Power makes it possible: empowering the unsung heroes of IT infrastructure

By September 20, 2021

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As an IT architect, I help clients implement infrastructures that support their business objectives. The most common challenges I’ve witnessed my clients face with their IT infrastructure are cost, reliability, and the need to flexibly respond to changing business requirements. IBM® Power®, and the new Power E1080, can help.

The challenges IT professionals face today

I partner with experienced clients, IT professionals who are the unsung heroes of infrastructure, helping deliver mission-critical business solutions every day. Knowing that their industry changes quickly, they stay current with technology, so they can do more with less, ensure that their systems align with their business priorities, and adhere to budget constraints. They are the backbone of their organization’s successful digital transformation and ability to achieve strategic outcomes.

Nevertheless, challenges loom before these heroes, complicating their mission to respond to business demands faster, more reliably and more efficiently. “Cloud first” is often interpreted as simply moving as many workloads as possible to a given cloud vendor. However, since cloud is not a one-size-fits-all destination, moving workloads to the public cloud may not be ideal to achieve business outcomes. One thing is clear, a hybrid cloud strategy, with a strong on-premises infrastructure, needs to be part of your winning equation.

The Power E1080: An optimal hybrid cloud platform

IBM Power is built as a hybrid cloud solution by design. It combines greater capacity1 with flexible consumption models, allowing for higher utilization and faster processing. Devised with advanced recovery, self-healing and diagnostic capabilities, IBM Power can reduce application downtime. Additionally, the processor at the heart of IBM Power is faster than x86 alternatives2, delivering, for example, 4X more Red Hat® OpenShift® containers per core3. These capabilities make the Power E1080 more reliable when compared to other high-end servers4, in addition to saving you software costs.

Hear from William Starke, IBM Distinguished Engineer, Power10 Chief Processor Architect, about how IBM Power supports successful digital transformation and moving to a hybrid cloud strategy.

Protecting data at every level with the Power E1080

Cybersecurity is becoming a regular discussion point among boardroom executives, with leadership across organizations agonizing over how to protect their data. To stave off cyber-threats and ensure security from your core to the cloud, protection must be built in at every level, beginning at the core of your IT infrastructure. With this in mind, the Power E1080 provides support for algorithms for post-quantum cryptography and fully homomorphic encryption, in addition to encrypting data in main memory, which protects against physical attacks. Each Power10 processor includes accelerators that offload the work needed to encrypt data, ensuring that vital workloads are not impacted and keeping your data safe whether at rest or in transit.

Hear from Brian Thompto, IBM Distinguished Engineer, Power10 Chief Core Architect, about how the new Power E1080 ensures security at every layer.

Become an IT infrastructure hero with IBM Power

The heroes of IT infrastructure face demanding, complex digital environments, and these challenges require the new IBM Power E1080. The new Power server can deliver scalable, efficient, and sustainable computing with industry-leading resiliency and security, while also enabling AI at the point of data. As a hero you can optimize the solutions you deliver to your enterprise by building mission-critical systems on this new server.

>> See what IDC has to say about the new Power E1080.

[1] 50% more capacity, same energy consumption Based on published rPerf results for Power E980/12 core compared to IBM Internal rPerf measurements (using the same methodology) for Power E1080/15 core
[2] SPECInt Math: (Power10 2170 peak /120 core)/(1620 peak/224 cores)=2.5 Max System SPECint IBM Power E1080 (3.55-4,0 GHz, Power10) 120 Cores, 8 CPUs SPECint Score 2170 per CPU Score 271.25 per Core Score 18.08 Date: Audit submitted Max System SPECint Hewlett Packard Enterprise Superdome Flex 280 (2.90 GHz, Intel Xeon Platinum 8380H) 224 Cores, 8 CPUs Intel Xeon Platinum 8380H Speed 2900 Mhz SPECint Score 1620.00 per CPU Score 202.50 per Core Score 7.23 Date: Feb-2021 Link: CPU2017 Integer Rate Result: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Superdome Flex 280 (2.90 GHz, Intel Xeon Platinum 8380H) (test sponsored by HPE) (spec.org)
[3] 4.1X more containerized throughput per core than x86 running Red Hat OpenShift. Based on IBM internal testing of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.8.2 worker nodes running 80 pods each with 10 users using the Daytrader7 workload (https://github.com/WASdev/sample.daytrader7/releases/tag/v1.4) accessing AIX Db2 databases. Average CPU utilization for the OCP worker nodes is > 95%. Comparison: E1080 running OCP accessing AIX Db2 on an S922 versus OCP on Cascade Lake accessing AIX Db2 on the same S922. Valid as of 8/26/2021 and conducted under laboratory conditions. Individual result can vary based on workload size, use of storage subsystems & other conditions.
[4] Power servers historically offer at least 25% less downtime vs comparable high-end servers Based on “ITIC 2020 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Report”, April 2020
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