IBM Creates Entry PowerVM Hypervisor, Gives Rebates on Unix Gear

Published: January 31, 2008

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

In an effort to preserve its entry Unix server business from the attacks of powerful and virtualized Windows and Linux boxes and to increase its competitive position against Unix alternatives from Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard, IBM this week announced a new low-cost hypervisor for its Power-based servers. The hypervisor is a key feature in the new Power6-based entry servers, also announced this week, and so are some rebates Big Blue is giving on Sun and HP iron.

As we reported it might do back in November, IBM has rebranded the Virtualization Engine logical partition hypervisor for its Power servers, which didn't really have a name on its System i machines and which was called the Advanced Power Virtualization hypervisor on the Systen p line, as the PowerVM hypervisor. Last fall, when IBM announced the JS22 Power6-based blade server for its BladeCenter line, the company split the APV product into two pieces, a Standard Edition and an Enterprise Edition. This week, IBM announced a low-cost variant called Express Edition, which has a $30 per core license plus another $10 per year fee for Software Maintenance. PowerVM Express Edition is only available on the new Power6-based System p 520 and 550 servers, which have a maximum of 4 and 8 Power6 cores, respectively, and it can be used to create up to three logical partitions per server using the Integrated Virtualization Manager tool that IBM has supplied for AIX 6.1 since last November's launch of that Unix variant. (You do not have to use a Hardware Management Console, or HMC, outboard computer using PowerVM Express Edition.)

PowerVM Standard Edition allows up to 10 logical partitions per Power4, Power5, or Power6 core on a pSeries or System p server. The price of PowerVM Standard Edition varies depending on the server. It costs $309 per core on blade servers, but IBM has been giving it away for free, and it also gives it away for free on high-end System p 590 and 595 servers. Standard Edition costs from $590 to $1,310, depending on the software tier of the server; those prices do not include software maintenance. Last fall, when AIX 6.1 was released and the Live Partition Mobility feature was made available for Power6-based servers running AIX 5.3 and AIX 6.1, IBM created an Enterprise Edition of the hypervisor, which costs from $309 per core on blades servers to as much as $1,999 per core on larger boxes. Software Maintenance costs $110 per processor core per year for PowerVM Standard Edition and $220 per core per year for Enterprise Edition.

When companies buy the PowerVM hypervisor, they get a license to the Virtual I/O Server, which is used to virtualize I/O for multiple logical partitions in a single machine supporting AIX 5.3, AIX 6.1, i5/OS V6R1, and recent Linux releases. This software is tossed into the PowerVM Express, Standard, and Enterprise Editions for free.

So is an emulation environment put together by IBM called PowerVM Lx86, which we used to know as the Portable Advanced Virtualization Emulator and then as the System p Application Virtual Environment. No matter what IBM calls this software, it is an emulation environment based on Transitive's QuickTransit product that allows 32-bit Linux applications that have been compiled on X86 iron to run without modification and in emulated mode on Linux partitions on Power-based servers. Thus far, IBM is only making the Lx86 emulator available on System p servers running at least one Linux partition, but there is no reason why AIX and i5/OS shops can't carve out a Linux partition on their machines, buy a PowerVM license, and use the Lx86 emulator to run some Linux applications that would otherwise have to be put on X86 or X64 iron.

According to Scott Handy, vice president of worldwide marketing and strategy for IBM's Power Systems division, IBM has not yet rebranded the hypervisor used in OS/400 and i5/OS with the PowerVM name or broken it out as a separate item, but it seems likely that it will do so to make pricing and packaging consistent across the System i and System p product lines. Handy says that, thus far, the beta customers testing the Lx86 emulator have not run into any issues and that customers have not requested support for 64-bit Linux applications to be emulated. "We'll see if we need that requirement," Handy says. "I will let the customers dictate what the next step is here."

Because there are so few 64-bit Linux applications anyway, the easiest thing to do is to compile the application natively on Power iron using Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1 or Red Hat's Enterprise Linux 5.1. By the way, Handy says that IBM has over 3,000 native Linux applications running on Power iron these days.

While the low-cost PowerVM Express Edition and the capability to virtualize I/O and run emulated Linux-on-X86 applications are key for IBM to sell Power6-based servers against X64 and other Unix boxes at the low end, IBM is also working the pricing angle. Customers buying a new Power6-based System p 550 server with 3.5 GHz cores can get a $600 per core rebate on the server they buy and those choosing the faster (and more expensive) 4.2 GHz cores can get a $1,200 per core rebate--provided they are buying the new System p server to replacing HP or Sun iron. Handy says IBM intends to offer this deal throughout 2008 and that it is available in the United States now and will be rolled out across other geographies on a global basis in the first quarter.

RELATED STORIES

IBM Gets Power6 Chips into Entry System p Servers

IBM Aims for Server Expansion in 2008

The Rumor Mill on IBM's Impending Platform Announcements

Weak Dollar, Services, and Power6 Give IBM a Solid Fourth Quarter

Mad Dog 21/21: Motherboarding

Be My Guest

IBM Brags About Its Power6 Server Shipments

Power6 Blades Finally Come to Market from IBM

Project ECLipz Surfaces, But Not the Way You Think

IBM Previews i5/OS V6R1, Due in 2008

IBM Upgrades High-End System i Server with Power6

HP Promotes Transitive Tool to Port Solaris Apps to Integrity Servers

IBM's Rumored System i Power6 Server Plans

IBM Launches First Power6-Based Server

IBM Opens Up Beta for Future AIX 6

                     Post this story to del.icio.us
               Post this story to Digg
    Post this story to Slashdot