memory activations if they plunk Linux from either Red Hat or Novell onto that capacity.

The Linux freebie CPU core and memory activation deal is available on Power 570 servers using Power6 and Power6+ processors, Power 595 servers using Power6 processors, and Power 770 and 780 machines using Power7 processors. You have to order the Novell or Red Hat Linux licenses from IBM at the same time as asking for the freebie CPU and memory activation feature codes. Red hat Enterprise Linux and 5 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 and 11 are eligible for this deal. There is a limit of one Power Systems server per deal per company.

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