Power6: IBM’s mainframe on-a-rack
IBM’s merging of its mainframe and RISC engineering groups lights the way to more reliable servers The advent of the microprocessor created a new class of system that liberated computing from air-conditioned rooms and washing machine-size storage. But as small systems have evolved, we’ve drifted from the design traits that made mainframes invaluable in critical applications. Well, there’s no reason the x86 advantages of low cost, standardization, and low power should be at odds with manageability, resource partitioning, and good old RAS (reliability, availability, serviceability). We need to break away from our love affair with cores and caches, and focus on making x86 servers self-diagnosing and self-adapting by nature. As with virtualization, getting RAS right means it must be a design priority all the way down to the copper and silicon. IBM gets that. Shortly after uniting its Power and mainframe engineering design teams, IBM produced a microprocessor — Power6 — that represents the crucial first step along the path toward bringing mainframe-grade reliability to small servers. The Power6 design, and the p 570 total system architecture built around it, incorporates several mainframe RAS qualities that seem impossible on an air-cooled microprocessor. Genuine RAS is predictive and proactive, not reactive,… READ MORE