IBM launches world's fastest UNIX Enterprise Server, water-cooled Power 575 super computer

IBM will launch two high-end power systems models in the market including the Power 575 and the water-cooled Power 575 supercomputer. According to IBM, both products are energy efficient and will help users lessening bottom line operating costs.

IBM claims that the new UNIX Enterprise Server is the fastest UNIX server in the world with superior virtualisation for workload balancing across UNIX, Linux and i applications. It is designed to strengthen IBM's leadership in the UNIX market as it will entice existing IBM customers along with the Sun Solaris and HP UNIX users.

The Power 595, which is expected to roll-out in the market in early May will target the existing IBM clients, the company added.

Salient features of the new Power 595  include an ultra-high frequency IBM POWER6 processors in up to 64-core, multiprocessing (SMP) configurations, the Power 595 server, PowerVM virtualisation, EnergyScale technology and Capacity on Demand (CoD) options and many others.

According to Big Blue, Power 575, the new water-cooling system offers users nearly five times the performance and more than three times the energy efficiency of its predecessor, which will help the server deal with world's most challenging problems in diverse areas including energy, aerospace and weather modeling. (View video / See: IBM unveils watercooled super computer, Hydro-Cluster)

Features of the new Power 575 include a 24-inch frame packaging, 16-, 24-, 32-, 40-, 48-, 56- or 64-core MCM (Multichip Module) SMP design, 64-bit POWER5 technology, Mainframe-inspired RAS features including selective dynamic firmware updates and redundant service processor, Advanced POWER Virtualization2 standard, Up to 12 I/O drawers (11 are optional). rredundant power subsystem with optional redundant battery backup, IBM HACMP™ support for near continuous operation, Operating system support via AIX 5L (V5.2 or later) and Linux distributions from Red Hat (RHEL AS 4 or later) and SUSE Linux (SLES 9 or later) and many more.