IBM Introduces Record Breaking Power5+ Computing Systems

New POWER5+ Servers Shatter 15 World-Records for Computing Performance(1); Provide Unmatched Power for Small and Medium-sized Businesses

IBM today announced new UNIX® systems for small and medium-sized businesses that use an enhanced version of the POWER5(TM) chip to shatter fifteen world records in key benchmarks for entry level UNIX and Linux servers. The new IBM System p5 Express servers are equipped with POWER5+(TM) microprocessor technology and are specifically designed for the processing requirements of small to mid-sized companies or branch locations running business-critical database applications in retail, wholesale, distribution and financial services.

The introduction of the new IBM System p5 servers with POWER5+ technology provide small and medium businesses with new choices for deploying high-performance computing capabilities in their IT infrastructure. Additionally, new easy-to-use software tools make management of the new servers as simple as point-and-click with the new Integrated Virtualization Manager and IBM Director 5.1. The new IBM System p5 servers range from a new 8-way server for scale up environments and server consolidation, to dense rack form factors for e-mail, web, file and print serving and dense clustering in scale out environments, to new "scale within" capabilities with fast, easy-to-use virtualization.

New p5 systems from IBM are available with a combination of AIX 5L(TM) UNIX, Red Hat or Novell SuSE Linux® operating systems. They include:

The IBM System p5 550Q -- uses the industry's first Quad Core Module for database applications and delivers the fastest 8-way SPECjbb2005 results ever recorded (1) . The new 1.5 GHz quad-core POWER5+ processor package can run up to twice as many workloads as previous 4-way IBM eServer p5 550 servers. For example, using Simultaneous Multi-Threading, the new eight-way p5-550Q with POWER5+ processor - through two quad-core modules with up to sixteen simultaneous threads - allows customers to consolidate multiple servers into one, easy-to-manage system.

The IBM System p5 520 -- the fastest 2-way Java(tm) business server in the industry (1), the p5 520 is built with IBM's most advanced microprocessor technology, IBM POWER5+. It is designed for use as a small database server, a branch applications server, and for highly secure e-business and business intelligence (BI) and high-performance computing (HPC) applications for enterprises of all sizes.

The IBM System p5 550 -- is a 4-way database server with 1.9 GHz POWER5+ dual-core modules. It can function as a scalable database or versatile departmental or regional server for businesses of all sizes and is a strategic platform for scalable database servers, e-commerce application servers, Web servers, operations systems, and for BI and HPC workloads. In addition, the p5 550 is the fastest 4-way Java business and Web application server, the fastest 4-processor SAP SD 2-tier application server on the Linux OS, and scored world-record performance on the Notesbench benchmark. (1)

The IBM System p5 505 -- is an all new dense rack server in a 1U form factor utilizing 1.5Ghz and 1.65Ghz POWER5 processors in 1 and 2-way configurations. Perfect for scale-out implementations, the new p5-505 can help small and medium-sized companies reach new levels of performance, flexibility and functionality in their IT infrastructures or dense high performance computing clusters. The p5 505 delivers twice the storage and memory capacity (9), and faster SPECfp performance than the Sun Fire X4100. (2)

"IBM is the leader in delivering breakthrough technologies to UNIX customers that enable extraordinary on demand business performance," said Adalio Sanchez, general manager, IBM System pSeries. "The new POWER5+ systems continue this tradition, bringing a faster, more energy efficient processor that boosts speed, performance and value for today's most intensive mission critical applications."

The new server systems are part of the IBM Express Portfolio, developed to meet the needs of start-up, small and mid-sized companies. Express Offerings provide robust capabilities while taking into account the limited resources many SMBs face. IBM Express Offerings enable SMBs to better serve customers, increase revenue and reduce acquisition and maintenance costs with open easy-to-purchase solutions. The new IBM System p5 Express offerings come in two new editions: the AIX 5L Edition for customers preferring a robust, innovative UNIX operating system, and the OpenPower(TM) Edition for customers who prefer the open source Linux operating system. Customers can add additional AIX 5L or Linux partitions to either edition and run both operating systems simultaneously. All System p5 Express models come with a standard 3 year warranty providing small and medium business customers the peace of mind of extended IBM service and support.

POWER5+ SHATTERS COMPUTING RECORDS

The New System p5 servers are some of the most decorated servers in computing history, attaining the top results in fifteen key performance benchmarks ranging from enterprise resource planning (ERP), Web and File Serving and collaboration applications to Java Business and High Performance Computing. (1)

The IBM System p5 520, 550 and 550Q deliver world record Java (SPECjbb2005) performance for 2, 4 and 8-way systems respectively and the p5 550 delivers world record web performance for 4-way systems on the SPECweb2005 benchmark. (1)

The new IBM System p5 550Q with 1.5Ghz POWER5+ Quad-Core module technology delivers 28% better price/performance than the newly announced Sun Fire V890 with the 1.5Ghz UltraSPARC IV+ processors on the NotesBench benchmark. (3)

The p5-550Q outperforms the eight-core Sun Fire V40z by 16% in SPECompM2001 performance. (4)

The new 4-way IBM System p5 550 with 1.9Ghz POWER5+ technology delivers world-record 4-processor SAP SD 2-tier performance on the Linux OS, beating the Sun Fire V40z by 21%. (5)

The new 2-way IBM System p5 520 also with 1.9Ghz POWER5+ outperforms the new Sun Fire X4200 by 21% on SPECjbb2005 and outperforms the new Sun Fire X4100 by 29% on SPECfp2000. (6)

POWER5+ is a "server on a chip" containing two processors, a high-bandwidth system switch, a large memory cache and I/O interface. The latest version is available in 1.5 and 1.9 gigahertz, and up to 72MB of on board cache memory and is based on technologies that enable IBM eServers systems to provide customers improved performance and decreased IT footprint size through logical partitioning. With the POWER5+ processor, IBM is enhancing the features and speed that have made the POWER5 processor the measuring stick of UNIX servers, while offering customers the price performance value they need to justify a long-term investment in their data centers

According to IDC, IBM POWER servers have seen remarkable revenue share growth and the POWER architecture is now an industry leading 64-bit architecture. Since the announcement of the POWER5 processor in August 2004, IBM has increased its UNIX revenue share by 31.8% according to IDC. In Q205, according to IDC, IBM was the number one UNIX server vendor based on revenue share, compared to Sun and HP. (6.5)

NEW "POWER" FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING

IBM also announced today new POWER5+ systems for high performance computing. They include

The 16-way IBM eServer p5 575 -- designed for supercomputing applications and intensive numerical calculation, the new p5 575 offers over 50% more performance than the 8-way p5-575.(7)The p5 575 cluster node is capable of sustaining 87.3 Gflop/s of performance, marking a major step in the evolution of high-powered, off-the-shelf building blocks that are tailored to meet the demands of a broad range of compute-intensive or memory bandwidth-intensive applications. With up to 192 processors installed in a single twenty-four inch wide system frame, this ultra-thin p5-575 can be used to advance high performance computing projects in the areas of engineering problem solving, drug design, oil reservoir modeling and weather forecasting.

The IntelliStation POWER 285 -- is the first POWER5+ workstation and provides new levels of UNIX performance for computer aided engineering applications like CATIA, broadly used by the world's leading automotive and aerospace companies. The IntelliStation POWER 285 offers more than twice the performance of the Sun Blade 2500 with outstanding floating point performance - critical for numeric-intensive engineering applications. (8)

POWERFUL TOOLS FOR ON DEMAND BUSINESS

New, Easier-to-use Virtualization Capabilities. With the new Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM), IBM is simplifying p5 Systems virtualization deployment. Using the new wizard-driven, browser-based user interface, customers can create a micropartition ready for installation of either the AIX 5L or Linux OS with a mere 3 clicks of the mouse. IVM comes packaged at no additional cost with the optional purchase of Advanced POWER Virtualization on IBM's p5 servers. The Integrated Virtualization Manager is designed to dramatically reduce the complexity and time involved to setup and configure multiple partition environments, using IBM's Micro-Partitioning capabilities.

Easier Systems Management. IBM Director 5.1 is a comprehensive, easy-to-use software tool that provides flexible, cross-platform systems management to help maximize system availability and reduce IT costs. Planned to be available as a no-charge download on November 25, 2005, IBM Director allows IT administrators to distribute software, view and track hardware and software inventory, issue commands and monitor the usage and performance of critical components such as processors, disks and memory across distributed systems. Director is controlled from a simple, point-and-click graphical interface and provides significant automation such as automated responses and management-by-group to help reduce errors and increase operator efficiency.

Easy to Purchase Solutions IBM is helping customers solve specific, unique business problems with the introduction of four new, pre-tested System p5 Express OpenPower Edition solutions. These solutions are designed and tuned for high performance and stress-tested to provide outstanding uptime. The solutions include packaged offerings for business processing with SAP, financial markets with Sybase, IT infrastructure consolidation, and Life Sciences computational chemistry - all on the open source Linux operating system platform.

Product Pricing and Availability

The new IBM System p5-505 has a starting price of $3,684. The new System p5-520 has a starting price of $11,699 for a 2-way 1.9Ghz minimum configuration, while the new System p5 550 starts at $14,053 for a 2-way 1.9Ghz minimum configuration, and the p5-550Q starts at $19,048 for a 4-way 1.5Ghz minimum configuration.(10) Support for AIX 5L V5.2, AIX 5L V5.3, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 (SLES 9) for POWER and Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3 (RHEL AS 3) for POWER operating systems operate independently or simultaneously through logical partitions. The Integrated Virtualization Manager is provided at no additional cost with purchase of the Advanced POWER Virtualization optional feature.

IBM Director 5.10 systems management software is planned to be available for download at no additional charge beginning November 25. IBM Director Version 5.10 media can also be ordered through eConfig beginning December 13. Web-based support is included and full support can be purchased as an option. The following link provides information on Director and will provide a link to the download page beginning November 25: www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/about/virtualization/systems/pseries.html

The new System p5 models are planned to be generally available globally on October 14 through IBM Worldwide Sales and Distribution and IBM Business Partners.

About IBM

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and IBM Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com

(1) IBM results submitted to SPEC as of October 4, 2005. Based on 2-way (2-core) IBM System p5 520 (1.9 GHz) SPECjbb2005 result of 32,820 business operations per second (bops); 4-way (4-core) IBM System p5 550 (1.9 GHz) SPECjbb2005 result of 61,789 business operations per second (bops); 8-way (8-core)IBM System p5 550Q (1.5 GHz) SPECjbb2005 result of 91,806 business operations per second (bops). Source: http://www.spec.org

IBM results submitted to SPEC as of October 4, 2005. Based on 1-way (1-core) IBM System p5 520 (1.9 GHz) SPECfp result of 3030; 2-way (2-core) IBM System p5 520 (1.9 GHz) SPECfp_rate result of 67.6; 4-way (4-core) IBM System p5 550 (1.9 GHz) SPECfp_rate result of 133. Source: http://www.spec.org

IBM results submitted to SPEC as of October 4, 2005. Based on 2-way (2-core) IBM System p5 520 (1.9 GHz) SPECompMpeak2001 result of 8,174 OpenMP performance (running 4 threads). Source: http://www.spec.org

IBM results submitted to SPEC as of October 4, 2005. Based on 4-way (4-core) IBM System p5 550 (1.9 GHz) SPECweb2005 result of 7881 simultaneous sessions. Source: http://www.spec.org

All results current as of October 4, 2005. Based on 2-way (2-core) IBM System p5 520 (1.9 GHz) LINPACK RISC SMP HPC result of 14.31 Rmax Gflop/sec and IBM System 4-way (4-core) p5 550 (1.9 GHz) LINPACK RISC SMP HPC result of 28.49 Rmax Gflop/sec. Source: http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/performance.pdf

All results current as of October 4, 2005. Based on 4-way (4-core) IBM System p5 550 (1.9 GHz) two tier SAP SD Standard Application Benchmark result (1,000 SD benchmark users, 1.9 second average response time, certification number 2005040) running IBM DB2 Universal Database 8.2.2, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, SAP Enterprise Release 5.0 solution. Source: http://www.sap.com/benchmark

All results current as of October 4, 2005. Based on 8-way (8-core) IBM System p5 550Q (1.5 GHz) Notesbench iNotes result of 24,000 concurrent R7 iNotes NotesBench users; Response time 0.932 average resp time, and a $5.97 Price / User. Source: http://www.notesbench.org/

All results current as of October 4, 2005. Based on 2-way (2-core) IBM System p5 550 (1.9 GHz) Netbench result of 2054.184 Mbits/sec and 4-way (4-core) IBM System p5 550 (1.9 GHz) Netbench result of 3055.120 Mbits/sec. Source: http://www.ibm.com/systems/p/benchmarks

IBM results submitted to SPEC as of October 4, 2005. Based on 6-node x 4-core (24-core) IBM System p5 550 (1.9 GHz) J2EE server and 8-way (8-core) IBM eServer p5 570(1.9 GHz) Database Server SPECjAppServer2004 result of 2,304 jAppServer Operations Per Second (JOPS), running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP2 for POWER, Websphere Application Server v6.0.2.3, and IBM DB2 Universal Database v8.2.3. Source: http://www.spec.org

(2) IBM results submitted to SPEC as of October 4, 2005. Based on a 2-way (2-core) IBM System p5 505 (1.65Ghz) SPECfp_rate2000 result of 59 vs 2-way Sun X4100 result of 53.8. Source: http://www.spec.org and http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/x4100/benchmarks.jsp

(3) All results current as of October 4, 2005. Comparison based on 8-way (8-core) IBM System p5 550Q (1.5 GHz) Notesbench iNotes result of 24,000 concurrent R7 iNotes NotesBench users; Response time 0.932 average resp time, and a $5.97 Price / User vs. Sun Fire V890 16-core (1.5 GHz) Notesbench iNotes result of 26,000 concurrent R6 iNotes NotesBench users; Response time 0.586 average resp time, and a $8.34 Price / User. Source: http://www.notesbench.org/

(4) IBM results submitted to SPEC as of October 4, 2005. Comparison based on 8-way (8-core) IBM System p5 550Q (1.5 GHz) SPECompMpeak2001 result of 20,122 OpenMP performance (running 16 threads) vs. Sun Fire V40z 8-core (2.2 GHz) SPECompMpeak2001 result of 17,230 OpenMP performance (running 8 threads) Source: http://www.spec.org

(5) All results current as of October 4, 2005. Comparison based on 4-way (4-core) IBM System p5 550 (1.9 GHz) two tier SAP SD Standard Application Benchmark result (1,000 SD benchmark users, 1.9 second average response time, certification number 2005040) running IBM DB2 Universal Database 8.2.2, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, SAP Enterprise Release 5.0 solution vs. Sun Fire V40z 4-core (2.4 GHz) two tier SAP SD Standard Application Benchmark result (820 SD benchmark users, 1.95 second average response time, certification number 2004044] running Oracle 9i, SuSE Linux, SAP R/3 4.70. Source: http://www.sap.com/benchmark

(6) IBM results submitted to SPEC as of October 4, 2005. Comparison based on 2-way (2-core) IBM System p5 520 (1.9 GHz) SPECjbb2005 result of 32,820 business operations per second vs. Sun X4100 2-core result of 27,004 business operations per second (bops). Comparison based on 1-way (1-core) IBM System p5 520 (1.9 GHz) SPECfp result of 3030 vs. Sun X4100 1-core result of 2344. Source: http://www.spec.org

(6.5) IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, 2Q05, issued on August 25, 2005

(7) All results current as of October 4, 2005. Comparison based on 16-way (16-core) IBM eServer p5 575 (1.9 GHz) LINPACK RISC SMP HPC result of 87.3 Rmax Gflop/sec and 8-way (8-core) IBM eServer p5 575 (1.9 GHz) LINPACK RISC SMP HPC result of 56.6 Rmax Gflop/sec. Source: http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/performance.pdf

(8) IBM results submitted to SPEC as of October 4, 2005. Comparison based on 1-way (1-core) IBM IntelliStation POWER 285 (1.9 GHz) SPECfp result of 3027 vs.Sun Blade 2500 (1.6 GHz) SPECfp result of 1353; Comparison based on 1-way (1-core) IBM IntelliStation POWER 285 (1.9 GHz) SPECfp_rate result of 67.6 vs. Sun Blade 2500 (1.6 GHz) SPECfp_rate result of 31.3. Source: http://www.spec.org

(9) IBM System p5 505 has maximum memory capacity of 32GB and maximum storage capacity of 600GB. Sun Fire X4100 has maximum memory capacity of 16GB, source: http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/x4100/specifications.jspas and maximum storage capacity of 292GB (source: http://store.sun.com/CMTemplate/CEServlet?process=SunStore&cmdStartWebConfig_CP&familyCode=SFX4100&baseSelected=0) as of October 3, 2005.

(10) All prices are US list prices as of October 4, 2005 for minimum configurations without an operating system. Reseller prices will vary

See all POWER leadership benchmark results at http://www.ibm.com/systems/p/benchmarks.

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