• The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
Menu
  • The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • IBM Offers Virtualization-Friendly Pricing for RHEL 5 on Power

    June 25, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

    As part of its announcement that it was beginning to ship the Power variant of Red Hat‘s new Enterprise Linux 5 server operating system, IBM last week said that it was going to offer customers using Power-based machines a per-server license rather than the per-core pricing that IBM has used in the past to peddle RHEL 4 and earlier Red Hat Linuxes.

    The per-server price for RHEL 4 and RHEL 5 is meant to make it easier for IBM’s customers to cope with licensing in an increasingly virtualized environment. The licensing that the company announced last week applies to System i and System p servers running Linux in partitions as well as OpenPower boxes running Linux exclusively and PowerPC-based blade servers in the BladeCenter family. The licensing has to be different on Power-based machines because these boxes do not support the open source Xen hypervisor, but rather use IBM’s own Virtualization Engine hypervisor and the tools that IBM has created to manage logical partitions (LPARs).

    The way IBM has created its RHEL 5 licensing is that it is still counting sockets and LPARs, but it is doing so in a slightly different way from Red Hat’s Xen-on-X64 scheme. A standard one-year license to RHEL 4 or RHEL 5 from IBM costs $375 for a machine with one or two processor sockets and supporting up to four LPARs; a one-year license on a machine with an unlimited number of sockets and up to 25 LPARs costs $719. IBM is offering a 7 percent discount to customers who ink a three-year subscription deal for a Red Hat Linux backed by IBM support. Moving to Red Hat support more than doubles the fees. Specifically, to $759 for a one- or two-socket box with four or fewer LPARs and to $1,349 for a box with unlimited sockets and up to 25 LPARs. Premium support licenses with Red Hat’s patching and IBM support cost $645 for the smaller machine (one or two sockets, 4 LPARs max), but are only a little more expensive at $899 for the unlimited socket-25 LPAR license. This latter one is clearly the sweet spot that IBM is targeting for many of its midrange System i and System p customers. The irony is that IBM’s pricing for RHEL 5 on Power boxes is a bit more generous than Red Hat’s own pricing for its RHEL 5 Advanced Platform (which has unlimited sockets and virtualization). It is unclear what happens when customers with big System i or System p boxes want more than 25 virtual instances of RHEL 5 running on their machines.

    Red Hat is perfectly happy to sell customers a license at its own pricing for Power-based systems that is identical to that for its X64-based licenses. So you don’t have to buy RHEL 5 from IBM. But given the different packaging and pricing, it is probably a good idea to look into it and compare your options. Moreover, IBM’s prices for Novell‘s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 on Power machines, backed by IBM support, are even less expensive than the RHEL 5-IBM support combo, which is also a little less expensive than what Novell is charging. Like RHEL 5, SLES 10 includes an integrated Xen hypervisor that is basically useless on a Power box or an IBM mainframe and only useful on X64 machines.

    RELATED STORIES

    Red Hat Integrates and Simplifies with RHEL 5

    Novell Aggressively Launches SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10



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

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Tags: Tags: mtfh_rc, Volume 16, Number 25 -- June 25, 2007

    Sponsored by
    WorksRight Software

    Do you need area code information?
    Do you need ZIP Code information?
    Do you need ZIP+4 information?
    Do you need city name information?
    Do you need county information?
    Do you need a nearest dealer locator system?

    We can HELP! We have affordable AS/400 software and data to do all of the above. Whether you need a simple city name retrieval system or a sophisticated CASS postal coding system, we have it for you!

    The ZIP/CITY system is based on 5-digit ZIP Codes. You can retrieve city names, state names, county names, area codes, time zones, latitude, longitude, and more just by knowing the ZIP Code. We supply information on all the latest area code changes. A nearest dealer locator function is also included. ZIP/CITY includes software, data, monthly updates, and unlimited support. The cost is $495 per year.

    PER/ZIP4 is a sophisticated CASS certified postal coding system for assigning ZIP Codes, ZIP+4, carrier route, and delivery point codes. PER/ZIP4 also provides county names and FIPS codes. PER/ZIP4 can be used interactively, in batch, and with callable programs. PER/ZIP4 includes software, data, monthly updates, and unlimited support. The cost is $3,900 for the first year, and $1,950 for renewal.

    Just call us and we’ll arrange for 30 days FREE use of either ZIP/CITY or PER/ZIP4.

    WorksRight Software, Inc.
    Phone: 601-856-8337
    Fax: 601-856-9432
    Email: software@worksright.com
    Website: www.worksright.com

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    The AS/400 at 19: Predicting the Future–Or Not MPG Helps to Size Boxes in a User-Based Pricing World

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

TFH Volume: 16 Issue: 25

This Issue Sponsored By

    Table of Contents

    • The CIO Is the Hammer, and Everything IT Vendors See Are Nails
    • IBM Offers Virtualization-Friendly Pricing for RHEL 5 on Power
    • IBM Previews Virtualization Management Tool for Power-Based Boxes
    • IBM Kills Off System i ServerProven, Standard Edition Rebates
    • Database Sales Grew By 14.2 Percent in 2006, Says Gartner
    • VoIP and the Search for Single Points of Failure
    • Lawson Expects Better Results for Fiscal Q4 Than Anticipated
    • As I See It: Dare to Be Rich
    • MPack Hacker Tool Claims 10,000 Compromised Web Sites
    • The CIO Is the Hammer, and Everything IT Vendors See Are Nails

    Content archive

    • The Four Hundred
    • Four Hundred Stuff
    • Four Hundred Guru

    Recent Posts

    • The IBM i Power10 Upgrade Cycle Forecast Looks Favorable
    • White Hats Completely Dismantle Menu-Based Security
    • Cloud Software To Drive Enterprise Application Growth
    • How Do You Stay In Touch With The IBM i Community?
    • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 25, Number 6
    • Security Still Top Concern, IBM i Marketplace Study Says
    • Bob Langieri Shares IBM i Career Trends Outlook for 2023
    • Kisco Brings Native SMS Messaging to IBM i
    • Four Hundred Monitor, February 1
    • 2023 IBM i Predictions, Part 4

    Subscribe

    To get news from IT Jungle sent to your inbox every week, subscribe to our newsletter.

    Pages

    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Contributors
    • Four Hundred Monitor
    • IBM i PTF Guide
    • Media Kit
    • Subscribe

    Search

    Copyright © 2022 IT Jungle

    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.