• Crazy Idea # 542: Port IBM i To The Mainframe

  September 18, 2017 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In case you didn’t know it, and why would you care, IBM launched the new System z14 mainframe back in June, was talking about the new z14 motors it uses in August, and has just last week launched the LinuxOne “Emperor II” Linux-only mainframe variant of that platform. The machine, as always, has some impressive engineering. And it got me to thinking. Which is always dangerous.

  Here is a crazy idea. No, this is really crazy, unlike some of my other inspirations, which of course make perfect sense. Maybe IBM should converge the Power Systems and System z lines, and …

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• The Chatter About Future Power9 Servers

  September 11, 2017 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In late July, the first of the Power9 systems, the one code-named “Witherspoon” that was designed explicitly to be installed in the “Summit” and “Sierra” clustered supercomputers installed at Oak Ridge National Laboratories and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, respectively, started rolling off the production line at Big Blue and into those HPC centers that are funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. It is the beginning, however quiet, of what we expect will be a rolling thunder rollout of Power9 systems in late 2017 and through early 2018.

  Because there have been so many processor announcements in the past …

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• Why Not Overclock Power Chips For IBM i?

  August 28, 2017 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Remember way back in 2000, when Intel, the world’s largest chip manufacturer and now the world’s dominant supplier of processors in the datacenter, said that it would be able to deliver processors that run at 10 GHz by 2011. Well, that was six years ago, and that sure as hell did not happen then and it is not going to happen now. But if anyone can crank the clocks high on a processor, it is IBM with its Power and System z engines, and we think it can push them a little higher and give certain customers who …

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