IBM today announced the new IBM Power E1080 server, the first in a new family of servers based on the IBM Power10 processor, designed for hybrid cloud environments. “The IBM Power10-equipped E1080 server is engineered to be one of the most secured server platforms and is designed to help clients operate a secured, frictionless hybrid cloud experience across their entire IT infrastructure,” the company said.
IBM said the new server can deliver up to 30 percent more performance per core and more than 50 percent better total capacity at the socket and system level compared with the previous generation IBM Power E980 server. “This translates to 33 percent lower energy consumption for the same workload on the IBM Power E1080 as compared to the IBM Power E980, giving customers the platform to consolidate workloads and save on hardware and software costs,” the company said. “For example, an IBM Power customer projected that they could consolidate an industry-standard transactional database running across 126 x86-based servers down to two IBM Power E1080 servers. This projection would translate to an 80% reduction in server energy use and a 70 percent reduction in per-core software licenses for the customer.”
According to IBM, new features of the E1080 include:
- Enhancements for hybrid cloud like by-the-minute metering of Red Hat software, including Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat Enterprise Linux; 4.1x greater OpenShift containerized throughput per core vs x86-based servers, and architectural consistency and cloud-like flexibility across the hybrid cloud environment to drive agility and improve costs without application refactoring.
- Hardware-driven performance improvements that deliver up to 50 percent more performance and scalability than its predecessor, the IBM Power E980, while reducing energy use and carbon footprint of the E980. The E1080 also features four matrix math accelerators per core, enabling 5x faster inference performance as compared to the E980.
- Security tools designed for hybrid cloud environments including transparent memory encryption, reducing management setup; 4x the encryption engines per core, allowing for 2.5x faster AES encryption compared to the E980; and security software for each level of the system stack.
- An ecosystem of ISVs, business partners, and support to broaden the capabilities of the IBM Power E1080 and help customers build their hybrid cloud environment, including performance for SAP applications in an 8-socket system. IBM is also launching a new tiered Power Expert Care service to help clients protect systems against the cybersecurity threats while providing hardware and software coherence and higher systems availability.
“When we were designing the E1080, we had to be cognizant of how the pandemic was changing not only consumer behavior, but also our customer’s behavior and needs from their IT infrastructure,” said Dylan Boday, VP of Product Management for AI and Hybrid Cloud. “The E1080 is IBM’s first system designed from the silicon up for hybrid cloud environments, a system tailor-built to serve as the foundation for our vision of a dynamic and secure, frictionless hybrid cloud experience.”
IBM said the Power E1080 has the capability to scale with Power Private Cloud for Dynamic Capacity, allowing users to scale up and down with unused CPU capacity as needed and only pay extra for the additional resources they used. This can help improve operational efficiency and flexibility while avoiding server sprawl and lengthy procurement processes by bringing a cloud-like payment model to the data center, IBM said.
“We have been long time IBM Power users and are looking forward to being one of the first organizations to test the new IBM Power10-based E1080 system with our mission-critical applications,” said Klaus Fehlker at Finanz Informatik. “The new server addresses our demands to continue delivering our services at scale with high resiliency requirements, including new levels of security and improved energy-efficiency. We are also keen to see how the new features can accelerate our journey to cloud and the infusion of AI into our business applications.”
The company said Power E1080 is the first on-premises system planned to support metering by-the-minute for both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat OpenShift, extending capabilities already available on IBM Power Virtual Server. Together, this is designed for even greater customer control of when, how, and where their applications are deployed.
“Red Hat has long been committed to delivering choice to our customers, a critical component in how these organizations approach open hybrid cloud deployments. Our collaboration with IBM on Power10 will serve as a continuation of this commitment to support a broad range of architectures,” said Stefanie Chiras, senior vice president, Platforms Business Group, Red Hat. “As an architectural foundation for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat OpenShift deployments on-premises metering, IBM Power will offer the scale and flexibility to help customers realize the benefits of open hybrid cloud.”
Through the close synergy with Red Hat, the IBM Power E1080 offers 4.1x greater OpenShift containerized throughput per core vs compared x86-based servers, allowing for more workloads to be deployed simultaneously within a single system, according to IBM.
