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Thought ya'll might want to see these ..... I've seen several questions on midrange-L on the announcement which I'll be responding to .... got "buried" with emails yesterday and again this AM. ************ Have a great day! and .... Enthusiasm is like a ripple in the water... It spreads! Anne C. Lucas, Project Exec, iSeries Nation and iSeries Marketing - www.ibm.com/eserver/nation1 205/823-4831 T/L 537-9968, eFax: 603-687-8053, 800/223-3907 Pager Admin Assist: Alice Sebastiano Telephone: (914) 642-4109, tie line 224-4109 Fax: (914) 642-6976, tie line 224-6976 ************************************************************************************************************************************************************************* ----- Forwarded by Anne Lucas/Birmingham/IBM on 04/30/2002 09:01 AM ----- The introduction of the new POWER4-based i890 is receiving widespread coverage. We expect additional stories in CNet and other business and IT publications throughout the geographies this week. Some highlights of the coverage include: The national wire service Bloomberg notes: "The new eServer i890 is aimed at telecommunications and banking customers that run large databases and process thousands of transactions a day from subscribers and clients." A story in Computerworld includes a great endorsement for iSeries from customer Andin International (which owns Jewelry.com): "One of the fundamental benefits of the iSeries is that it allows me to run a large, high-traffic Web site off of one machine," says Kristian Chronister, vice president at Andin. "I don't have to create a complex server farm with switches and routers and load balancers...With this, I can put everything in one box." And finally, a notable quote (from our own Ian Jarman) in the Rochester Post-Bulletin: "Clearly, the i890 is a mainframe," says Ian Jarman, iSeries product manager. "It not only has mainframe-class performance, but it also has mainframe-class management features." Majors Bloomberg: IBM Upgrades Server Computer With High-Performance Processor April 29, 2002 http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?T=marketsquote99_news.ht&s=APMzGLhYUSUJNIFVw By Paul Horvitz Armonk, New York, April 29 (Bloomberg) -- International Business Machines Corp. said it will upgrade its high-end iSeries server computer by adding the company's most powerful microprocessor, the Power4, and by enhancing software. The new eServer i890 is aimed at telecommunications and banking customers that run large databases and process thousands of transactions a day from subscribers and clients, said Ian Jarman, head of marketing for the i890. Prices will start at $1.66 million for a machine with 16 processors, operating software and a database, he said. Initial shipments begin June 14, IBM said. The world's largest computer maker gained market share last year in server computers. One of the key rivals for the iSeries is Hewlett-Packard Co., which has focused on banking and telecommunications customers, Jarman said. The refrigerator-sized i890 will replace the i840, which starts at $850,000 for 12 processors, IBM said. The i890 will come with IBM's new Enterprise Identity Mapping software. The program lets users have a single sign-on for different software tools they work on from different server computers. The Power4 packages two microprocessors, memory and communications functions on the same slab of silicon. These separate functions have typically run on separate chips. Speed is enhanced because all the functions are tightly integrated. IBM said April 8 that the Power4 will be used in its latest mid-priced p670 server. The i890 can be purchased with 16 to 24 processors or 24 to 32 processors. Buyers paying for 16, for example, will automatically get eight extra dormant processors that can be switched on one at a time to meet surges in demand, Jarman said. Shares of Armonk, New York-based IBM fell $2 to $84.71 on Friday and have dropped 30 percent this year. IT Trades InfoWorld: IBM flexes mainframe muscle By Dan Neel April 28, 2002 10:34 pm PT http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/04/28/020428hnmainframe.xml IBM ON MONDAY took a swing at competitor Hewlett-Packard in the "big-iron" application server market with the introduction of a new IBM eServer i890. Big Blue also released the latest version of it iSeries operating system, IBM OS/400 Version 5 Release 2, which ships in the i890, according to Ian Jarmon, a product marketing manager for iSeries servers at IBM, based in Armonk, NY. Designed as a mainframe-style alternate to multiple racks of separately-managed application servers, the i890 can be partitioned to isolate each of its 32 processors into an individual application server running either OS/400 or Linux, said Jarmon. IBM will add Windows and its own AIX operating system to the list of OSes that can be partitioned within the 32-way server by 2004, Jarmon said. The ability to partition multiple server processor nodes into virtual stand-alone servers inside the i890 makes "this system an alternative to server farm solutions," said Jarmon. Packing IBM's 64-bit Power4 processors running at clock speeds of 1.3GHz, the i890 delivers twice the performance of its predecessor the i840, according to IBM. Enhancement to OS/400 cover features such as Web caching technologies and secure socket accelerators that Big Blue representatives said "double the capacity for securely serving Web pages." Similar to all IBM servers, the i890 ships with IBM's Project eLiza technology which assists administrators in detecting and often resolving computing hardware and software malfunctions before they occur, according to IBM. Making its debut on the i890 is IBM's Enterprise Identity Mapping (EIM) technology. EIM maps the individual security IDs of a user across a network, stores them, and eliminates the need for the user to have to repeatedly log on to password-protected systems, IBM representatives said. The i890 and its related software upgrades are targeted directly at Unix server competitor Hewlett-Packard (HP), said Jarmon. Typically youd see this mainframe class of server competing with high-end Unix servers, but the iSeries market is more focused on segments like manufacturing, distribution, and banking. And we see HP as being the competitor in this market segment for iSeries, said Jarmon. Of the major Unix server players, only IBM and HP maintained positive share gain in the Unix server market over the last year, according to research by IDC, in Framingham, Mass. IBM owns approximately a 20.9 percent share of the Unix server market, with HP just ahead with a 28.5 percent share, according to IDC figures for the third quarter of 2001. Sun, with its 28.8 percent share of the Unix server market also offers mainframe-style servers with its Starcat line, but IBM generally competes with StarCat using a mainframe server called Regatta. The IBM i890 will be available June 14, 2002, according to IBM. Dan Neel is an InfoWorld senior writer. Computerworld: IBM Adds New System to iSeries Line 32-way server based on high-end chip http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/stories/0,1199,NAV47-68-84-91_STO70593,00.html Jaikumar Vijayan 04/29/2002 A new IBM iSeries server scheduled for release this week promises midrange ease of use with mainframe power, users said. IBM is boosting its iSeries range (formerly the AS/400) with a 32-way system based on its highest-end Power4 chip. The company said the new eServer i890 nearly doubles the processing power of its previous top-of-the-line 24-way system and is capable of supporting up to 32 OS/400 and Linux dynamic logical partitions. In addition, IBM announced plans to support its AIX Unix on iSeries partitions. Such enhancements build substantially on the server consolidation capabilities already available on iSeries systems, said Ian Jarman, an IBM product manager. "Already, 44% of the [high-end] iSeries servers we ship have logical partitions, which is indicative of the workload consolidation that is going on" around the iSeries, Jarman said. Andin International Inc., a New York-based jewelry manufacturer, is planning to buy one of the new servers to power its Jewelry.com Web site. The server's scalability and ability to be partitioned were crucial factors in the company's purchasing decision, said Kristian Chronister, a vice president at Andin. "One of the fundamental benefits of the iSeries is that it allows me to run a large, high-traffic Web site off of one machine," Chronister said. "I don't have to create a complex server farm with switches and routers and load balancers. . . . With this, I can put everything in one box." The i890 server is as much about new levels of performance as it is about IBM's continued commitment to the system, said Charlie Massoglia, president of Common, a Chicago-based iSeries user group. "I think this makes it clear to both the large and small iSeries users that IBM plans to grow the machine," Massoglia said. InformationWeek: IBM Sharpens Blade Strategy Plans include possible good news on storage prices Martin J. Garvey, Apr 29, 2002 (12:00 AM) URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020426S0023 Perhaps IBM's late entry into the blade market will be worth the wait. The vendor revealed its strategy last week, including plans to offer blades that could drastically cut storage costs. IBM will start selling its server, networking, and storage blades, dubbed the eserver BladeCenter line, in the fall. It plans to include software to help customers manage E-mail and other applications, including those from SAP and Siebel Systems Inc., on the plug-in blades. IBM is behind competitors in shipping server and networking blades, but it's the first of the big storage vendors, including EMC Corp. and Hitachi Data Systems, to offer storage blades, a scaled-down storage system in terms of size and functionality--at least initially. IBM is building the blades without proprietary microcode, embedded components, and specialized tools that are in high-end storage products; it's using Linux and commodity components. The result: IBM's product-storage costs will drop as much as twentyfold, analysts say. How much savings IBM will pass on to customers is yet to be determined. The first release of the storage blades will support any SAP R/3 module. But it will take longer to handle mainframe DB2 or Oracle databases, Illuminata analyst Jonathan Eunice says. "There's a next generation of the high-end Enterprise Storage Server based much more around a high-end Unix server architecture, but we might not see it until 2004," he says. As with other blade systems, multiple apps reside on a single rack in the data center. Customers also can set policies for IBM's blades so they manage themselves. For example, they can automatically download upgrades or warn IT managers when drives start showing signs of defects. IBM this week plans to boost its iSeries line with the debut of the 890 server, which will contain up to 32 IBM Power 4 processors, up from 24. The 890 also will come with the same self-managing software that the blade servers will get. With 16 processors, the 890 is priced at $1.6 million. Oriental Trading Co., the $500 million party-favor maker in Omaha, Neb., is doing fine with the two 12-processor iSeries servers it runs now. "But we'll be looking at server consolidation next year," says Bob Cargill, systems engineering manager. "And we'll have to consider the 890." InternetNews.com: Big Blue Bows New High-end iSeries Server By Clint Boulton April 29, 2002 http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article/0,,10693_1023241,00.html While makers of low-end or middling servers have been busy of late, IBM Corp. (NYSE:IBM) climbed the ladder Monday with the release of a new 32-way server from its iSeries line, which the Armonk, N.Y. firm claims can provide more than double the processing power of the previous most powerful member of that eServer family -- the i840. Geared toward improving data center application performance, the i890 runs the latest version of the iSeries operating system, OS/400 V5R2, and is powered by Big Blue's own POWER4 microprocessor. POWER4 chips run at 1.3 gigahertz and hosts some 174 million transistors. A single i890 can support up to 32 OS/400 and Linux dynamic logical partitions, allowing businesses to consolidate many workloads on to a single server. Partitions let customers boost the performance level of applications running in various partitions without restarting the server. Accommodating the new hardware release are some new features from the firm's Project eLiza, or "self-healing" technology strategy, including Enterprise Identity Mapping (EIM). EIM tracks a user's multiple security identities across a network, making it easier for programmers to write more secure applications without forcing users to sign on and authenticate to each server in a network. This helps reduce the cost of security administration. IBM also said its Capacity Upgrade on Demand will now be standard on all iSeries 830 4-way models and above. Should a customer see spikes in demand and feel they need more power, this feature will provide it. IBM has shipped more than 750,000 eServer iSeries to customers, which include financial outfit ABN Amro and air rifle manufacturer Crosman to track inventory to managing websites and processing transactions. Shipments of the new i890 will begin on June 14, 2002. --- IBM Unveils Powerful Mainframe-Class Server By Tim McDonald NewsFactor Network April 29, 2002 http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17490.html IBM said Monday that it is introducing the highest-end computer server in its iSeries line -- a new mainframe-class machine that the company claims doubles the processing power of its top-of-the-line predecessor. The new eServer i890 is a 32-way server, featuring a 1.3 GHz IBM Power 4 microprocessor with 174 million transistors. The server is essentially an upgrade to IBM's eServer line. More than 750,000 eServers have been shipped. Latest OS Released The server runs the latest release of the iSeries operating system: OS/400 Version 5, Release 2. It also runs Linux, Windows, Java and UNIX applications and can support up to 32 OS/400 and Linux "dynamic logical partitions." Partitions allow customers to run different applications without restarting the server. Initial shipments will begin on June 14th, the company said. The new server will have Enterprise Identity Mapping (EIM), a new IBM technology that tracks users' security identities across networks, "allowing programmers to write simpler and more secure applications without forcing users to sign on and authenticate to each server in a network." The technology is part of the company's Project eLiza, which focuses on self-healing and self-managing technologies. IBM also said that "capacity upgrade on demand" is now standard on all of its iSeries 830 4-way models and above. Capacity upgrade on demand allows users to add extra processing power when they need it. Old Warhorses Gain Favor Despite forecasts that mainframes would fade into extinction and the fact that most mainframe makers have quit the business, sales have held steady in a shrinking market, primarily because of IBM's efforts. The company's server revenue shrank from US$13.9 billion in 2000 to $13.6 billion in 2001, according to figures released by market research firm Gartner Dataquest. But the overall market shrank 15 percent, from $55.6 billion to $47 billion, and IBM actually was able to increase market share thanks to increased sales of its older mainframe line. The renewed interest was caused partly by the mainframes' new ability to run the increasingly popular Linux operating system. IBM officials have said 2001 was the first time in 13 years that the company's mainframe revenue grew. Few Mainframe Rivals IBM has few competitors in the mainframe market, which is being ignited by powerful UNIX servers from companies like Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and others. Unisys, IBM's primary mainframe rival, announced an expansion of its high-end server line earlier this month but has lost three customers recently. The company also has been de-emphasizing hardware sales in favor of services. Unisys reported net income of $224 million in 2000 but posted a net loss of $67 million in 2001. IBM came out with first-quarter earnings in the middle of the reduced range it had told the industry to expect. The company's net income was $1.19 billion, or 68 cents per share, a 31 percent decrease from 98 cents per share in the first quarter of 2001. In February, Fujitsu launched what is purportedly the world's fastest mainframe, achieving processing speeds of 3,000 MIPS (millions of instructions per second). ServerWorld: IBM doubles processing power with new 1.3GHz POWER 4 eServer i890 Larry Storer April 29, 2002 http://www.serverworldmagazine.com/newsflash2/2002/04/29_ibmi890.shtml IBM today announced its new 1.3GHz POWER 4 eServer i890, boasting mainframe-class technology and double the processing power of the previous top of the line iSeries, the i840. The 32-way i890, running the latest release of the iSeries' operating system ? OS/400 Version 5 Release 2 ? delivers enhanced server consolidation capabilities with support for up to 32 OS/400 or Linux dynamic logical partitions. An AIX version will be supported in a partition on the machine in the future. Initial shipments will begin June 14 with worldwide general availability of V5R2 in August. The new 1.3GHz eServer with the POWER4 microprocessor has 174 million transistors. POWER4 is the world's fastest 64-bit chip and winner of the 2002 MicroDesign Resources Award for best server processor. IBM also announced that Capacity Upgrade on Demand ? a key data center technology that allows customers to immediately add extra processing power for new workloads or spikes in demand ? will now be standard on all iSeries models from the i830 four-way models and up, and is available now. In addition, IBM introduced Enterprise Identity Mapping (EIM), a new technology developed under the company's Project eLiza initiative, which can help to reduce the cost of security administration by simplifying the authentication process for users when they access applications that run across multiple servers. EIM associates and tracks a user's multiple security identities across a network, enabling programmers to write simpler and more secure applications without forcing users to sign on and authenticate to each server in a network. Running Linux, OS/400, Windows, Java and Unix applications ? a single i890 can support up to 32 OS/400 and Linux dynamic logical partitions, allowing businesses to reduce cost and complexity by consolidating multiple workloads onto a single, easy-to-manage server. Dynamic partitions enable customers to enhance the performance level of applications running in different partitions without restarting the server. In addition, the iSeries Linux kernel now extends support for 64-bit applications. For more information, see www.ibm.com/eserver. --- CNET: IBM expands use of server chip By Stephen Shankland Staff Writer, CNET News.com April 29, 2002, 12:30 PM PT http://news.com.com/2100-1001-894371.html IBM has brought its top server chip to a second of its server lines--the iSeries--Big Blue announced Monday. iSeries servers, which run IBM's OS/400 and which were formerly called AS/400 servers, typically are sold with tightly integrated software for tasks such as e-commerce, inventory control or customer databases. Until now, the systems used processors that were similar but not identical to those of the Unix servers. The Power4 processor first debuted late last year in IBM's p690 "Regatta" machine, the new top-of-the-line model in the pSeries Unix server family. The chip is the spearhead of Big Blue's assault to regain market share lost to Sun Microsystems and to capitalize on server problems at Hewlett-Packard. It differs from other chips in its class in that it contains two processors, allowing it to perform like two chips rather than one. IBM's new i890 iSeries server can use as many as 32 Power4 processors, and the system has twice the computing power of the former top-end i840 product, IBM said. With the Power4, the i890 will be able to provide the functional performance of 64 standard server chips. HP, Sun and Intel are all working on dual-core products, but most of these won't come out until next year or later. Bringing the new processor to the iSeries shows IBM's support for this least visible of its server lines. It can be difficult to sustain server research and marketing; HP is phasing out its venerable 3000 line, which was getting squeezed out of the market. IBM's iSeries is better established than the HP 3000, however. IBM estimates 750,000 iSeries servers have been shipped so far. The i890 has a starting price of $1.5 million, with typical configurations closer to $2 million, spokesman Glen Brandow said. Initial shipments will begin June 14, with the product generally available worldwide in August. The i890 will run a new release of OS/400, version 5 release 2 (V5R2), IBM said. The new version has features for managing storage systems so overall downtime is reduced; the ability to run multiple DB2 databases; and support plug-in hardware to accelerate transmission of secure Web pages. The i890--like its iSeries predecessors, and like newer pSeries Unix servers and zSeries mainframes--can be divided into several "partitions," essentially independent servers within the same hardware. The feature is useful for companies consolidating the work of numerous smaller servers onto a single centralized system. These partitions can run OS/400 or Linux and in the future will be able to run AIX, IBM's version of Unix. IBM is vocally advocating Linux, which can simplify the task of running software across all IBM's server lines. IBM also has a sequel to the Power4 in the works. In two years, the company plans to introduce the Power5, which will include a technology called "Fast Path" that lets the chip take over some tasks currently handled in software, such as packaging data to be sent to networks. U.S. Regionals Post-Bulletin: IBM server muscles into mainframe market Monday, April 29, 2002 By Bob Freund The Post-Bulletin IBM Corp. is using a new word for the latest and biggest machine in its Rochester-made line of business computers: "mainframe." The iSeries 890 eServer, introduced this morning, teams the speed of IBM's Power4 processors with huge data-storage capacity, as well as ability to run as many as 31 different programs at once. Until now, IBM generally has described its iSeries line as "mid-range," although its largest machines gradually have been edging into mainframe territory in capabilities. There's no hedging with today's announcement. "Clearly, the i890 is a mainframe," says Ian Jarman, iSeries product manager. "It not only has mainframe-class performance, but it also has mainframe-class management features." Specifically, the new machine is almost twice as powerful as the prior top-of-the-line, the i840 model which debuted in 2000. Its horsepower comes from as many as 32 of Big Blue's new Power4 processors, only used so far in two Unix-based servers made in New York. It also relies on an upgraded version of the OS/400 operating system. In addition, the new i890 model is equipped with a system called logical partitioning, which allows each of 32 processors to run different software at the same time. IBM is selling the latest model as a way for large companies to avoid buying separate servers or to consolidate existing server farms in one box, Jarman said. The price tag for a 16-processor version of the i890 with operating system and basic data base starts at a mainframe-level $1.5 million. The i890 also contains a new feature allowing users to get security clearance once instead of separate times for each program. "This is a technology that we believe, in IBM, will be broadly used across the industry," Jarman said. The i890 will be produced on existing assembly lines in Rochester and in a sister plant in Dublin, Ireland, IBM officials said. International cw360.com (UK) http://www.cw360.com/bin/bladerunner?REQUNIQ=1020090682&REQSESS=LL1R8X83&REQ HOST=site1&2131REQEVENT=&CARTI=112027&CCAT=1&CCHAN=4&CFLAV=1 IBM adds eServer i890 to iSeries line Monday 29 April 2002 An IBM iSeries server scheduled for release this week promises midrange ease of use with mainframe power, users said. IBM is boosting its iSeries range (formerly the AS/400) with a 32-way system based on its highest-end Power4 chip. The company said the new eServer i890 nearly doubles the processing power of its previous top-of-the-line 24-way system and is capable of supporting up to 32 OS/400 and Linux dynamic logical partitions. IBM also announced plans to support its AIX Unix on iSeries partitions. Such enhancements build substantially on the server consolidation capabilities already available on iSeries systems, said Ian Jarman, an IBM product manager. "Already, 44% of the [high-end] iSeries servers we ship have logical partitions, which is indicative of the workload consolidation that is going on," Jarman said. Andin International, a New York jewellery manufacturer, planned to buy one of the new servers to power its Jewelry.com Web site. The server's scalability and ability to be partitioned were crucial factors in the company's purchasing decision, said Kristian Chronister, a vice-president at Andin. "One of the fundamental benefits of the iSeries is that it allows me to run a large, high-traffic Web site off one machine," Chronister said. "I don't have to create a complex server farm with switches and routers and load balancers With this, I can put everything in one box." Midrange Trades REGATTA SERVER DOUBLES ISERIES HIGH-END PERFORMANCE http://www.iseriesnetwork.com/nwn/story.cfm?ID=14326 April 29, 2002 Today's much anticipated iSeries Power4 hardware announcement continues IBM's emphasis on the high end. While Rochester has repackaged some of its midlevel iSeries boxes and has previewed new upgrade paths for the i270s, the only brand new system making its debut with this announcement is the i890, a machine so big and powerful that IBM just comes right out and calls it a mainframe. i890 REGATTA SERVER The 32-way i890 nearly doubles the processing power of the i840 to 37,400 CPW (see Figure 1 in the online version of this article). The 1.3 GHz Power4 chips cram 174 million transistors onto two processors and enable the i890 to crank out transactions so fast that it consumes energy at a breakneck pace, requiring 3-phase power and dissipating up to 25,000 kBTUs of heat per hour. The i890 triples the I/O capacity of last year's i840, supporting up to 72 TB of disk, 2,047 disk arms, and 256 GB memory. The machine also connects up to 32 Integrated xSeries Adapters (IXAs) and offers up to 534 MB of L2/L3 cache. The i890 is available in 24/32-way and 16/24-way Capacity Upgrade on Demand (CUoD) features, as well as 32-way and 24-way base processors. It requires V5R2. Pricing starts at $1.7 million. However, customers who want the i890's processing power need to carefully plan how the goliath system will fit into their shops -- over and above rewiring for 3-phase power, in many cases. The i890 is 6 feet, 8 inches tall and, at 1,760 lbs, weighs close to a ton. Getting it through some doors and elevators could be a problem, and standard raised computing room floors could collapse under its weight. Although it's equipped with acoustical doors to muffle the noise of its cooling fan, most shops would want to run it in a separate machine room away from people's workspaces. CAPACITY UPGRADE ON DEMAND The standard packaging for the i890 is CUoD. Since CUoD's introduction last year, about 30 percent of the customers who opted for CUoD have turned on one or more of their dormant processors -- but those customers paid a premium for that flexibility. With this release, Rochester is lowering the price of CUoD so that customers won't be penalized for that built-in upgrade potential. IBM is also repackaging its i830 and i840 systems so that every machine with more than four processors will have CUoD as a standard feature. With the i830, i840, and i890, interactive processing power will be available only on the CUoD models. In conjunction, IBM is extending the base processor features of its 270 and 820 line to the 830, 840, and 890 (see Figure 2 in the online version of this article). Many customers who've come to the iSeries from other platforms simply don't use interactive, IBM says, so the company decided to not offer interactive in the base models across all iSeries lines so that it could price the batch-only systems more aggressively. Although IBM hasn't announced plans to withdraw the previous configurations of the i830 and i840 systems, the company expects the newer offerings to price them out of the market. MODEL 270 UPGRADES Earlier this year, IBM promised that i270 customers would be able to upgrade from the model 270 line into a future iSeries line. However, despite rumors that IBM had planned, then scrapped, new entry-level and midrange servers with this release, IBM says it never intended to extend Power4 technology throughout its entire iSeries line. Instead, at the low end and midrange, IBM says it will focus on pricing memory and disk more competitively in the market. Business partners, IBM says, are asking for a simple product line with aggressive pricing. To provide the promised upgrade path from the i270 into other lines, IBM will offer i270 trade-in credits similar to those offered for the 6xx and Sxx earlier this year. When i270 customers trade in their machines for other iSeries hardware models, IBM will give them a trade-in credit equal to several times the residual value of their i270. Details on the trade-in promotion should be available in the second half of the year. HARDWARE PERIPHERALS Along with the new i890 systems, IBM is offering an i890 I/O tower. IBM is still offering the HSL cables it released last year, but it's updating its HSL technology for the i890 with HSL-2 physical ports and cables that use Infiniband-standard cables. HSL-2 doesn't yet support Infiniband protocols, but it will allow IBM to add that support in the future if it wants to. A new 10/100 Ethernet card offers no new function, but refreshes the technology. The star attractions among the new hardware peripherals are a new 1/4-inch tape drive and a new cryptographic accelerator card. IBM is also rounding out its iSeries support for Storage Area Networks (SANs) by offering support for switch fabric. V5R2 supports the IBM 2109 switch for Fibre Channel, which lets multiple systems share multiple tapes. 1/4-INCH CARTRIDGE TAPE DRIVE IBM's latest iSeries tape drive offers much better speed at a much more competitive price than previous 1/4-inch drives. The SLR-60 cartridge internal tape drive has the capacity to store 30 GB of uncompressed data, or 60 GB of compressed data. It supports OS/400 V4 and V5. CRYPTOGRAPHIC ACCELERATOR CARD Customers using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption have noticed that the number crunching involved places quite a strain on their processors. However, a new cryptographic accelerator card reduces up to 30-fold the amount of processing by the main iSeries processor during the SSL handshake, IBM says. It's much more powerful than the current cryptographic co- processor, but requires the newest PCI adapter slots. AVAILABILITY The new hardware offerings will be available June 14, along with limited, English-only availability of V5R2. Pricing and configurator support will be available June 4. V5R2 will GA worldwide sometime in August. -- Cheryl Ross, Senior News Editor, iSeries Network Midrange Server: The iSeries Regatta Model 890 Sets Sail a Little Early April 29, 2002 http://www.midrangeserver.com/tfh/tfh042902-story01.html by Timothy Prickett Morgan As was widely rumored for weeks, IBM has moved up the iSeries "Regatta" Power4-based server announcement, and will unveil the machines today. While the high- end Regatta-H servers will make their debut in 16-way, 24-way, and 32-way configurations under an early- release program running OS/400 V5R2, don't expect those entry Regatta-L and midrange Regatta-M servers any time soon. IBM does not have any other plans for server announcements for the remainder of 2002 in the iSeries line. The iSeries Model 890 is roughly the same machine as the pSeries 690 that was announced last October. It uses two, three, or four Power4-based multichip modules (MCMs), which each have four dual-core Power4 processors running at 1.3GHz. The Power4 processor includes a unified L1/L2 cache memory integrated on each chip, as well as an integrated L3 cache controller and directory that links into a shared L3 cache that spans each MCM. In the iSeries Regatta line, and in the pSeries 690, the unified L1/L2 cache that is shared by two Power4 cores on each chip is 1.5 MB in size. Each Power4 MCM can support 128 MB of L3 cache memory as well. The early spec sheets I have seen have math errors in them in calculating the combined L1, L2, and L3 caches for each iSeries Regatta model (this is no big deal, I'm just pointing it out). The 16- way and 24-way iSeries Regatta machines support 402 MB of combined cache memory, and the 32-way version supports 536 MB. These caches suggest that the 16-way machine is really a 24-way configuration with three MCMs, with one third of its processors deactivated across those MCMs, even though all of the caches are still active. (This is actually an intelligent way to ensure balanced performance and ease of upgrading.) IBM will be shipping four different versions of the iSeries Model 890 beginning on June 14, with general availability sometime in August, along with the general availability of OS/400 V5R2. I had been told by sources familiar with IBM's plans that the company had intended to launch the iSeries Regatta machines on July 23. The early release of V5R2 will only be available in English, incidentally. Configurator support for the new iSeries Regatta machines and V5R2 operating system will be available for IBM sales reps and resellers starting on June 4. IBM is announcing the Regatta-H machines a little early to close sales of high-end machines, which cost millions of dollars and which will go a long way toward pumping up iSeries sales in the third quarter. The company is also pre-announcing the machines and the OS/400 V5R2 operating system to stomp on the rumors that have been circulating that the company might be announcing other iSeries Regatta machines this year. IBM announced just a few weeks ago the pSeries 670 Regatta-M midrange servers, which were not expected to ship until October, with IBM's AIX 5L 5.2 Unix operating system. The Regatta-M servers have four, eight, or 16 Power4 processor cores and effectively replace the pSeries 680 in IBM's Unix server lineup. Similar-size iSeries machines would replace most of the current PowerPC-based Model 830 and Model 840 product, and might even dip down into the same space as the bigger Model 820s. Knowing this, it was logical to conclude that IBM might be able to ship iSeries Regatta-M machines if the yields it was getting on the Power4 processors were good. Sources within IBM's Rochester labs confirmed a few weeks ago that IBM might be moving up the iSeries Regatta-H servers to a late April or early May announcement, but said that IBM would push out the iSeries Regatta-M announcements to later this year. These sources appear to have not been up to date on the latest information, because the official party line to the iSeries press is that Regatta-M and smaller Regatta-L servers were never intended to be launched in the iSeries product line in 2002. As I said a few weeks ago, this would not be the first time that IBM rejiggered its server announcement schedules to give the AIX line much more advanced deliveries of new technologies, compared with the OS/400 line. Only certain IBMers know what the truth is about the announcement schedules, but in this case it doesn't matter all that much. For most midrange customers, and particularly OS/400 shops, the current Model 820, 830, and 840 machines are fine. Exactly when IBM might get other iSeries Regatta machines to market, and exactly what it meant when it was talking about an upgrade path from the Model 270 to a future iSeries product back in February, remains unclear. In any event, two versions of the iSeries Regatta-H Model 890 server have zero base interactive performance and are not able to be equipped with interactive features in the future; two models have a span of 5250 interactive features for customers who want to support green-screen RPG and COBOL applications. The Model 890-0197 comes with 16 Power4 processor cores (making it effectively a 16-way server) and 8 GB of base memory and a single 17.54 GB disk drive. It can support up to 192 GB of main memory and 2,047 disk arms or 72 TB of capacity using the new 35.2 GB disk drive features. This server, when properly configured with more main memory and disk arms, has a server CPW rating of 29,300, which is 45 percent more performance than the current top-end Model 840-2420, which has 20,200 CPWs of raw server power, and which uses two dozen of IBM's 600 MHz S-Star PowerPC processors. This base Model 890-0197 will cost $1.5 million, according to IBM sources. At that price, it is a great bargain, compared with the top-end Model 840-2420 with 120 CPWs of interactive processing capacity, which costs just under $1.5 million. The other zero-interactive version of the iSeries Regatta-H server is called the Model 890-0198, and it has the full complement of 32 Power4 processor cores, and the full cache memories as well. In a base configuration, with 8 GB of main memory and 17.54 GB of disk, the Model 890-0198 will cost $1.9 million. This machine is rated at 37,400 on the CPW benchmark, yielding about 85 percent more throughput for online transaction processing workloads than the Model 840-2420 for 29 percent more money. Again, this machine cannot make use of the 5250 green-screen protocol. Perhaps more significantly, at least a few of the iSeries Regatta models will be in a new software tier--the P60 tier--which could cause application and system software prices to rise considerably for companies that move to these machines. Capacity Upgrade on Demand (CUoD) features are not available on zero interactive models of the iSeries 890 servers. The two iSeries Model 890 machines that do support the 5250 interactive features are very similar to the two machines outlined above. However, they support CUoD and a wide range of interactive feature cards that allow companies to dial up their green-screen processing power. The base 16-way Model 890-2487 and 24-way Model 890-2488 come with 120 CPWs of interactive performance as standard; they also come with 8 GB of base memory and 17.54 GB of disk, and can support up to 72 TB of disk capacity using 35.2 GB disk drives, just like the base Model 890 machines. The 890-2487 offers from 120 to 20,200 CPWs of green-screen power (this range could change, I've been warned) and from 20,000 to 29,300 CPWs of raw server power. It can support up to 192 GB of main memory, and costs $1.77 million, which is an 18 percent premium when compared with the 24-way zero interactive machine (which has eight more processors and still costs less money). IBM is obviously charging a pretty hefty premium for access to the 5250 protocol. Just how much is not clear, because the full price list is not available for the calculations to be done. The Model 890-2488 comes with 24 processor cores that are expandable to the full complement of 32 cores; it can support up to 256 GB of main memory. The 24 processor core machine has 29,300 CPWs of raw server power, and the 32 core machine has a rating of 37,400 CPWs. Interactive performance scales all the way up to the full 37,400 CPWs on this box, for customers with gargantuan RPG applications. With 8 GB of memory, 17.54 GB of disk, 24 processor cores activated, and 120 CPWs of interactive performance, the Model 890-2488 costs $2.35 million. That's 85 percent more raw server throughput with the same base interactive performance as the Model 840-2420 at a base server price that is 60 percent more than the Model 840-2420. That comes to a price/performance improvement of just under 14 percent. Incidentally, that 37,400 CPW rating implies a rating of about 375,000 transactions per minute on the TPC- C online transaction processing performance benchmark. This is significantly lower than the estimated 410,000 to 420,000 TPM rating I have seen for the pSeries 690 when it is fully loaded, and it is significantly lower than the amount of performance that I believe IBM will be able to wring out of the Regatta servers--both iSeries and pSeries--once it has them in production for a while. It took IBM years to get the OS/400 V3-V4 code base tuned to the PowerPC servers in the Apache through S-Star generations. Rome was not built in a day, which is why there is still a place called Tuscany. All in due time. Next week, I will examine IBM's revision of the CUoD program on the iSeries, which has been expanded to include any iSeries 8XX machine with four or more processors. Midrange Server: IBM Cuts Prices on Memory, Disk, and Selected iSeries Servers April 29,2002 http://www.midrangeserver.com/tfh/tfh042902-story02.html by Timothy Prickett Morgan In a move that is sure to make iSeries customers breathe a sigh of relief, IBM will this week announce that it has cut iSeries memory and disk drive prices. In addition, IBM has chopped interactive capacity prices on selected iSeries Model 270 servers, and took a chainsaw to prices on the zero-interactive Model 820 machines. All of these cuts are intended to make the iSeries line more competitive with Wintel and Lintel servers from IBM and other vendors. When I spoke to Buell Duncan, general manager of the MidMarket Server Division, at COMMON two weeks ago, he said that IBM knew that it needed to make some price changes to reach parity with other server products, and said that he was committed that iSeries memory and disk prices would more or less stay in parity with the pSeries Unix server line. I haven't had time to check on that yet, but I did have time to hunt down the various price changes that will be announced this week. First, the memory prices change. IBM has cut the cost of the 512 MB and 1 GB memory cards used in the Model 270 line by 12.5 percent. The cost of the 512 MB memory card for the Model 270 drops to $1,792 from $2,048, and the cost of the 1 GB memory card drops to $3,584 from $4,096. For the Model 820 and Model 830 servers, IBM has dropped the prices on the 512 MB and 1 GB memory features used in these as well. (The cards are actually distinct, which is why IBM charges different prices for them.) The price of the 512 MB card for the 820s and 840s has dropped to $4,096, down 20 percent from $5,120. The price of the 1 GB card for these machines dropped to $8,192, down 20 percent from $10,240. Prices of less capacious memory cards in the iSeries line remain unchanged. Also, prices for Model 840 machines remain the same. The new iSeries Regatta Model 890 server uses completely different memory cards, and no one knows yet what IBM will charge for them. On the disk drive front, IBM has cut the prices of its 17.54 GB and 35.2 GB disk drive features for iSeries Model 270 and 8XX servers. IBM is feeling the effects of direct competition from BCC Technologies in the iSeries disk market and of indirect competition from its own xSeries Wintel servers and those of other vendors, and knows that it has to react with price cuts on disk drives to remain competitive. IBM is now charging $1,400 for its 17.54 GB, 10K RPM disk features. This is the same price that IBM will still charge for its 8.58 GB, 10K RPM disk features, which will soon be withdrawn from IBM's catalog. This price drop effectively kills the older 8.58 GB drives. (Those 17.54 GB drives can be used in Model 170 and 7XX servers as well.) IBM also slashed the prices it is charging for the new 35.2 GB disks, dropping the price to $2,450, down 24 percent from the $3,200 it was asking when these units were first announced, in February. To help meet the needs of customers who want to run Domino and Linux on peppier but less costly Model 270 servers that also have a pretty significant amount of interactive performance, IBM slashed the prices it is charging for selected interactive features on Model 270-2432 uniprocessor and Model 270-2434 dual- processor S-Star servers. Customers wanting to buy an inexpensive Model 270, say sources at IBM, often pick the Model 270-2248, which has a 400 MHz Pulsar processor with no L2 cache memory, or the Model 270-2431, which has a 540 MHz S-Star processor with no L2 cache. Having L2 cache is important for modern workloads like Java, Domino, and WebSphere, but the machines that have these bigger L2 caches also have interactive features that drive up the cost of the servers to levels that make them too expensive when compared with non-iSeries alternatives. Rather than tweak the Model 270 hardware to come up with different processor performance points, IBM has simply decided to cut the price of the interactive hardware features on Model 270 servers that are more powerful than the 270-2248 and 270-2431 machines. Specifically, IBM has cut the price of the feature 1519 interactive feature on the Model 270-2432 by 43 percent, from $56,300 to $32,300; this drops the price of the configured machine from $67,000 to $43,000. Similarly, IBM has cut the price of the feature 1520 interactive feature on the Model 270-2434 by 53 percent, from $112,500 to $52,500. This drops the price of a base 270-2434 from $139,000 to $79,000. These are big price cuts for IBM. In the Model 820 line, IBM has slashed the prices of processor features used in the machines by between 55 and 71 percent, which has the effect of cutting the cost of these machines in half when you add in the price of the iSeries 820 towers and base features. The price of an 820-0150, which has a single 600 MHz S- Star processor and 2 MB of L2 cache, was slashed to $20,000, down from $44,000. The price of the 820- 0151, which is a two-way machine with 4 MB of L2 cache per processor, was cut to $34,000, down from $77,500. And the price of the four-way 820, which uses the same 600 MHz S-Star chip and 4 MB of L2 cache per processor, was cut in half to $60,000, down from $120,000. When you combine the cuts in the prices for processors, interactive features, memory, and disk, IBM has made some progress in keeping the entry and midrange iSeries servers in line with the Wintel, Lintel, and Unix competition. Just how much progress is something I will be looking at in a future edition of The Four Hundred. Midrange Server: Single Sign-On Capability to Debut with OS/400 V5R2 April 29, 2002 http://www.midrangeserver.com/tfh/tfh042902-story03.html by Alex Woodie Users won't have to remember separate user names and passwords for accessing applications on various servers when OS/400 V5R2 becomes available later this year. That's because V5R2 will be the first release of OS/400 to provide Enterprise Identity Mapping, an IBM eLiza initiative for providing single sign-on capabilities, which means that a user can be given access to a range of servers and applications by using a single user name and password. With EIM, users will be authenticated the first time they log on to a participating server; they will then be able to move freely around the network, across many applications and incompatible servers. As the user goes from application to application within that same session, EIM will automatically detect when an application is asking for authentication and will provide that application with the correct user name and password. EIM is a tacit admission on the part of IBM that users will maintain unique passwords and user names for particular servers and applications, and that they will also lose track of them, which causes big headaches for help desks. By having EIM keep track of many user names and passwords for each individual user, users can automatically and transparently roam around to the applications they have access to. Besides ease of use, there are security benefits to using EIM, IBM says. Users will be more apt to keep secure passwords if they only have to remember one, and it will be much easier for systems administrators to deactivate accounts for employees that leave the company, since there will be only one account directory. IBM wanted to use technologies based on open standards to build EIM, so it chose Kerberos and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. Kerberos is an authentication system developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that embeds unique, cryptographic keys, called "tickets," into messages that identify the sender of that message as it move across a network. LDAP is a set of protocols that allow virtually any application, running on practically any platform, to share directory information such as names, e-mail addresses, and passwords. Systems administrators will be able to configure EIM through iSeries Navigator, the new name IBM has given to Operations Navigator with OS/400 V5R2. There will be a self- guided GUI to help administrators configure EIM and set up the central registry, or domain controller, as it will be called in iSeries lingo, said Amit Dave, product marketing for iSeries and enterprise software at IBM. When EIM becomes available with OS/400 V5R2, this August, IBM plans to deliver an API that will allow users and software vendors to tie into the EIM system so they can map to EIM's authentication process. As long as the third-party applications can support Kerberos and LDAP, they will be able to extend the single sign-on capability to the people who use those applications. The API that IBM will deliver will be freely available and easy to use, by users and software vendors alike, Dave said. "You don't need a rocket scientist," he said. "We've been discussing this with the business partners, and they're very eager to work with it." Companies won't have to pay extra for EIM, because it will be delivered with iSeries Navigator, which is part of Client Access Express. It's interesting to note that, while EIM is part of IBM's eLiza initiative, much of its development was spearheaded by IBM's Rochester, Minnesota, labs, the home of the iSeries. The eLiza Project was launched by IBM one year ago, with the goal of creating technologies, such as computers that can self-heal and self-administer, that can be applied across IBM's entire eServer line. Patrick Boutz, IBM's iSeries security architect, was the key force driving EIM at Rochester and within IBM, Dave said. EIM will debut first in IBM's eServer iSeries, while IBM's zSeries team is still working on its implementation and should have it ready by the summer. EIM should also be supported with Windows 2000 at that time, Dave said, while EIM support will then be brought to the pSeries and its AIX operating system at a later date. IBM is expected to launch AIX 5L 5.2 around October, and we may see EIM appear then for AIX as well. IBM ibm.com coverage New POWER4-based eServer -- the IBM eServer i890 http://www.ibm.com/news/us/2002/04/293.html
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