Power S914 Archives

An 11-Core Power9 Makes The Rounds, And Other Hardware Enhancements

October 14, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Those of us who go way back in the IBM midrange are used to rhythm in hardware announcements. In the early days, there were several announcements per year as new processors were rolled out across the product line and new peripherals for various kinds of storage and networking were rolled out. The pace was brisk back in the day, with nearly annual processor upgrades and associated updates to systems.

These days, systems are really updated every three years or so, but still, there is the vestigial spring/fall announcement cadence when Big Blue now does Technology Refreshes for the IBM i …
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IBM’s Plan For Etching Power10 And Later Chips

January 7, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Last summer, GlobalFoundries, the chip making conglomerate comprised of the foundry businesses of AMD and IBM plus Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, put the kibosh on its planned aggressive ramp of 7 nanometer chip making technologies. AMD and IBM, who both depended on GlobalFoundries for their server chip manufacturing, obviously knew well before this announcement that GlobalFoundries was going to be halting development and production ramp for 7 nanometers, so they were not left in as much of a lurch as it might seem.

Lucky for both companies, there is more than one foundry that was trying to stay on the bleeding …
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The NUMA NUMA [Song] Tax

October 1, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

When you have a wafer of chips, at least in theory all of the transistors cost the same on the wafer. But sometimes, when transistors perform certain functions, they are worth more. And in some cases, such as the electronics that enable the coupling of multiple cores on a die across a shared L3 cache or that allow the ganging up of processors across multiple sockets that allows for larger and shared main memory for applications to run in, those circuits are worth a lot more.

This lashing together of compute components across shared memories – Non-Uniform Cache Access, or …
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IBM Tweaks Memory And I/O For Entry Power9 Iron

July 16, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

The summer is usually pretty quiet in IBM i Land, and this one is no exception. But things do still happen, and it is our job – and we like our job – to keep you informed of things when they do.

On July 10, while IT Jungle was away on summer break, Big Blue did some tweaks and changes for various elements of the entry Power9 machines that started rolling out this year. These are all little things, but as usual, the little things can add up.

In announcement letter 118-058, IBM has interestingly announced a new 8 …
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Bang For The Buck On Power9 Entry Hardware

March 19, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

When it comes right down to it, there are three things that drive a server upgrade or new system purchase among IBM midrange shops: They have an aging system that has to be replaced, workloads are expanding and driving new capacity, or new workloads are being added to the system. In many cases, the situation involves two or even all three of these factors. But what gets the deal done is the value that the new system brings above and beyond satisfying those needs. You have to get a good deal so everyone looks like a hero.

The good news …
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Inside IBM’s Power S924 Power9 Entry System

February 26, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

It is hard to say for sure, but the two most popular Power9 machines that IBM will sell in the current and coming years will probably be the single-socket Power S914 or the two-socket Power S924. A lot depends on performance, which we don’t have metrics for yet, but one of these machines is going to be the volume leader – unless they are neck and neck.

We flipped a coin to decide which machine to cover first, and heads was the Power S914 and tails was the Power S924, and the quarter showed the American eagle and not George …
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Drilling Down Into The New Power9 Entry Servers

February 19, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

In last Wednesday’s issue of The Four Hundred, we gave you a high-level overview of the six new Power9 entry servers, code-named “ZZ” by IBM, as well as an initial pass on the changes that came with the latest Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.2 and 7.3. If you haven’t read these, please do, because they give you information on IBM’s strategy with regard to the Power9 iron and the IBM i platform.

In this issue, we are going to drill down into the six new Power9 systems, taking particular care with the single-socket Power S914 and dual-socket Power …
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At Long Last, IBM i Finally Gets Power9

February 14, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

The most important part of the Power9 rollout for the vast majority of IBM i customers has finally happened: Big Blue has lifted the veil on the Power9-based “ZZ” systems that we have been hearing about for a few months now and that are being delivered in the Power S914, Power S922, and Power S924 servers.

These are three of the six machines based on the ZZ design, and they are the only ones that can IBM i without any restrictions. Two other machines, which are called the Power H922 and Power H924, were created explicitly to run SAP’s HANA …
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