Comments on: i5/OS on other platforms?

By: Dennis Debono

Dennis Debono — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 09:54:48 +0000

YES!!
Do not forget that IBM’s Bladecenter (the blade chassis) support x86, AMD, CELL and Power blades already in ONE CHASSIS. All that is needed is the OS.
This would be very useful for clients using both x86 and system i at a datacenter and want to incorporate their system i into the chassis itself.
All that’s needed is support for the communication to the chassis switches and connection to the lower end disk storage series.

By: Bob Reese

Bob Reese — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 15:40:10 +0000

No. Probably the most important aspect of the System-i’s overall performance is the way it’s tightly-integrated CS (Control Storage) processors offload all I/O burdens from the main processor, so it can only “see” and execute program code. That’s mainly why, for example, that even an “old” low-end Model 820 with a single 750Mhz main processor (our current setup) can handle literally (and easily) HUNDREDS of simultaneous interactive users, each with excellent response time. This understandably baffles those IT Techs whose only experience is with PC Servers, where a 750 Mhz processor cannot satisfactorally handle even a SINGLE user nowadays.

Anyway, putting the System i’s “brain” in a blade center and making it rely on someone else’s “arms and legs” (generic I/O setups that are foreign to it) seems like a really bad idea. Presumably, the Rochester engineers have that covered and will continue to pleasnatly surprise us.

By: JF

JF — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 21:26:02 +0000

Would love to see the day of single user developer edition running on my desktop. Though that would put the time share services out on the street

By: David Marks

David Marks — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 00:19:53 +0000

Yes.

As more of the ISeries becomes commodity hardware – PCI, IOP less cards, I would consider utilizing a Blade Server to take better advantage of unified storage like a Network Appliance.

By: Bob James

Bob James — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:54:02 +0000

I wonder how that would go? Power6 blades or i5/OS on x86 CPUs? I have 2 520s today and 2 blade chassis. I suspose that if the i5 blade (or i6 blade)could co-habitate with x86 blades why not.

By: Lukas Beeler

Lukas Beeler — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:08:42 +0000

No.

You usually don’t need many System i machines. If you’re a small company, you need one. If you’re a big company, you need two (Main Site & DR Site).

So the only reason i would see for a System i bladecenter is minimizing the footprint needed for applications that are still running “on a legacy platform”. Kinda the same way virtualization is often used to replace old NT4/Windows 2000 machines, and run them virtualized on current hardware.