More Vintage Power Systems Stuff Gets The Plug Pulled
November 4, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan
We are well into the Power9 era and looking ahead to the Power10 and Power11 era, so it is no surprise at all that IBM is looking to streamline its product catalog and empty out its barns of old equipment. In announcement letter 919-139, which somehow slipped our attention two weeks ago on October 22, a whole bunch of Power Systems stuff got the axe, with withdrawal dates ranging from right now until February 2020.
On October 22, IBM i 6.1.1, with its machine code, will no longer be available for ordering on a slew of machines. This is funny, since as far as I know, IBM i 6.1.X had its end of marketing date on December 9, 2014, and it came off of extended support on September 30 of this year. But that is what this recent announcement letter seems to indicate. Go figure. A very large number of disk drives and flash adapters that have been replaced recently are also getting the boot (har har har), so if you need some of these, it is already too late to get them new from Big Blue. But you can get them from channel partners and then on the used market – as supplies are available of course.
On December 13, a bunch of 8 Gb/sec Fibre Channel adapters are going to bite it, and on December 31, the 36-port 100 Gb/sec EDR InfiniBand switches that IBM resells from Mellanox Technology are going to be removed from the catalog; Mellanox is starting to ramp sales of 200 Gb/sec HDR InfiniBand, so presumably IBM Power Systems has access to these. And on the same day, some 16 GB and 32 GB DDR3 memory features used on Power8 machinery is also going to be forgotten, and on January 17, 2020 will stop selling 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB memory sticks (some DDR3 and some DDR4) used in other Power8 systems are going to be removed from the sales catalog. Also on January 17, IBM will be killing off its 7014-B42 42U rack and its 7965-94Y slim 42U racks for Power gear.
On April 30, 2020, IBM i 7.2 will be removed as an installation option on a bunch of older Power Systems machinery – Power 5XX and Power 7XX iron that is very long in the tooth indeed. And finally, on June 30, 2020, the 128 GB DDR3 CDIMM memory features for the Power E870, Power E880, Power E870C, Power E880C, and Power E980 are going the way of all flesh.
RELATED STORIES
Tweaking Systems And Withdrawal Symptoms
More Withdrawals For Vintage Power Gear
More Power7 And Power8 Features To Bite The Rust
IBM Sunsets Big Iron Power8 Engines As Power9 Engines Loom
IBM Inks In End Of Support For Power6 And Power7 Iron
Sundry Withdrawals For Power7 And Power7+ Gear
Clearing The Decks Ahead Of The Power9 Launch
Say Sayonara To IBM i 7.1 Next Spring
