IBM is to boost the midrange and low end of its Unix
server line in a move that could liven up competition within the
company between competing chip architectures. In 2004, IBM will
roll out its Power5 processor, which will complete an overhaul of
the company's entire Unix server line.
Just as the Power4 chip revitalised IBM's Unix servers on the high
end, the IBM hoped the Power5 chip could boost the performance of
midrange and low end systems, said IBM fellow and chief architect
Ravi Arimilli.
With chips tuned for each class of Unix server it sells, IBM wants
to keep the heat on Sun Microsystems and stop users from defecting
to Intel's Itanium processor.
"The Power5 chip is more of a midrange or low end design that can
drive up to the high end and then down to things like blades,"
Arimilli said. "You don't see that with Power4. Two years between
chips is enough time to run away and do some dramatic things."
The
Power5 chip will replace the Power4 across the board, but
improvements to the chip design and more attention to heat issues
will allow IBM to use the new chip further down IBM's server
line.
IBM
saw the Power4 chip as a way to increase pressure on market leader
Sun Microsystems and ward off new competition from Intel. Analysts
often point to the processor, which has been available in servers,
such as the p690, since late 2001, as the main reason for a spike
in IBM's high-end Unix sales. It now aims to do the same with
smaller systems, such as the p630 and p610.
"I
think they know that the real low end is gone [to Intel], but the
midrange and professional blade type of market could be recaptured
[from HP and Sun]", said Illuminata analyst Jonathan Eunice. "That
is what you are seeing with Power5."
Unlike competitor Hewlett-Packard, IBM does not plan to make
Intel's Itanium its only answer for 64-bit computing at the high
end but, instead, offer a variety of 64-bit systems. Having Power
and Intel systems sitting side by side can trigger internal
dilemmas at the company between the Unix or pSeries team and
xSeries or Intel team.
"I
won't tell you that we haven't had those discussions [to drop Power
and go with Itanium]," said Robert Amezcua, pSeries vice-president
at IBM. "We looked hard at the future roadmaps, and we believe
strongly that we have the answer in Power technology."
Amezcua added that each team ultimately does what is right for the
company, but that the pSeries team hoped to relegate Itanium to a
niche in high-performance computing or, better yet, exterminate the
processor altogether.
IBM
may also throw another lower end system into the mix by adding a
server based on Advanced Micro Devices's 64-bit Opteron processor,
although Arimilli claimed that once Power5 arrives, it will be
IBM's answer for low end 64-bit computing.
"If
Opteron takes off, we will be there," Arimilli said. "I think it's
a pretty good story for 2003, but it won't be the story in 2004
when Power5 arrives."
Ultimately, the choice of which processor to pick from IBM's
arsenal comes down to what type of applications the user needs to
run, Eunice said.
IBM
and Sun, however, have made things more interesting in the midrange
and low end by producing specialised RISC (reduced instruction set
computing) chips as opposed to Intel's more general-purpose
approach with Itanium and Xeon.
"I
think RISC chips have proved they can keep pace with Intel," Eunice
said. "It's a wide open, exciting battle at the moment."
One
area where IBM's server teams agree is on making sure Linux can run
well on servers of all shapes and sizes. In addition to this OS
work, IBM is trying to meld its Unix server and Intel server
management software to give customers a common look and feel on
both sets of systems.
"The next step I see happening is the pSeries and xSeries
converging together," Arimilli said. "Linux on the xSeries and
Linux on the pSeries should look seamless to the customer. We also
want to make sure things like cluster service management are
identical."
Both Linux and the clustering software will
play a significant role in IBM's Power5 story, the executives said.
On the low end, in particular, IBM sees customers linking together
Power5-based blade servers with others using Intel's Xeon
processors. The cluster management tools and Linux will work as a
common link between these systems.