July 13, 2004—New power for UNIX and Linux computing—Introducing IBM ® p5. Today, IBM ushers in a new era for UNIX® and Linux® computing. The IBM p5 systems revolutionize IT economics with lightning-quick POWER5™ processors and IBM Virtualization Engine™ options that can help ease administrative burdens and increase system utilization and performance.

New innovative features from IBM
IBM Virtualization Engine systems technology options are opening the door to exciting new possibilities for server consolidation.

• Micro-Partitioning™—Allows the creation of highly granular dynamic logical partitions or virtual servers as small as a tenth of a processor with increments of 1/100th of a processor
• Shared processor pool—Provides a pool of processing power that is shared between partitions helping to improve utilization and throughput
• Virtual I/O—Supports sharing of physical disk storage and network communications adapters helping reduce the number of expensive devices and improve system utilization and administration
• Virtual LAN—Allows high-speed, secure partition-to-partition communications to help improve performance

Powered by IBM's most advanced 64-bit microprocessor, POWER5, the eServer p5 systems are up to the task of driving business transformation in today's on demand world. The POWER5 processor is designed to deliver extraordinary power and reliability.

• The new chip includes simultaneous multi-threading which makes each processor look like two to the operating system, increasing commercial performance and system utilization over servers without simultaneous multi-threading capabilities.

Sized to fit a variety of requirements
These fast, flexible, secure servers come in a variety of sizes to fit many of the needs of small and medium-sized business as well as the distributed and branch requirements of large enterprises. The IBM eServer p5 product line consists of a range of symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) servers:

• Deskside or rack-mount entry-level 2-way p5-520,
• Deskside or rack-mount 2- to 4-way entry p5-550 with enhanced functionality and capacity and
• Mid-range 2- to 16-way rack-mount p5-570 provides additional scalability and expansion.

Each server features POWER5 processors in various speeds, world-class system design and extensive expandability with the ability to easily add disk storage and PCI-X adapters through the installation of optional I/O drawers.

Mainframe-inspired reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS)
The eServer p5 server extends the System-p5 (pseries)® heritage of IBM mainframe-inspired RAS by introducing dynamic firmware updates, in which applications remain operational while IBM system firmware is updated for most operations; hot-plug I/O expansion drawers so I/O drawers may be added while running applications continue uninterrupted; and finer-grained L2 cache deallocation, improved L3 cache line deletes and ECC cache for better self-healing capabilities.

OS Choices
The core of the eServer p5 system is the operating system (OS). Clients have a choice of IBM’s industrial-strength UNIX OS, AIX 5L™ , the Open Source Linux OS, or on selected eServer p5-570 models, i5/OS™ is planned.

• The eServer p5 can simultaneously support AIX 5L V5.2, AIX 5L V5.3, i5/OS or Linux distributions in separate dynamic LPARs on the same system. This capability makes it easier for companies to go from the current release of AIX 5L V5.2 to the new function-rich AIX 5L V5.3 release that supports IBM Virtualization Engine and simultaneous multi-threading.
• Linux workloads can be consolidated on the same system helping simplify administration or migration.

IBM innovations in processor technology, IBM Virtualization Engine systems technologies, scalability, clustering and autonomic computing put IBM eServer p5 systems among the most powerful, versatile, reliable and secure servers in the world. Through leading-edge performance and flexibility, the eServer p5 product line can help companies of all sizes simplify their IT infrastructures, safeguard critical data, reduce migration risks.

IBM eServer p5 servers set the new standard for UNIX and Linux computing.

Make no compromises. Accept no limitations.