Power10 Entry Machines: The Power S1012

May 13, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

It has taken almost two years to complete the Power10 server set and it has been almost four years since we first wrote about the details of the Power10 processor, but with the launch of the “Bonnell” Power S1012 entry server last week, which will start shipping on June 14, the set is indeed complete. Unless something weird happens, there will be no additional Power Systems servers announced until the Power11 iron starts rolling out sometime in 2025.

Last week we told you what we knew about the Power S1012, and this week we have gotten our hands on announcement letter AD24-0217 as well as the new Redbook on this Power S1012 machine and are going to do a deeper dive into the machine. Subsequent to this story, we will tell you what we learned about IBM’s intentions for the Bonnell box and then we will also try to gather up some pricing information on the system to compare it to other entry servers over the years that have run the OS/400, i5/OS, and IBM i platform.

The Power S1012 is one of the physically smallest machines that we have ever seen on the OS/400 and follow-on lines, and given the improvement in compute, storage, and I/O over the more than three decades since the AS/400 was launched, it was about time IBM made a smaller as well as less capacious box to match the edge and datacenter needs of different groups of customers.

The Bonnell system is a single-socket machine that is based on the single chip implementation of the Power10 processor, which has eight cores on a chiplet. The full Power10 processor has two of these chiplets to create a socket with sixteen potential cores, although for yield purposes only a maximum of 15 of those cores are currently sold. (If there is a Power10 upgrade in the future, it will be for processor cards that allow all 16 cores to be active.) The Bonnel system is based on a half-width motherboard that allows two of them to be put into a 2U rack mounted enclosure or that allows for the machine to be used in a compact tower configuration. It has power supplies that can use 110 volt or 220 volt power, which makes it an international box. (Like all entry Power Systems for as long back as we can remember.)

This is how it compares to the current Power S1014 and Power S1022s servers that are also entry boxes in the Power10 lineup:

The Bonnell machine comes with one, four, or eight cores running at a base 3 GHz activated, and like other entry machines in the Power9 and Power10 lines, the core configurations are static, not dynamic. There is no way to turn on extra cores with microcode tweaks because those cores that are not used are either duds or IBM and its fab partner, Samsung, have walled them off in some permanent fashion. (All you would have to do is snip a few wires.) The machine uses industry standard DDR4 memory sticks, which come in 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB capacities. The SCM version of the Power10 has eight OMI memory channels and 64 PCI-Express 5.0 lanes, so it could in theory do more memory and I/O expansion, but IBM Is purposefully limiting it. As it is, the Power10 SCM used in the Bonnell box has only two channels activated and only delivers 102 GB/sec of bandwidth on the main memory – a quarter of what a full-on Power10 DCM chip can do. The DDR4 memory runs at 3.2 GHz.

Like other super-entry machines put together by IBM over the years, the one-core version is capped at a maximum of 64 GB of memory running IBM i, and none of the three configurations support external PCI-Express I/O drawers for storage or networking expansion. The PCI-Express slots in the machine are also not hot-swappable, unlike other Power10 servers, and key features in the PowerVM hypervisor, such as network function virtualization and Live Partition Mobility, are not activated in the Power10 processor. Similarly, active memory mirroring and virtual persistent memory, other features in the Power10 that are active in larger machines, is not active in the Bonnell box.

Here is a block diagram of the Power S1012 processor feature:

That PCI-Express switch in that block diagram is actually an eight-core Power10 chiplet with all eight of its cores and OMI memory channels turned off. This is the same SCM that is used in other entry Power10 machines to great effect. This one seems to have a lot of its I/O turned off.

And here is what the Bonnell system board looks like:

It is a pretty minimalist design, but then again, that is exactly and precisely what is needed for entry and edge customers running IBM i, AIX, and Linux.

The optional RDX backup storage enclosure can be enclosed inside the rack sled or tower configuration, and it comes in capacities of 320 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB, 1.5 TB, and 2 TB. The Four NVM-Express drives that connect to PCI-Express 5.0 controllers come in 800 GB or 1.6 TB capacities.

Here is an interesting exploded view mechanical drawing of the Power S1012 server sled for the rack-mounted chassis:

If you tip the sled on its side, you can put it in a tower enclosure like this:

It is a deep tower, but at least it is not very wide. That’s the idea: You can fit it just about anywhere.

2 thoughts on “Power10 Entry Machines: The Power S1012”

Tim Simon says:

May 29, 2024 at 10:57 am

As the project leader and lead author on the Power S1012 Redbook publication, I wanted to thank you for referencing the Redbook in your post. The IBM Redbook team works hard to bring relevant technical information to our readers as the evaluate and implement IBM products and we appreciate anything that reminds our potential readers of the wealth of information available from IBM Redbooks.

- Timothy Prickett Morgan says:
  
  May 29, 2024 at 10:59 am
  
  Hiya fellow Tim
  
  I love the Redbooks and have even crabbed in recent months that IBM i needs more of them. It’s beautiful work, and I appreciate it.

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