Power 8 - Server Model hints

Understanding the Models

How comfortable are you with the model numbers of the Power servers. If someone says 720, 770 or 795, do you have a pretty good idea what server they are talking about? With today’s announcement, how many of you were expecting to see 820 and 870 server models? This is not going to be the case. The servers are now named with four- or five-digit combinations of letters and numbers. For this first announcement, the servers all start with the letter “S,” which signifies that they are scale-out servers. As time goes on I would expect to see models that start with the letter “E” for enterprise systems. The second digit indicates that it is running POWER8. The third digit indicates the number of sockets in the server, and the last digit indicates how much rack space it takes up, for now either 4U or 2U.

For example, the S822 is a scale-out server, running POWER8 technology, with two sockets, fitting in 2U of rack space. The S824 is a scale-out POWER8 two socket 4U server. If you see an L in the fifth digit, like the S822L, then that is a Linux-only system, much like today’s 7R1, 7R2 or 7R4 servers.

We need to pay attention to the lettering. The L designates it will only run on Linux. The 2U non-L models can run AIX and Linux. The 4U non-L models can run AIX, IBM i and Linux. At the time of this announcement, you cannot have an I/O drawer with PCIe slots on any of these machines, although a statement of direction indicates that this capability will be available in the future.

Here are the specs for the new servers:

• The two socket 2U servers (S822) can have different configurations depending on whether you populate both sockets. If you have one socket populated, you can have six or 10 cores, with up to 512 GB of memory. There are six PCIe Gen3 low-profile hotplug adapters in this configuration. If you have both sockets populated, you can have 12 or 20 cores, with up to 1 TB of memory. Nine PCIe Gen3 low-profile hotplug adapters are included in this configuration. You can run PowerVM with AIX or Linux, but not IBM i on this server.
• The S822L can have 20 or 24 cores, with up to 1 TB of memory and nine PCIe Gen3 low-profile hotplug adapters. You can run PowerVM or PowerKVM and you can only run Linux on this machine.
• The S814 is a one-socket 4U system that can come in a 4U or tower form factor. It has six or eight cores and 512 GB of memory. You can have seven PCIe Gen3 full-high hotplug adapters, and you can run PowerVM with AIX, IBM i or Linux.
• The S824 is a two-socket 4U server. If you populate one socket you can have the same specs as the S814, but if you populate both sockets you can get 12, 16 or 24 cores with up to 1 TB of memory. You will have 11 PCIe Gen3 full-high hotplug adapters and can run PowerVM with AIX, IBM i or Linux.