IBM: New Unix servers are cool -- literally

April 25, 2001 —

IBM claims network professionals will be able to deploy faster, more reliable Web and application environments with servers and an upgraded Unix operating system that the company plans to launch this week.

The p620 and p660 eSeries Unix servers use technologies that let them operate with more than one and a half to three times less power and up to 35% faster than previous servers, IBM says. The servers also have self-maintenance features that let them repair themselves when memory or processors are failing. The eSeries servers use IBM's enhanced AIX 5L OS.

IBM's Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology uses chips made with copper, which conducts electricity better than aluminum and reduces the temperature computers run at.

As manufacturers produce faster processors, and as faster servers are used in confined data centers, temperature becomes a concern. IBM expects that SOI will eventually replace CMOS in microprocessors.

"We went with these servers because we needed systems that were extremely reliable and robust," says Kevin Smith, CEO of MDoffices.com, a medical services company in New York. "The [servers] use the copper microprocessor so the speed is very good. In addition, SOI lets the machine run at a lower temperature, which works better because you can get a lot more work done on a lot less power."

The servers manage themselves using Chipkill technology, which IBM developed for mainframes. Chipkill eliminates memory failures and is more effective than the error checking and correction technology used in other servers, IBM claims.

"When an area of the memory appears to be going bad, the system turns off that area and uses other areas so data doesn't get lost," Smith says.

"Reliability is important for us because we have a lot of confidential patient information that needs to be maintained," he adds.

MDoffices.com gathers data from doctors equipped with handheld computers and sends them to insurance companies, consultants and pharmacies.

The p620 and p660 also use dynamic processor de-allocation, which automatically shifts tasks from one processor to another in the event a processor fails.

The new operating system, AIX 5L, is the first Unix operating system that lets customers build, run and maintain applications on Unix and Linux.

For instance, customers can develop an application using Linux on an Intel-based server and subsequently deploy the same application on a Unix system. AIX 5L runs on PowerPC and Intel 64-bit platforms.

AIX 5L also lets net professionals tie the operating system to external management applications for systems monitoring and collection of usage and resource statistics. AIX 5L can support up to 32 processors and 256G bytes of memory.

The rack-mounted p660 eServer has from one to six processors and is designed for enterprise data centers. The pedestal-based p620 is for departmental or workgroup database or Web server environments.

Both servers feature hot-plug PCI slots, redundant power supplies and cooling fans. A four-way IBM p660 with 4G bytes of memory, 36G bytes of disk space and a tape drive costs $92,885. Both are available now.

Network World