IBM's AIX 7 beta program

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If you are running an AIX-based super from IBM, you may be interested in this news from Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Register

IBM logoFor only the second time since Big Blue entered the Unix market for real in February 1990 with the launch of the RS/6000 line of workstations and servers, the company is letting customers who use its Power-based servers take a future AIX release for a test drive in an open beta program.

It’s an open beta, and you can get the code here. The catch is that the download agreement prohibits you running the OS in production.

AIX 7 will run on any machine based on the PowerPC 970 (remember that one, which was used in the initial IBM blade servers?) as well as on pSeries, System p, and Power Systems machines that employ Power4, Power4+, Power 5, Power5+, Power6, Power6+, and Power7 chips. (Presumably any of the iSeries and System i machines, which use IBM’s OS/400 and i proprietary operating systems, that supported AIX inside logical partitions can also run the AIX 7 beta code, too, but IBM doesn’t say this.)

More about the program and what features are in the new OS in article linked above.