IBM Power 8 - The Models

IBM’s POWER 8 Processor

A sliver of silicon with 15 metal layers that measures just one square inch. It is embedded with over 4 billion microscopic transistors and more than 11 miles of high-speed copper wiring

I recently attended an IBM POWER 8 gathering where I gained some insight into the new servers leveraging this innovative processor technology that I would like to share with you.

Announced a month ago, and available generally from 10 June, let us take a look at what is on offer…

These are the S812L, S822L, S822, S814 and the S824

All models start with ‘S’. This indicates that all are scale-out servers. As you have probably guessed, the second character, ‘8’, signifies the system is running POWER 8. Next is the number of sockets – either 1 or 2. The fourth character shows the number of U rack space the server uses. Not all have a fifth character, but if you see an ‘L’ here, it means that it is a Linux-only system. Models without an ‘L’ can run AIX, IBM i or Linux – with exception of the S822 which is both an AIX and Linux friendly variant.

Taking the S812L model as an example, you can interpret that it is a scale-out server running POWER 8. It has one socket and uses 2U of rack space, running Linux.

 Specifications at a Glance

• S812L – A 1U, one socketed server comprising either ten (3.42 GHz) or twelve (3.02 GHz) cores with up to 512 GB of memory. There are six PCIe Gen 3 slots with this model. It comes with the industry recognised enterprise virtualisation offerings of either PowerVM or PowerKVM and is capable of running a choice of Linux distributions.

• S822 / S822L – These 2U, two socket models are capable of different configurations depending on whether or not you decide to populate both sockets. With one socket occupied, you can have six or twelve (3.89 GHz) cores, with up to 512 GB of memory. There are six PCIe Gen 3 low-profile hot plug adapter slots in this configuration. If you have both sockets populated, you can have ten or twenty (3.42 GHz) cores, with up to 1 TB of memory. Nine PCIe Gen3 low-profile hot plug adapter slots are included in this arrangement. You can run the PowerVM hypervisor with AIX or a selection of Linux variants.

The S822L can have twenty (3.42 GHz) or twenty four (3.02 GHz) cores, with up to 1 TB of memory and nine PCIe Gen 3 low-profile hot plug adapter slots. With the choice of either PowerVM or PowerKVM virtualisations, you may only run Linux distributions on this machine.

• S814 - A one socket, 4U system available in either a 4U or desk-form factor. It comes with either six (3.02 GHz) or eight (3.72 GHz) cores and 512 GB of memory. With seven PCIe Gen 3 full-high hot plug adapter slots, you can run PowerVM with AIX, IBM i or Linux flavours.

• S824 - 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 (3.89 GHz), 16 (4.15 GHz) or 24 (3.52 GHz) cores with up to 1 TB of memory. With up to eleven PCIe Gen 3 full-high hot plug adapter slots, this machine can run PowerVM with AIX, IBM i or Linux distributions.

What’s Next?

The release date for the Enterprise POWER 8 server range has been set, however, at the time of writing, IBM were unable to make this information public knowledge.

Should you require any further information regarding changes to IBM POWER 8 please do not hesitate to contact your Celerity Representative

Chris Lang, Technical Consultant, Celerity Limited

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