SSD Option for IBM Power7 Servers

A new Solid State Drive option from IBM Corp. for the selected POWER7 servers offers a price/performance improvement for many client SSD configurations. SSD or flash technology can provide 33X to 125X more I/O Operations Per Second (IOPS) compared to spinning disk drives (HDD) and can therefore slash I/O-bound batch window times, improve interactive or query response time, and even make previously performance-impractical applications work well.

Additionally, a small set of SSD can offer energy, cooling and footprint savings by replacing a much larger set of HDD. By combining SSD and HDD in the same partition or application, you can leverage the awesome performance capability of SSD on the hot data/files and leverage the HDD lower cost/GB on the cold data/files. This hot SSD plus cold HDD usage can often provide the best overall system price performance.

The new SSD option is packaged quite differently from the currently available Power Systems SSD. A new SAS PCIe adapter has up to four 177 GB SSD modules plugged directly onto the adapter saving the need for the SAS bays and cabling associated with the current SSD offering. Depending on the configurations being compared to the current 69GB SAS-bay-based SSD offering, the new PCIe-based SSD offering can save up to 70% of the list price assuming equivalent GB and up to 65% smaller footprint assuming equivalent GB.

The new PCIe adapters and their associated SSD modules are supported on the Power 710, 720, 730, 740, 750, 770 and 780. AIX 5.3 or later, IBM i 7.1, RHEL 5.5 or later, or SLES 10 or later is supported.

The new PCIe RAID & SSD SAS Adapter requires two adjacent PCIe slots. Though it is physically the same adapter, three feature codes (#2053, #2054 and #2055) are used to describe slightly different usages.

The 177GB SSD Module with eMLC uses a new enterprise-class MLC flash technology, which provides enhanced durability, capacity and performance. One, two, or four modules can be plugged onto a PCIe RAID & SSD SAS adapter providing up to 708 GB of SSD capacity on one PCIe adapter. Though it is physically the same module, two feature codes (#1995 or #1996) are used to describe usage in different OS environment for IBM configuration tools.

Two additional feature codes (#4367 or #4377) are used to order a block of five PCIe adapters and twenty SSD modules providing a lower price than if 2055 and 199x features were used.

The use of two SSD modules in a new Power 710, 720, 730, 740, or 750 Express server is integrated into the server’s Express packages. Two SSD modules fulfill the minimum I/O requirement required get up to 50% of the processor core activations at no charge.

PCIe Cryptographic for IBM i
IBM i 7.1 supports the previously announced PCIe cryptographic adapters (#4807, #4808, and #4809). PCIe Crypto cards can provide higher performance and more function than the currently available PCI-X Crypto cards. They can be installed in newer technology PCIe slots in Power Systems and I/O drawers.

283 GB 10k RPM SFF Disk for IBM i
POWER7 servers running IBM i can now leverage the price-performance of a large capacity, 10k rpm SAS SFF drive (#1911). The Power 710, 720, 730, 740, 750 770, 780 and 795 servers running IBM i 6.1 with machine code 6.1.1 or later, support the use of this RAID formatted, 528-byte block drive.

FCoE statement of direction fulfilled
IBM i 6.1 with machine code 6.1.1 or later support Fibre Channel connectivity and NPIV for the #5708 FCoE Adapter through VIOS. This joins the NPIV support for AIX and Linux through VIOS which was made available 1H 2010. This fulfills the statement of direction provided in October 2009.

ProtecTIER and LTO-5 Enhancements for IBM i
The IBM System Storage TS7650 ProtecTIER Deduplication Appliance configuration support was recently enhanced. IBM i 6.1 with 6.1.1 machine code or later now support attachment via IOP-less Fibre Channel adapters. The IOP-less configuration is more desirable than the previously available IOP-based support as it takes fewer PCI slots, can uses newer technology I/O drawers and can run under IBM i on POWER7 servers

LTO-5 bridge box (TS2250 and TS2350) support on POWER6 and POWER7 servers by IBM i 6.1.1 and later is now available. This joins existing AIX and Linux support of these tape drives.

Planned availability date

September 17, 2010
August 27, 2010: the 7014-B42 rack content specify features 0384, 0385, 0386, and 0387