IBM announced Power10 on September 8th 2021, with the Enterprise E1080 arriving into the P30 software tier.
While the Power10 announcement is exciting and revitalizes the whole IBM Power ecosystem, the reality is the vast majority of IBM i shops are running P05 or P10’s. For those currently running Power7, Power7+ or Power8, that are considering a hardware upgrade, it presents a dilemma – should they wait for the launch of the Power10 P05 and P10’s, possibly around the end of Q2 2022, or should they compromise and opt for a Power9 now.
IBM have certainly made Power9 a more attractive option with several incentives available. Including the offer of “two for one” on NVMe drives for the S914 4-core P05 machines, and “three for one” for the S914 6 or 8 core P10 hardware. A great saving for the most modern, fastest disk available for IBM Power Systems.
Depending on the application, NVMe can perform up to seven times faster than traditional SATA attached SSDs, themselves a huge improvement on spinning disks. Of course, the slowest part of any modern-day IBM Power System will always be access to disk, so any improvements you can make here are always worthwhile. In addition, with Power9, service vouchers are also provided, with one for P05 and two for P10 S914 purchases. The vouchers are redeemable with IBM Lab Services or Partners. Finally, access to the Common US User Group Content Library for 60 days is also provided.
Power9 is a viable proposition for many and coupled with the IBM incentives outlined will be an attractive alternative.
Of course, once the decision to upgrade is made (or better as part of the evaluation process) the operational and cost considerations of the migration for the customer’s business is key. This is especially so if the customer is one of those considering a hop to Power9 as an interim step before moving to Power10, when it is available.
In line with IBM’s offers, Maxava has several commercial options for customers looking to move to Power9, whether for the foreseeable future, or as an interim step to Power10. These options are designed to keep your projects under budget while minimizing the risk of data loss and downtime for your business.
Migration using logical replication typically cuts system downtime and unplanned outage risk to near zero. Fundamentally this is because the new production system is commissioned and operational in parallel with the old system until the customer has verified the new system to their complete satisfaction – then and only then, need the old system be fully decommissioned.
Maxava provides license flexibility to move from premise to cloud configurations or multi-node architecture that leverages hybrid cloud. That includes options to temporarily migrate or upgrade additional systems without making permanent financial investments.
For those customers making interim moves to Power9 in advance of Power10, we also offer price protection and services to keep TCO in line with your projects as you change configurations.
There are special options for customers using competitive products who are looking to reduce maintenance costs. To avoid any last-minute time pressures, we offer maintenance holidays on select competitive products so that you can avoid paying Maxava maintenance fees while running out existing contracts. This allows customers to install Maxava before existing contracts expire, avoid technology fees and upgrade their HA in advance of dealing with the commissioning of hardware.
The maintenance holiday allows you to install Maxava on the existing configuration alongside a competitive product, test in parallel, begin replication to the new systems, before finally removing the old product – even before you stand up the new hardware. Maxava provides a break from license fees during the period so that you can make the change quickly and under your current maintenance budget.
This article is written by Ash Giddings, Product Manager at Maxava