back to article IBM, backing away from hardware? NEVER!

So, it looks like IBM has moved its chipworks over to Globalfoundries, as described by Reg hack Tim Worstall here. But what are the implications for IBM's systems business? I agree that the brutal and implacable economics of the chip business forced IBM’s hand here. Manufacturing microprocessors is a hugely capital intensive …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's not going to be an easy road.

    There - pointed out as requested.

    1. danolds

      Re: It's not going to be an easy road.

      Thank you! I knew someone would do it, thanks for being the first.

  2. MadMike

    Funny how

    The article argues that POWER will not be killed, and talks about POWER8 able to run Linux fine nowadays, etc etc.

    Some points that the article don't adress:

    A) It is evident that IBM is betting heavily on Linux, penalizing AIX. Especially consider that IBM has declared that AIX is going to be killed, and replaced by Linux. So this article just heavily supports this IBM article:

    http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-982512.html

    Hence, both this article and IBM says Linux is the future. AIX is soon dead. What does that mean to POWER? Can POWER live without AIX, only running Linux, competing with fast and cheap x86 servers?

    B) AIX has not had big releases for a long time, only minor tweaks. Why? Does this mean that AIX is penalized in favour of Linux?

    C) Where is the POWER roadmap? The roadmap ends with POWER8, there are no talks about POWER9. How can you plan long term if there are no 5 year road maps? You can't. This makes managers uneasy.

    D) IBM only does high margin business and walks away from low margin business.

    --POWER6 was several times faster than x86 and scaled to much larger servers (32-sockets) than the largest x86 server (8-sockets). And POWER6 costed 5-10x more than x86.

    --POWER7 was 20% faster than x86 and scaled to 32 socket servers. And was 3x more expensive.

    --POWER8 is twice as fast as POWER7, which means it has catched up on the fastest x86 cpus today. Benchmarks shows x86 is twice as fast as POWER7. But POWER8 only scales to 16 sockets with P880. And has less RAM than x86. An 8-socket x86 server has 12TB RAM, and IBM P880 has only 16TB RAM. So performance advantage of POWER is dimishing, to a point of where x86 is as fast / faster.

    BUT, the main point is that you can buy an 1-socket POWER8 server for a cheap $2.700:

    http://www.tyan.com/campaign/openpower/index.html

    And POWER8 does not scale to massively large servers anymore. And is not much faster than x86, so IBM has lowered the price to compete on price - which is dumb to do. IBM can not compete on price with x86.

    So, IBM can not charge large premiums anymore, there are no big difference in large P8 servers to the largest x86 server. So, POWER8 is hardly high margin business anymore. POWER9 will be the last nail in the coffin, it will be cheaper than x86 - if POWER9 ever arrives.

    So we see the trend is clear: Intel is catching up on performance. And POWER is getting cheaper and cheaper. There will be a point where POWER will lower the price so much it will not be profitable anymore. POWER has no future.

    Question: POWER is becoming low margin, what does that mean to a company that only does high margin bizz?

    E) IBM has a reputation of lock-in, see for instance the Mainframe business where IBM targets everything that threatens Mainframes:

    http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2010/04/ibm-breaks-oss-patent-promise-targets-mainframe-emulator/

    So that IBM is opening up POWER is a very bad sign. It signales that IBM does not believe in lock-in anymore. If IBM could expect hefty profit, IBM would never share POWER8 with anyone else. I think IBM hopes other companies will drive POWER business, while IBM is slowly exiting it (IBM sold chip recently).

    Why is IBM allowing other low margin companies to "profit" on POWER8, decreasing the cake for IBM? Does this signal that IBM dont believe there are big money to make in POWER, because other companies are allowed to go in? Apple tried to license Mac computers, but Steve Jobs shut the clone companies down as soon he become CEO again, it was the first thing the did. Question: Why is IBM allowing other companies to profit on POWER8, diminishing margins for IBM as other companies want a piece of the cake?

    F) IBM Mainframes is a dead end. Only existing companies upgrade their Mainframes. There are no new customers. Everybody who can, migrates away and builds new systems on Linux clusters and Oracle databases. Dead end too. IBM is becoming consulting and servicing company, there is no place for hardware. The path is clear: all hardware is a dead end. Why has IBM sold so much hardware bizz?

    H) This article is a desperate defence of IBM hardware. Expect to see more articles like this. Its a bad sign that these articles defending hardware exists. If it was obvious that IBM betted on POWER, there would be no need for such articles. But they exist. For a reason. Why does this article exist, trying to desperately defend POWER? Is there a fear for POWER getting killed?

    IBC = International Business Consulting

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Funny how

      Seriously, people are still plugging that article from over a decade ago in which an IBM software group (not hardware) executive said that Linux is the future. Sun Micro, when there was a Sun Micro, used to use this article all the time. People have been discussing AIX's impending death for over a decade, whilst it took over the Unix market.

      Also, Power is certainly not going to be killed after the recent chip manufacturing sale announcement. If IBM wanted to shutter Power, they would not have given GF all of the sites and IP as well as $1.5 billion, facility upgrades for the next decade, to continue manufacturing chips, they would have just shut it down. The GF announcement was essentially IBM outsourcing chip manufacturing to a third party more than a divestiture.

      1. Yes Me Silver badge

        Linux was the future [was: Re: Funny how]

        "Seriously, people are still plugging that article from over a decade ago in which an IBM software group (not hardware) executive said that Linux is the future. "

        Steve Mills said it, but it was Irving Wladawsky-Berger who said it first, after a bunch of people in his Internet Division team told him about Linux. But there was never a strategy to devalue AIX in 2003, just to use Linux and other open source stuff like Apache where it was the right solution. So what has changed?

        As for IBM becoming more and more a services company, that's been the transparent strategy for 15 years now. (As usual, look at HP to find out what IBM was doing ten years ago.)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Linux was the future [was: Funny how]

          I would say IBM is becoming a software company, but a lot of their systems are actually primarily software products. Services, as you mention, was 10 years ago... now all services, with exception of high end consulting, are commoditized. No one makes any money managing iinfrastructure, help desk, call centers, etc.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Funny how

      @MadMike

      Never seen your rants before reading this but looking at your posting history you clearly work for Oracle and spend most of your time with pathetic slating of the competition.

      You're a bit pathetic, aren't you?

      1. MadMike

        Re: Funny how

        @MadMike

        Never seen your rants before reading this but looking at your posting history you clearly work for Oracle and spend most of your time with pathetic slating of the competition.

        You're a bit pathetic, aren't you?

        How about you answering my questions instead of resorting to name calling? It seems you have nothing to say, no links to counter my questions?

        1. PowerMan@thinksis

          Re: Funny how

          Does NO good to have a discussion with you as you are not looking to have a logical discussion. You just spew talking points like a Troll!

    3. danolds

      Re: Funny how

      Wow, your scathing denunciation is actually longer than my original article, I think. I don't have time to address all of your points, but I will hit on a few here.

      1. "AIX is dead" I don't see or hear this at all from IBM, anyone working at IBM, or customers - either formally or informally. There is an AIX roadmap and development on the o/s continues. Linux isn't replacing AIX, it's a complimentary o/s that allows the platform to compete more effectively with x86. The article you link in your reply is from 2003....11 years ago....and has obviously not come to pass.

      2. There is also a Power processor roadmap that includes Power9 and other processors. From what I've heard from very reliable sources, there are Power9 processors running in labs today.

      3. x86 vs. Power: Intel revs their processors more quickly than IBM revs Power processors. The typical pattern is that a new Power processor will offer significantly higher performance than the cream of the crop x86 chip. Then, over the next couple of years, Intel processors play catch up. IBM will do a frequency 'speed bump' sometime in that period. Towards the end of a Power generation, Intel processors are arguably at parity on most feeds/speeds, and maybe even ahead on others. But then IBM trots out a new Power generation and the game begins again. So comparing today's best Intel processors vs. older Power7 designs isn't exactly informative or fair.

      4. "Why does this article exist....?" I was originally going to write about the deal between IBM and GF, but the original article I cited did a great job of summing up the deal. But I noticed in the comments that several folks seemed to believe that this transaction was a death knell for IBM's hardware business. As a guy who knows more than a little about this topic, I decided to write about it.

      5. You use the words 'desperate' and 'desperately' a few times in your masterful summation. However, I have to point out that I'm not desperate to defend much of anything, other than my beloved Oregon Ducks against the hated SEC in college football.

      1. MadMike

        Re: Funny how

        @danolds

        If you can publish such an IBM defending article here, then I can publish too, as a counterweight. I can brush up this article and publish it, sure. That would be fun to see here. :)

        1. "AIX is dead" I don't see or hear this at all from IBM, anyone working at IBM, or customers - either formally or informally....The article you link in your reply is from 2003....11 years ago....and has obviously not come to pass.

        In the article IBM says AIX is a dead end. I did not make this up, it comes straight from the horse's mouth. Further, IBM says regarding "11 years ago":

        "...A replacement "won't happen overnight," Mills said, but years of experience designing operating systems at IBM and other companies means developers know just where Linux needs to go. "The road map is clear. It's an eight-lane highway". No one believes replacing AIX with Linux could happen quickly, or that IBM will leave its AIX customers in a lurch. But the degree of Mills' Linux support surprised some.

        "They've denied it would replace AIX in the past," said Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff. "Perhaps their thinking is beginning to shift. They've been quite clear that they see Linux as picking up AIX technologies maybe a year, two years later, but they've certainly been quite circumspect about saying Linux would ever replace AIX."

        "Steve's view is really on a multidecade time frame," said Nick Bowen, vice president of Unix and Intel server software development at IBM."

        Look at the last line. In 20 years AIX will be dead. We can see the signs now: no new AIX releases, development has slowed down, or halted. Why is IBM betting more on Linux than AIX, and why has IBM said AIX will be killed?

        2. There is also a Power processor roadmap that includes Power9 and other processors. From what I've heard from very reliable sources, there are Power9 processors running in labs today.

        Yeah? Show us the roadmap then. "Show me the money". And you "heard" something from someone's aunt's dogs friend's owner that once saw Elvis Presley on the train? That sounds really credible. Or not. Instead of claiming unsubstantiated things, show us the links and we can stop the discussion.

        3. x86 vs. Power: Intel revs their processors more quickly than IBM revs Power processors. The typical pattern is that a new Power processor will offer significantly higher performance than the cream of the crop x86 chip... So comparing today's best Intel processors vs. older Power7 designs isn't exactly informative or fair.

        x86 can release more often, because the x86 companies spend more on R&D than IBM. In the beginning, x86 could not catch up on POWER. But now x86 catches up all the time. The trend shows that POWER is not that much faster anymore.

        And I did compare x86 to the latest POWER8 too, not only POWER7. I said that POWER8 is 2x as fast as POWER7. And x86 is also 2x as fast as POWER7 today. Which means x86 is as fast as POWER8 - but has more RAM. Which makes x86 2-socket server faster than POWER8 2-socket server, because if you have more RAM, you can work faster and dont need to swap to disk.

        And BTW, IBM claims that one mainframe can replace 1.500 x86 servers. It turns out that all x86 servers are antique with 256MB RAM and 800MHz or so, and they all idle. It is not fair to compare the latest Mainframe to antique x86 servers as IBM do. But IBM does compare new hardware to old hardware

        5. You use the words 'desperate' and 'desperately' a few times in your masterful summation. However, I have to point out that I'm not desperate to defend much of anything,

        Some would wonder why there are an article out there stating that "No, AIX and POWER will NOT be killed, trust me" arguing against what IBM has officially said "AIX will be replaced with Linux". It reeks.. something. Maybe not desperation. But something.

        And again, I have never worked at Oracle nor Sun. I have always worked in finance. I work in a large financial institution with algorithmic trading, doing the heavy math stuff.

        And lastly, to the IBM crowd out there: What goes around, comes around. Or, you reap what you sow . If you had not done what you did, people would not have to write posts like mine. Are you having a good time? Like this much? Rub it in?

        1. PowerMan@thinksis

          Re: Funny how

          "He hit me, well you pulled my hair" @MadMike - Troll!

      2. Captain Server Pants

        Re: Funny how

        @danolds

        >>>2. There is also a Power processor roadmap that includes Power9 and other processors. From what I've heard from very reliable sources, there are Power9 processors running in labs today.<<<

        Let's see it. Sun said over and over Rock CPU was testing in the labs and it was going to happen. Until it's on a roadmap (either public or requires NDA) then it's NOT on a roadmap. Funny you don't say you're prevented by NDA from showing something you've seen yourself. You're passing off hearsay like it's credible news which is not really competent journalism I'm sorry to say.

        1. MadMike

          Re: Funny how

          Why is that the IBM crowd always "hears" something or "sees" something, but never post any links? Nothing to back up things, just posts rumours. That might be true or made up. No benchmarks, no roadmaps, no nothing. I remember when the IBM crowd vehemously assured us that they heard Sun executives telling them in confidentiality that SPARC64 is dead, and we all better migrate to POWER7 quick. They posted no links or so, they just heard something from a "very credible Sun source". And how dead is SPARC64 today?

          1. PowerMan@thinksis

            Re: Funny how

            I never heard anybody from IBM say SPARC64 is dead. I've heard many a customer, pundit and competitor to include IBM and partners alike say that SPARC is dead Troll. Once again you twist things. You always spew lie after lie. I could give you link after link for benchmarks and you would come back the next time and claim you never get any links Troll. Nice attempt at being the victim but failed again.

        2. danolds

          Re: Funny how

          "Not competent journalism"? Ouch...but then again, I'm not a journalist. I'm an analyst with my own boutique IT industry market research/analysis shop, Gabriel Consulting Group.

          I usually get early NDA briefings and deep dive briefings on upcoming hardware/software/initiatives from a wide variety of vendors. I have to walk a fine line when it comes to what I say in some of my public articles, trying to get out the stuff I know while not violating any NDAs.

          I don't want to be one of those guys who constantly says "I can't tell you more because of my NDAs..." Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but I think that line would make me sound like a pretentious and pompous asshat. .

          I would also point out that being 'in the know' doesn't necessarily mean anything. Take the Sun Rock processor example that a lot of people cite in these comments. Sun repeatedly told the analyst community, myself included, that Rock was healthy and coming along. Maybe a little late, but it's going to be awesome when it's released. We all know what happened there, right?

          1. Captain Server Pants

            Re: Funny how

            @danolds

            >>>I don't want to be one of those guys who constantly says "I can't tell you more because of my NDAs..." Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but I think that line would make me sound like a pretentious and pompous asshat.<<<

            It depends on what audience you're playing to. To some folks making an unqualified statement of fact like: "There is also a Power processor roadmap that includes Power9 and other processors." without backing it up with any facts or comments makes for, well... in your own words, "a pretentious and pompous asshat." Is this statement true for no other reason then because you said it was true? Is it true for another reason? Do you understand why someone might want to know?

            It's been a few years but I used to sit in on IBM (NDA required) product briefings on Power servers. They never had a roadmap (late '90's early '00's) back then. It was always supposed to be just assumed/understood Power 7/7+ would follow Power 6/6+ which followed Power 5/5+... If you asked for one they were like "ask Sun for theirs we're IBM and we don't need such things..." At the time Power CPU's were clearly best.

            Now, it's 2014 and IBM has had to pay someone to take their antiquated fabs (out of weakness) and dumped their X-Series servers (out of weakness). So the perception is IBM's "trust me" lack of roadmap is not good enough anymore. Power system sales have been weak and their relative competitive performance seems stagnant if not weakening. People are seriously questioning IBM's commitment to hardware. Legitimately so, would you agree?

            >>>I would also point out that being 'in the know' doesn't necessarily mean anything. Take the Sun Rock processor example that a lot of people cite in these comments. Sun repeatedly told the analyst community, myself included, that Rock was healthy and coming along. Maybe a little late, but it's going to be awesome when it's released.<<<

            This is exactly the point which was being addressed to you.

            1. PowerMan@thinksis

              Re: Funny how

              Selling the fabs has nothing to do with weakness. Showing your cards there Capt'n, got an ax to grind? IBM's xSeries weren't weak from a technology standpoint, it's just that IBM can't sell volume. They are a high value IT innovator. Commodity is better for those with efficient supply chains like Dell and Lenovo. I watch my x86 counterparts in my company make a pittance selling x86 while the vendors make the money. Cisco, Dell, VCE walk away laughing while BP's make a point or two peddling their crap. Those kinds of margins impact the quality of the product, quality of the sale, quality of support - qualtiy of the solution, in other words you get what you pay for.

              To say that Power performance is stagnant if not weakening is just ignorant. Power8 delivers 2X (in general) over every Haswell and Ivy Bridge processor out there. About every benchmark I can think of shows something like 1.7X - 2.3X per core greater performance with Power8. SAP 2 tier with E870 delivers 996 Users per core compared to 458 with Haswell.

              1. Captain Server Pants

                Re: Funny how

                @PowerMan@thinksis

                >>>Showing your cards there Capt'n, got an ax to grind?<<<

                Yeah maybe. Hubris tends to lead to a comeuppance.

                >>>Selling the fabs has nothing to do with weakness.<<<

                Ah ok. Except they didn't "sell the fabs" they PAID SOMEONE TO TAKE THEM. When you sell something the buyer pays the seller money. That's not what happened here. See the difference?

                >>>[blah blah blah}... per core compared to... [blah blah blah]<<<

                Keep pushing the "per core" nonsense if it works for you as a sales spiel. Selectively choosing benchmarks is just troll food.

                1. PowerMan@thinksis

                  Re: Funny how

                  @Capt'n - Businesses fail when they let emotions cloud sound decision making. If they need the output of the fabs but it cost more to run and upgrade then find a solution. They found someone who specializes in this. It costs IBM $1.5B per year. They are paying GF $1.5B, payable over 3 years for 10 year rights to the output. They will save $1B each over the next 3 years and not have to spend $1.5B for years 4 - 10. How is that not sound decision making? Frankly, we should credit them for making these kinds of common sense decisions - if it was your home budget we would say, stop the cable, sell the car, downsize. This amounts to a 10 year outsourcing deal that will give IBM the output they need while developing the next generation technology and fab source.

                  If you don't like the "per core" conversation how to you control (and reduce) software licensing/maintenance while delivering the consolidation and performance required for all workloads? You either say "per core" performance matters or it doesn't. The sum of the cores equal the chip/socket performance so it needs to matter somewhere. Intel has tapped out their architecture and is just getting the small performance yields from die shrinks and other tweaks while adding more cores - focusing more on mobile and reliability. Oracle is first and foremost a marketing company - hype and hot air.

                  the SPARC T5 & M6 chips are about having the max cores and threads to grab headlines. Everything else is an adulteration of the facts. Even if there is a speck of fact anywhere with the product it doesn't matter because they choose to make preposterous claims (WSJ ads, @MadMike, PhilDunn, YouKnowWho, YouTube, Brad Carlisle, Scott Lynn, John Fowler, Mark Hurd and King Larry himself). The body of work is readily available for anybody to find using their favorite search engine.

                  But, if you want to see the impact of "per core" performance then look at my blog where I compare Oracle on x86 vs Power then introduce DB2 as an alternative. http://powertheenterprise.wordpress.com/2014/07/25/tired-of-oracles-exhorbitant-pricing-try-ibms-db2-v10-5-on-power8/

          2. MadMike

            Re: Funny how

            @danolds

            I would also point out that being 'in the know' doesn't necessarily mean anything. Take the Sun Rock processor example that a lot of people cite in these comments. Sun repeatedly told the analyst community, myself included, that Rock was healthy and coming along. Maybe a little late, but it's going to be awesome when it's released. We all know what happened there, right?

            Rock did taper out and Sun ran tests on it. It was too slow though. But parts of Rock has finds its way into SPARC M7 cpu, which is going to be a real killer (120GB/sec SQL queries).

            But the main thing about Rock, is that it never went into the official roadmap. Companies try out different stuff all the time, but most of the tries fail. It is only when it is on the roadmap we know that the company is serious with bringing the product to the market. So, there are no POWER9 on the roadmap. And if it were, it will most likely take 3-4 years before it arrives, at which point x86 will have 32 cores (just as SPARC M7) and beat the sh-t out of POWER9. So there is no point in releasing an inferior POWER cpu. IBM knows this.

            And, why would a roadmap be under NDA? The point of a roadmap is that customers can plan long term, so they know what is coming. If the customers are not allowed to know, it kind of defeats the purpose of a roadmap, they can not plan along.

            So you are not a journalist? I would love to publish an article here on AIX and POWER. I just need to reformulate my posts and correct my language. That article would draw much attention, it would have lot of links to IBM and benchmarks. :) :) :)

            1. PowerMan@thinksis

              Re: Funny how

              So Troll, you said Rock was slow earlier yet it has features going into the M7. That was obvious from public collateral. Thx for linking the two though. Since Power9 would be a Tick, I would expect it for at least 3 years from the release of Power8. That is what a Tick-Tock is Troll.

              Nothing SPARC has beats the sh*t out of Power. Not Power4, Power5, Power6, Power7 or Power8. Here is the scoop Troll. Sun and Oracle's approach is to create servers with weaka$$ cores but lots of them. 256 then 384 and 512. You run a benchmark to get a result. Because you have 512 cores and 32 chips you claim victory and the worlds fastest processor because that is what Troll's do. The reality is that your servers are pieces of sh*t and you have to lie about Power because that is who you fear the most. Power8 is delivering roughly 2.7 - 4X the performance per core on about every benchmark that are common between them. I'll add that Oracle doesn't publish on too many benchmarks - I have the list so please challenge me so I can make you look like a bigger idiot than you already are.

              M7 is nothing more than a 32 core server on a chip with 8 clusters of 4 cores. The latency and NUMA affects between clusters and chips will be comical. Any benchmarks produced will be Oracle internal, synthetic, non-auditable or obscure ones so as to not be challenged. We know you want to take your 1024 cores to get a big result to claim the Worlds fastest processor. yes, congratulations, Oracle has produced 6 generations of SPARC servers in 4 years is the claim I think - wow, I'd be proud of that. Keep cranking out the junk.

        3. PowerMan@thinksis

          Re: Funny how

          What kind of Roadmap do you want Capt'n? If you went to the recent Enterprise 2014 conference in Las Vegas (Oct 6 - 10th), IBM showed many charts with Power9 on them. Jeff Stuechelli also spoke on it. Power8 was just released. They typically have their version of "tick-tock" so the tock will come next as a Power8+...usually in the 18 - 24 month range. It's an average once all of the products roll out.

          For the larger audience out there though, they do not need an NDA to see a Roadmap for Power. However, if somebody wants the details of unannounced products then every vendor in the world does require a NDA. 2 entirely distinct issues. When I was an IBMer I wouldn't know the details about a product to be announced until roughly 6 months beforehand. Details were scarce. Specifics are speeds & feeds weren't available until 1-2 weeks out. If I wanted more then I had to attend a NDA session with a customer with engineering to hear the same thing they did. No vendor wants details on unannounced products released so the competition can have FUD ready, change their release schedules in response, etc, etc. It's just common sense.

          If you think the stupid map showing the chips means something, it doesn't, that is out there for Power9. It is also out there for SPARC, Itanium and Intel. Has Intel been accurate with their roadmap (x86)? Itanium? SPARC (as I laugh)? Power? I can answer for the Power, definitely yes although I will qualify it to say that they were late in shipping Power8. Less to do with the chip technology but more to do with the entire PureSystems distraction in the business that was just sold to Lenovo.

          1. Captain Server Pants

            Re: Funny how

            @PowerMan@thinksis

            >>>What kind of Roadmap do you want Capt'n?<<<

            Just post a link please. Thanks.

            1. PowerMan@thinksis

              Re: Funny how

              http://image.slidesharecdn.com/power8-announce-140529054737-phpapp01/95/ibm-power8-announce-3-638.jpg?cb=1401360585 I am a IBM BP and Power Champion. I was just in the labs prior to the P8 announcement. I saw OpenPower, stuff coming in 2015 and a few other things I can't mention the names and not germane to this discussion. I didn't see any P9, not to say it doesn't exist but I was in the P8 labs. I did talk with the P9 architect though, mostly on P8 vs P7 topics. We've talked previously on P9 (to the extent I could pull info out of him). My point is these guys are not to share info in general (they just like talking to somebody with a pulse). It is the marketing people who decide what and when they will release info. I could contact Austin right now and ask for details on Power9 and I would hear things like "It has more cores, more cache, more this and that with these and those accelerators. We are targeting performance increases in the *X over P8"." That is what a Power Champion and the 2014 Power Sales Excellence Awardee would receive...unless I can get that P9 architect alone with a bottle of Double Oaked Woodford Reserve. That may not satisfy you (I hope it does somewhat) but short of the world ending tomorrow I expect to be selling Power for years to come.

              1. Captain Server Pants

                Re: Funny how

                @PowerMan@thinksis

                Ok so no you can't provide a link. There is no roadmap and you don't think it matters anyway.

                1. PowerMan@thinksis

                  Re: Funny how

                  Correct, I cannot provide more than what I did in this forum that doesn't let me post images. What I have is only slightly better than the link I provided anyway.

    4. PowerMan@thinksis

      Re: Funny how

      @MadMike You are a troll who looks for IBM Power articles to spew your constant lies and hyperbole. Your agenda and goal are obvious. You get off on stirring things up. In a courtroom you would be labeled a vexatious litigant or serial abuser of these forums. Responding to you is pointless as you lack character.

      1. MadMike

        Re: Funny how

        PowerMan@thinksis

        @MadMike You are a troll who looks for IBM Power articles to spew your constant lies and hyperbole. Your agenda and goal are obvious. You get off on stirring things up. In a courtroom you would be labeled a vexatious litigant or serial abuser of these forums. Responding to you is pointless as you lack character

        But now you ARE responding to me. :) But I would rather much prefer if you answered my questions instead: Why is IBM exiting all hardware bizz, Why is there no POWER roadmaps anymore? What does IBM mean when they say "AIX is going to be killed and replaced by Linux", etc etc etc? Maybe you wont answer, because you know I am going to ask for links - and the IBM crowd rarely have links to back up their claims. Some would think such claims are unsubstantiated and made up?

        Nothing SPARC has beats the sh*t out of Power. Not Power4, Power5, Power6,...

        Well, you do know that you need fourteen (14) POWER6 cpus clocked at 4.7GHz or so, to match four SPARC T2+ clocked at 1.6GHz at official SIEBEL v8 benchmarks? You need 65GHz of IBM POWER6 to match 6.4GHz of SPARC T2+. What does that tell you, except that SPARC T2+ is much much much faster clock per clock than IBM POWER6? It tells you that you are WRONG. Again. SPARC beats the sh*t out of POWER6 on some benchmarks.

        And above all, SPARC T2+ is much faster clock per clock than POWER6. This must mean that SPARC always is much faster than POWER6. Right? Because SPARC T2+ is much faster clock per clock, it must mean that the SPARC T2+ cpu is the faster cpu.

        ...Power7 or Power8. Here is the scoop Troll. Sun and Oracle's approach is to create servers with weaka$$ cores but lots of them. 256 then 384 and 512. You run a benchmark to get a result. Because you have 512 cores and 32 chips you claim victory and the worlds fastest processor because that is what Troll's do. The reality is that your servers are pieces of sh*t and you have to lie about Power because that is who you fear the most. Power8 is delivering roughly 2.7 - 4X the performance per core on about every benchmark that are common between them

        But who in earth is interested in the fastest core? Does it matter which cpu do more work, core per core? No, we are comparing CPUs to cpu. We are talking about the fastest cpu. Not which cpu does more work clock per clock (SPARC T2+ wins) nor core per core.

        SPARC is clearly the SUPERIOR cpu because it beats the sh*t out of POWER on total benchmarks. If you want to talk about core vs core, then I can talk about Hz vs Hz. or bandwidth vs bandwidth, or ALU vs ALU, etc. Dont you think it is stupid to say that one cpu has higher Bandwidth, and therefore it is the faster cpu? You need to look at the BENCHMARK. No one claims superiority by benchmarking one core, or one Hz, or the Bandwidth.

        How many GB does POWER8 do, in terms of SQL queries? SPARC M7 does 120GB/sec SQL queries. Can POWER8 manage 1-5GB/sec SQL queries? Anyway SPARC M7 beats the shit out of POWER8 on SQL queries (which is expected as Oracle is a database company, IBM is not).

        If you don't like the "per core" conversation how to you control (and reduce) software licensing/maintenance while delivering the consolidation and performance required for all workloads? You either say "per core" performance matters or it doesn't. The sum of the cores equal the chip/socket performance so it needs to matter somewhere.

        Well this is plain WRONG. You need to factor in how MANY cores you have too. The sum of the cores equal the cpu performance - is so wrong on many levels that either IBM has not understood basic logic, or IBM are trying to fool everybody. What is most likely? Maybe both?

        Explanation: Say cpu AA) has only one core, but the core is slightly faster than the core in cpu BB). But cpu BB) has 16 cores. Which cpu is faster? IBM says that AA) is faster, because it has one single core, which is slightly faster. But BB) has 16 cores! So clearly you need to factor in how many cores each cpu has. You can not look at only one single core and conclude the entire cpu is faster, ignoring how many cores there are.

        It is like: "SPARC T2+ does in general 2x more work Hz per Hz than POWER6. Therefore the SPARC T2+ is twice as fast as POWER6". But here we dont factor in how many Hz each cpu has. Maybe SPARC T2+ has very few Hz, and POWER6 has many Hz. Then it is not true that SPARC T2+ is twice as fast as POWER6, just because T2+ is more effective Hz per Hz.

        So, as I tried to explain to you numerous times on this: YOU CAN NOT COMPARE CORE VS CORE AND CONCLUDE ONE CPU IS FASTER. That is WRONG. If you still did not understand this, please read it again, and reread. But slowly.

        If I have £1 and you have $16 - who has more money? I have more money, because 1 GBP equals $1.5? Wrong answer. We need to factor in how many pounds I have, and I have only one pound. So I am not richer than you. Even though IBM tries to make fool everyone that if you have one single stronger unit, it is better than having many weaker units.

        I never heard anybody from IBM say SPARC64 is dead. I've heard many a customer, pundit and competitor to include IBM and partners alike say that SPARC is dead Troll.

        So you confess you IBMers said that SPARC is dead? And all the time, there were no interviews from Sun saying they were going to kill off SPARC. There were no such credible links. All the time the IBM crowd (including IBM) told everyone that with no links to back up - that is the exact definition of FUD. So you confess that the IBM crowd FUDed on this. Just what I claimed. I would not be surprised if you were one of the FUDers too. This is the reason everyone asks about links from IBMers. They FUD so much. Now where are the POWER roadmap? Or is it just FUD again?

        I never actually understood why the IBM and the IBM crowd FUDs so much. If you have inferior products, you need to FUD. If you have good products and still FUDs, it means you want to play unfair.

        I remember when IBM said that SPARC Niagara many lower clocked cores are dumb and a dead end. The future was 1-2 core high clocked cpus. Because "databases like strong cores best". So IBM mocked SPARC Niagara and talked about future stronger 6-7GHz POWER cpus with 1-2 cores. Late to the party, IBM realised that high GHz is a dead end, and parallellisation is the future. So IBM finally understood that if you want many cores, you need to clock them lower to not exceed the wattage budget. And today POWER8 is very similar to SPARC cpus, with many cores and many threads. But today it is the best thing since sliced bread, and IBM never talks about the fiasco with single high clocked core CPUs instead. I would not be surprised if IBM claims they did not copy SPARC Niagara design. So, where are the 7-8GHz single core POWER cpus today? Fiasco.

        1. PowerMan@thinksis

          Re: Funny how

          The only one saying they are exiting hardware is you - broken record. Your also on repeat with the 15 Power6 procs vs four T2+ procs. Listen and listen well so it sinks in. The fourteen you reference is fourteen cores or 7 dual chip modules or 7 processor books or 7 sockets. Your T2+ with four procs is actually 4 x 16 cores or 64 cores. So, you are trying to convince the reader a SPARC T2 with 4 beats a Power6 with 14 when in fact it is SPARC T2 with 64 and Power6 with 14. This is what you do, why you have no credibility and why it's not worth wasting my time answering each of your other crazy points.

          I have a open offer to Oracle and you @MadMike. We can meet at any major airport (easy to fly into) to have a publicly attended and recorded debate on these topics. You can bring whatever and whoever you like. We will each have a whiteboard and wifi but only you (the opposition) and I get to talk. We will invite a impartial panel to moderate and score. You can continue to make false and inaccurate statements on here with little accountability. I will stand before God and country with my beliefs. If I am wrong I'll say so.... but if I am right....well, I might smile and enjoy it.

          1. MadMike

            Re: Funny how

            PowerMan@thinksis

            Your also on repeat with the 15 Power6 procs vs four T2+ procs. Listen and listen well so it sinks in. The fourteen you reference is fourteen cores or 7 dual chip modules or 7 processor books or 7 sockets. Your T2+ with four procs is actually 4 x 16 cores or 64 cores. So, you are trying to convince the reader a SPARC T2 with 4 beats a Power6 with 14 when in fact it is SPARC T2 with 64 and Power6 with 14. This is what you do, why you have no credibility and why it's not worth wasting my time answering each of your other crazy points.

            Sorry to say this, but... you are wrong on the facts. Again. Or you know this, and try to spread FUD. Or ignorant. I can not tell. Maybe a combination?

            The four SPARC T2+ running at 1.6GHz, has 8-cores each (not 16 cores). Which means the SPARC server T5440 has 32 cores in total. Running at 1.6Ghz makes them 32cores x 1.6 GHz = 51.2 GHz.

            Fourteen dual core POWER6 running at (give or take) 4.7GHz has in total 28 cores. So these three POWER6 servers spend in total, 28 cores * 4.7GHz = 131.6 GHz.

            We see that no matter how you count (cores or cpus or GHz), the SPARC T2+ gravely humiliates POWER6 and beats the sh*t out of POWER6. So you were wrong again on "Nothing SPARC has beats the sh*t out of Power. Not Power4, Power5, Power6,..."

            Apparently you are discussing which cores is fastest (SPARC T2+ cores humiliates POWER6 in SIEBEL v8 benchmarks). The rest of the world, discusses cpus. Not cores. I do not claim that "SPARC core is the fastest!", no. I claim "SPARC cpus have superior performance". Which you also have to admit if we consider cpus, instead of cores or GHz or bandwidth. But that is the reason IBM and you, so desperately cling to the Core talk. Because if we talks about cpus, then IBM looses big time. And you know that. And IBM knows that. That is the reason you adamantely refuse to talk about CPUs.

            I dont get it. How can you claim superiority of the POWER cpu, when you talk about cores? Let us assume you establish superiority of POWER core, but then you can not claim superiority of the CPU. Superiority of cores does not carry over to cpus. Dont you get it? I have tried to explain this to you many a times, but to no avail.

            .

            I have a open offer to Oracle and you @MadMike.

            What have Oracle to do with this? I have never worked at Oracle nor Sun, I have always worked in Finance. Now I do algorithmic High frequency trading math stuff at a large bank.

            But you know you would loose. When I say "Oracle SPARC reaches 10,000 in this benchmark, whereas POWER8 only reaches 2,000" and you say "the POWER8 has a stronger core, therefore the POWER8 server is faster" you will only look dumb. No one (except IBMers) would claim that a 2,000 server is faster than a 10,000 server. People would just consider you a lunatic when you claim that "2,000 is a larger number than 10,000. It's true! IBM numbers are much stronger than other numbers!". I advice you to avoid that humiliation to meet me in a debate, you can not even win here. IBM executives would only feel embaressed.

            Actually, there was another IBMer here (J... something), who claimed that "POWER6 is faster than x86 on linpack because POWER6 core scores higher". And still, the x86 linpack benchmark was twice as high as the POWER6 benchmark. But he was dead serious on POWER6 being faster on linpack calculations. It only made him look like a lunatic, but still he continued.

            .

            You can continue to make false and inaccurate statements on here with little accountability

            Hmmm... ?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Finally, someone understand that systems at IBM, not including x86, are pretty critical to the broader portfolio. IBM needs to have a hand in the hardware game. Much of the time, people buy IBM systems... and then software and services (not the other way around). Hardware is the foot in the door. The opposite of Oracle, for instance, where people buy database... and then buy the hardware. Database is the foot in the door.

    No doubt Power is in a tight spot. They have the Unix market locked up, but that market has been shrinking for some time... and IBM lowering prices to compete with x86 also hurts when there isn't growth. Storage is much more viable as a growth candidate, but IBM needs to unleash the development and/or acquisition cash to fill some gaps... around file in particular.

    1. MadMike

      What "broader portfolio" of IBM? IBM has no portfolio left. IBM has sold off almost all hardware. Only POWER and Mainframe and Storage is left. Everything else is sold.

      POWER is next in turn to be axed. This was most probably the last POWER roadmap, no new roadmaps with POWER9 will find its way out of Amarok. Just like last Itanium roadmpa.

      x86 has catched up on POWER8 now. IBM knows that, and IBM foresees that POWER9 will be slower, and cheaper than x86. Why resist? Why not just switch to x86 cpus instead of IBM developing it's own cpu which is slower and also try to be cheaper? No point in doing that.

      BTW, I would like to see a x86 or POWER cpu that does 120GB/sec SQL queries. That would be interesting and put pressure on SPARC M7 cpu.

      1. PowerMan@thinksis

        Spewing talking points there Troll! No portfolio. What systems portfolio does Oracle have? How about HP? Cisco? EMC? Dell? Fujitsu? I would say IBM having the Mainframe with a substantial software and services business is pretty substantial. IBM software has some outstanding products from DB2, Cognos, WebSphere, Guardium, TSM, and a 1000 more - seem substantial to me. IBM storage has entry, mid-range and Enterprise storage; traditional and virtualized solutions. Their Flash technology was the #1 seller in 2013. Used as a standalone it can be paired with any server or any other vendors storage as a read accelerator. Used behind a SVC device, it's competing head to head with Pure and others that are full featured microsecond flash solutions. Power8 outperforms x86 by 2X, SPARC by 3-4X. The Linux on Power servers have price parity with x86, the traditional Scale-out servers are price comparable. These are the 2 socket 24 core servers that match Ivy Bridge 4 socket 60 core servers in performance. Customers that demand maximum reliability, serviceability, consolidation and performance will go with enterprise servers. These servers scale to 192 cores and 16 TB of Ram.

        You keep talking about these 120GB SQL queries Troll. Oracle internal benchmarks I'm guessing?

        1. MadMike

          Power8 outperforms x86 by 2X, SPARC by 3-4X.

          Do you have links proving your claims? For instance, here it says that Intel x86 E7 is twice as fast as POWER7, and POWER8 is also twice as fast as x86, which makes x86 as fast as POWER8. Which means you are wrong. Again,

          http://www.enterprisetech.com/2014/02/21/stacking-xeon-e7-v2-chips-competition/

          The Linux on Power servers have price parity with x86,

          So you agree that POWER8 servers are as cheap as x86 now, making them low margin business. IBM only does high margin bizz. If trend continues with even lower prices than x86, IBM has to kill off POWER.

          These are the 2 socket 24 core servers that match Ivy Bridge 4 socket 60 core servers in performance

          Links please. Above here, you confessed that IBM and IBMers said that SPARC was dead. At the same time there were no credible links confirming this; no interviews with Sun executives, no nothing. This is actually the pure definition of FUD: spreading false negative made up rumours - Fear Uncertainty and Doubt regarding SPARC. So now that you confirmed that IBM and IBM crowd FUDs how can we believe you on this? That is why we all ask for links. Where are the POWER roadmap with POWER9?

          Customers that demand maximum reliability, serviceability, consolidation and performance will go with enterprise servers. These servers scale to 192 cores and 16 TB of Ram.

          You realize that IBM P880 with 16 sockets and 16TB RAM is chicken sh*t? An 8-socket x86 server today has 12TB RAM. And x86 is twice as fast as POWER7, making it in par with POWER8 according to my link here. POWER8 does not scale much more than x86. Why is that? Limitations of the POWER8 architecture?

          You keep talking about these 120GB SQL queries Troll. Oracle internal benchmarks I'm guessing

          No, Oracle executive (Larry or John Fowler?) said this officially on stage when presenting SPARC M7. What do you say if this turns out to be true? What do you say if M7 really do 120GB/sec SQL queries for real? You realize that POWER8 has nothing to counter this?

          1. PowerMan@thinksis

            @MadMike - get a life

            Do you see squirrels and shiny objects? That article uses Intel material that came from their Ivy Bridge announcement. Go figure they made those claims. It is also preposterous. Your extrapolations are wrong again and further damage your credibility.

            The benchmarks are out there. Go look for yourself. SPEC, SAP, Oracle.

            No, I said the Power Linux servers have price parity. This is a volume play by IBM for customers who want the reliability of Power servers which x86, SPARC and Itanium can't touch with a ten foot pole, hypervisor choice of PowerVM, PowerKVM or no hypervisor (yes, never thought I would say that) so they can drive the maximum out of the server while run SuSE or Ubuntu in Little Endian Mode, RedHat (and SuSE) in Big Endian today and LE soon as well as Debian in BE. Just compile x86 source and run it on Power.

            Not sure how you compare the E880 (not P880) to a 8 socket 12 TB x86 server - I've done my best to not call you a Troll here but with idiotic statements like this it makes me think you are just a flame thrower, trouble make.

            Larry and John say a lot of things. They are both full of sh*t - you can tell them the next time you lick their boots. Unless it is a audit able benchmark I don't believe anything they say.

            1. MadMike

              Re: @MadMike - get a life

              PowerMan@thinksis

              That article uses Intel material that came from their Ivy Bridge announcement. Go figure they made those claims. It is also preposterous. Your extrapolations are wrong again and further damage your credibility.

              So you reject that article, because the benches came from Intel. But you insist on us accepting benches from IBM? Where is the difference?

              The benchmarks are out there. Go look for yourself. SPEC, SAP, Oracle.

              Oh, yes, just like the POWER roadmap is out there for me to find, if I look hard enough? IBMers = no links nor benchmarks. No nothing. Just "trust me"

              I've done my best to not call you a Troll here but with idiotic statements like this it makes me think you are just a flame thrower, trouble make

              Calm down, you are loosing it. It makes you look bad when you try to insult others. Regarding the E880. An 12TB RAM server can run things almost as fast as a 16TB RAM server, if the data fits into RAM. An 12TB RAM server is much faster than a 16-socket E880 server with 128GB RAM, because it will need to swap all the time. Having much RAM is more important than having many cpus and less RAM.

  4. naive

    The author is probably right since IBM has a software stack too

    Fact is that power is in a hard place between Arm and x86. In the early 2000's IBM sold power cpu's used in game console and car engine management systems. The competition of Arm will probably have killed this market for IBM.

    IBM also sells storage systems and extensive middleware software solutions like DB2, Websphere, IBM e-commerce, and Tivoli. Dropping computer systems altogether would make their whole business vulnerable to competitors like Oracle, who would still be able to offer a one stop shopping solution.

    Also from a performance point of view. Power8 and perhaps Power9 will for some time offer better single thread performance compared to Intel. Although Intel marketing made most believe that single thread performance is irrelevant compared to more "cores", companies processing millions financial transactions each day using Cobol batchjobs designed in the early 80's might have a different view, and will continue buying z-Series and power Systems.

    Unless they have some revolutionairy plans, hardware will stay, or they will slowly fade away like Unisys did.

    1. danolds

      Re: The author is probably right since IBM has a software stack too

      You bring up a point I should have brought out. When IBM had the chip franchise for all three game consoles, it drove a lot of volume for them. Enough volume to justify continuing and even expanding their fab operations. When the consoles went to AMD, the math changed considerably.

  5. Fenton

    Companies buy software and a neck to throttle

    You would think the underlying hardware would not matter. But it does.

    For highly critical systems, companies will choose a commercial Operating system with an absolute proven track record, scalability and performance.

    So that leaves the usual three, AIX, HPUX and Solaris (will ignore windows for the time being).

    None of my customers are buying HP-UX any more and Itainium is truly dead in my opinion.

    Oracle have lost a lot of trust in the market place (in part due to the HP-UX debacle) and SPARC does not scale as well in single threaded performance as x86 or POWER. Again customers who used to be loyal to Sun are very much looking at IBM for mission critical systems.

    So why not Linux on large x86 servers? x86 does not scale well as socket counts go up, Also there is no longer the single neck to choke when things go wrong. Yes people are buying linux on x86 in droves for application servers and non critical systems and doing it very cheaply thank you.

    Back to Windows, they do not own the hardware stack so again no single supplier to string up.

    1. MadMike

      Re: Companies buy software and a neck to throttle

      SPARC does not scale as well in single threaded performance as x86 or POWER

      Have you heard about Fujitsu SPARC64 Venus cpu? It has only two threads per core, and they are very strong in the 64-socket M10-4S server. Also, Oracle's SPARC can nowadays dedicate an entire core, to a single thread. On the fly. So the SPARC core can have massive throughput or single strong threads.

      Regarding scaling, IBM scales only to 16-socket with their POWER8 nowadays, P880. It has only 16 TB RAM. x86 scales to 8-sockets and having 12TB RAM. Not much of a difference to the largest POWER8 server P880. They play roughly in the same ballpark today RAM wise. And cpu wise, the fastest x86 are twice as fast as POWER7. And POWER8 is also twice as fast as POWER7. Which means that x86 and POWER8 are roughly equal in performance. Except that x86 has more RAM.

      Whereas SPARC scales to 64 sockets and 32TB RAM today, and next year will have 64TB RAM. And 8.192 threads. And a single SPARC M7 cpu will do SQL queries at 120GB/sec. Let us see POWER8 or x86 try to match that, what do they achieve now? 1 GB/sec queries? Or even 5 GB/sec? Anyone know? Do they climb over the 5GB/sec fence? Any DB admin that can chime in here?

      .

      BTW, I like the statement from Anonymous Coward below: "the advantage of not updating AIX is that you dont have to recertify your software". Wow, I never heard that one before. Maybe Microsoft should try that one? Or how about this one (also from IBM): "No one cares about performance anymore, Oracle's superior performance claims are so 2000ish". Yes, its true! LOL!

      http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/03/27/ibm-fires-back-at-oracle-after-server-attacks/

      "...Companies today, IBM Parris argued, have different priorities than the raw speed of chips..."

      How about SPARC M7 detecting buffer overflows and what not, then? Heartbleed bug would have been stopped dead in its tracks. Not even Coverity could detect Heartbleed bug (now they added that functionality recently). Besides SPARC M7 being more than twice as fast as POWER8, it is much safer too. Of course, if we talk about SQL queries, then M7 is probably 10x faster or even more. I doubt an entire 16-socket IBM P880 server can reach 120GB/sec. I would not be surprised if a single SPARC M7 cpu is faster than an entire P880.

      1. PowerMan@thinksis

        Re: Companies buy software and a neck to throttle

        Happy Troll? I wasn't going to respond to you but you've sucked me in because that is what you do with your crap! Let's look at some SAP S&D Tier 2 benchmarks and put your "Awesome" M10-4S into perspective shall we? The 640 core (wow, that's big - it must be the Worlds Fastest) delivers a whopping 239 Users per core along with 1319 SAPS per core. The "More Awesome" 128 core T5-8" is 312 Users per core and 1726 SAPS per core. The "Most Awesome" 384 core M6-32 and it's 1 of only 2 public benchmarks delivers 365 Users per core and 2067 SAPS per core. Wow - SPARC is AWESOME - Can't wait for the M7 which will be 4X.

        Power8, Troll delivers this today: The 80 core E870 for the SAP S&D 2 tier is 996 Users per core or 5425 SAPS per core while the 24 core 2 socket S824 delivers 883 users per core and 4828 SAPS per core. because I can't trust you to get this right I'll spell it out for you Troll. The E870 is 4.1x greater than the M10-4S you cited. What do the you think the chances are the 192 core E880 will smoke the 1024 M10-4S? Yeah, pretty damn good. The 2 socket S824 beats the 8 socket T5-8 by 2.8x.

        I can cite many, many examples Troll in many areas the games you and Oracle play to confuser readers. What you do is piss them off because they get frustrated by this kind of crap. Crap by my rants and crap by your lies. Because IBM calls a core a processor and Oracle calls a processor a chip or socket you will say "Our 8 processor beats IBM's 8 processor by 8X. Really? That is 8 cores vs 64 cores - sleep well at night Troll if that is how you have to sell your products. I just show customers how Power controls their software licensing costs. How it is the most secure platform on the planet short of the mainframe. Virtualization without limits.

        And the comment about AIX not recertifying is definitely valid Troll. ISV's don't like to retest their software. By IBM releasing TL's to AIX 6.1 and 7.1 they reduce the rate of change on ISV's which means customers get the benefits of new platform enhancements without having to recertify the software stack. Since you are in Oracle marketing I can understand why these operational annoyances wouldn't mean anything to you since you haven't been in the trenches before.

        1. MadMike

          Re: Companies buy software and a neck to throttle

          Hello Troll hunter

          You have some nice numbers there. Do you have links too so you can give us the SAP benchmarks for the Fujitsu vs IBM POWER8. That would be interesting, who has the fastest servers? SPARC or POWER? I am not interested in core per core, nor GHz per GHz, nor Bandwidth vs bandwidth, etc.

          Just give us the SAP benchmark numbers and dont modify the benchmarks to make them look good.

          1. PowerMan@thinksis

            Re: Companies buy software and a neck to throttle

            Dude, the SAP S&D 2 tier benchmark site is not a secret. Anybody can look at it. Why do I need to provide a link? Here - http://global.sap.com/solutions/benchmark/sd2tier.epx What you need to see is not a "Fast" result from Fujitsu or Oracle from "Aggregated" result for lots of weak technology. That is why Oracle is releasing a 1024 core M7. If they could make a killer 256 core M7 they would but they can't. All they can do is make lots of little Timex watch cores, glue them together, add up their individual performance numbers to get the number they desire so Larry can pound his chest saying "I will be like IBM". Wow, pathetic! 883 and 996 is all you need to know. That is the # of Users per core for Power8.

            1. MadMike

              Re: Companies buy software and a neck to throttle

              PowerMan@thinksis

              Wow, pathetic! 883 and 996 is all you need to know. That is the # of Users per core for Power8.

              I am sure companies prefer servers with the highest SAP capacity. What good does a single core server do with a very high core SAP number? Let us say one single core server reaches SAP 2000 users. And another server has 1024 cores, each core serves 500 users - now which server do you think companies prefer if they need to do SAP work?

              Companies look for the total server throughput, in case you did not know.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just a few things..

    Well now, this turned into a diatribe very quickly.. anyway, a few little things...

    1. I would agree with the Anonymous Coward post regarding the portfolio and caution MadMike not to only think of a portfolio as being hardware. Selling solutions is much more profitable to a corporation that simply shifting tin, and a solution should contain the "portfolio" - hardware, software, services and consulting, and support.

    2. I like Mr Olds original opinion and think it's a perfectly valid view on things, and is a completely possible option, but I also note that big corporations are hard to predict sometimes.

    3. The use of the term "Fast" and "catched up" (sic) is a bit of a trickier one to fathom as well: If you talk about core speed, then it's never really been that much of a competition - Intel clock speeds have always been faster. However the important things in Mr Olds original article relate more to the number of threads per core (8 in POWER8 versus 2 in x86) and the size of fast chip cache (large L1, L2 and L3 and an L4 which intel haven't got yet). These tend to make more difference in throughput for applications such as databases than pure clock speed.

    4. The advantage, by the way, of not releasing a new version of AIX is that you don't have to re-certify all your key business apps against the new OS, and thereby slow people's (and specifically company's) adoption of the new hardware. And with something like Logical Partition Mobility (LPM, a bit like Vmotion for POWER systems) you can simply migrate from your old box to a new one, and know that the vendor (oracle, SAP etc) will still support you. Besides, with a limited selection of hardware that you have to support, releasing a maintenance level to allow for the new hardware capabilities is a lot less buggy and frustrating than having to release a whole other OS, which then has to support every PCI card ever built :-)

    5. Oh, and do also bear in mind that POWER supports AIX, various flavours of Linux but also iSeries OS, the demise of which has been predicted for decades :-D

    1. danolds

      Re: Just a few things..

      Hey, no need for "Mr Olds", we're all pals here, call me Dan, or Mr. Dan if you insist on some level of formality.

      Good comments above, particularly your points about solutions vs. selling parts of a solution. I've been in the business for 20 years now and one thing I know is that selling an entire solution is much more profitable than just selling the parts. The very highest deals, in fact, are those that begin with a business consulting engagement. If a company can successfully diagnose a problem or discover an opportunity on the business side, then their technical solution to that problem/opportunity, despite a high price tag, is almost unassailable by less well-informed competitors.

      Bottom line: Solutions = $$

      1. MadMike

        Re: Just a few things..

        @danolds

        I've been in the business for 20 years now and one thing I know is that selling an entire solution is much more profitable than just selling the parts

        This is true. That is why Oracle are selling their engineered database boxes.

        The very highest deals, in fact, are those that begin with a business consulting engagement. If a company can successfully diagnose a problem or discover an opportunity on the business side, then their technical solution to that problem/opportunity, despite a high price tag, is almost unassailable by less well-informed competitors. Bottom line: Solutions = $$

        This is also very true. IBM consulting team hopes to drive sales. But future IBM sales will be based on x86 and Linux. It will be much cheaper than developing their own OS and CPU (that are only slightly better than x86 and Linux).

        1. Hargrove

          Re: Just a few things--through a glass darkly.

          Looking at their TV ads and reading between the lines of their actions, it appears that IBM has concluded that future profit margins lie in the clouds and services. If so, they are effectively placing a large bet on a widely accepted vision of the future, one where clients get thinner and all data is stored and manipulated in massive cloud computing centers.

          The presumptions underlying reliance on massively parallel aggregations of commodity processors--specifically their reliability when used 24 x 7--are suspect. A few months back I did an admittedly cursory Google scan of the literature. I concluded that industry is aware of the issues (electro-migration and the tin of whisker growth in ROHS compliant components, to name two). However, the analyses I was able to find on life cycle costs of construction and operation of large server complexes did not address microprocessor replacement.

          I just tried to replicate this analysis and failed. Information that was (relatively) easy to find a few months is completely buried under an avalanche of what amounts to competing marketing information, that obscure more than they enlighten. Whether or not IBM's is betting on a winning hand is likely to depend cards that are still to be dealt.

          As Neils Bohr is famously reported to have observed, "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future."

        2. PowerMan@thinksis

          Re: Just a few things..

          Just making stuff up as you go along are you Troll? Before you commented how IBM had gotten out of the x86 business but now suddenly IBM consulting will make money off of x86 with Linux....cause it worked so well before.

  7. This post has been deleted by its author

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Non-intelligence

    Your analysis of what the "smart" play would be forgets one important factor; this is ***IBM*** we're talking about. IBM as in "Itty-Bitty Morons". "Intelligence" is not a commodity in great supply at IBM. Guarantee that if there is a stupid decision to be made, IBM will be making it.

  9. PowerMan@thinksis

    Need to know who @MadMike is

    All, I want to apologize to the average reader who has had to endure my rant against @MadMike (not to be confused with @Mad Mike). @MadMike as seen at this article http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2014/09/29/ellison_sparc_m7/ and many, many, many more articles all over the web looks for articles on technology, usually SPARC and Power to not only bash Power technologies but flat out lie about it. He/She does so with no shame or regard for the impact it has on the reader nor your desire to obtain information or participate in a cordial discussion.

    I worked at Sun for 10 years, IBM for 4 years, an instructor in the Army on primarily SunOS and Solaris and now work for a IT BP where I run our Power practice. I enjoy technology, desire competition and respect competitors. I don't suffer liars and cheaters very well. There are some vendors, sellers and fanboi's who will do and say anything to advance their cause. I answer to a higher power (different One this time) and strive to keep my scales balanced. Proverbs 20:23

    1. MadMike

      Re: Need to know who @MadMike is

      I enjoy technology, desire competition and respect competitors. I don't suffer liars and cheaters very well.

      But you confessed in a post above here, that IBM and the IBM crowd said that "SPARC was dead" with no links to back that up. For instance, there were no interviews from Sun executives saying that they were going to kill off SPARC. In short, this is pure FUD (spreading false negative made up rumours). So, how can you dont "suffer liars and cheaters"?

      1. PowerMan@thinksis

        Re: Need to know who @MadMike is

        SPARC is dead. Oracle's goal is to sell crap whitebox x86 servers that cost them little while they layer tons of expensive software on top of it then stick a label on the outside called "ExaSomething". Oracle is a software company. It makes sense. I don't blame them. That is there identity. Sun and SPARC is a mindshare and reputation they can leverage to sell the other products. The traditional SPARC servers from Sun (i.e. UltraSPARC) as they began OEM'ing Fujitsu's variation of SPARC. Further, they bought Afara WebSystems to get the Niagara processor which is the genesis of the T5. So, if you look at what Oracle is peddling today, SPARC is dead. If you want to stand on the fact that a SPARC derivative exists running Solaris, fine. It's a decent chip for the T series. It finally doesn't suck after the first 3 generations did. It roughly has the per core performance of the P5/P6 servers and with the exception of having 4-8X as many cores as everybody else so you can have massive numbers it doesn't hold a candle to any competitive solution. There are benchmarks and every one can be dissected and dismembered with ease because Oracle uses games like "per incident support" and using 1 year licenses instead of perpetual licenses because lots of customers buy 1 year licenses don't they? No, I'll stick by my statement. Oracle is a cheater and liar. Hitch your horse to them if you like.

        1. MadMike

          Re: Need to know who @MadMike is

          PowerMan@thinksis

          SPARC is dead.

          This is pure FUD when you say this to your customers. Do you have anything to back this up? Interviews from Oracle or Sun executives? Or did you just make this up? Just like IBMers chanted all the time: "SPARC is dead" spreading FUD?

          If you want to stand on the fact that a SPARC derivative exists running Solaris, fine.

          In case you did not know, SPARC M6 is alive and well. And next year SPARC M7 arrives. It will be at last twice as fast as POWER8 in general. And in SQL queries it will be at least 10x faster than POWER8, or maybe even 20x faster?

          It's a decent chip for the T series. It finally doesn't suck after the first 3 generations did

          Well the 2nd generation SPARC T2+ beat the sh*t out of POWER6 in SIEBEL v8 benchmarks. You need fourteen POWER6 cpus running at 4.7GHz to match four SPARC T2+ cpus running at 1.6GHz. I dont know what IBM POWER6 architects did, but it is awfully bad in some aspects. So you are wrong here again.

          For instance, you need thirteen (no typo) CELL cpus at 3.2GHz to match one single SPARC T2+ in string pattern matching. Second generation SPARC beat the sh*t out of CELL too, on this.

          1. PowerMan@thinksis

            Re: Need to know who @MadMike is

            First off I don't talk about SPARC's demise to customers - only on these forums in response to ongoing, incessant, nonsensical rants. They (customers) are the ones who tell me about it. I am happy to tell someone who will listen (hint hint) all of the things the Power platform does great and if asked contrast that to competitive platforms. I don't need to disparage competitive platforms to customers to make Power look better; it's capabilities speak for itself. I know you enjoy attacking and tearing Power apart because you fear it and it threatens what you know and like. Understandable.

            Don't care about M6 other than Power8 E870 delivers almost 4X the number of SAP Users per core. That translates into less software licenses and cost while doing more work on each processor. Stronger cores make for more efficiency. Yes, that is like light to a vampire isn't it Count Dracula?

            With regard to M7 - I'll take the bet now that M7 won't be twice as fast as Power8....not on a per core basis. Do you see the theme yet? Not moving off of it. Since SPARC can no longer make powerful computers they have to make big computers so they can aggregate the individual pieces to claim victory - pitiful really. If the M7 shows up, we will see what public benchmarks are released that have current competitive results for comparison and not Oracle internal benchmarks or obscure benchmarks where the last Power result was a Power5 595 from 2007.

            On your last T2+ and Cell comment - it's time to take your medicine again. The shadows are coming out and beginning to attack you.

            1. MadMike

              Re: Need to know who @MadMike is

              PowerMan@thinksis

              I know you enjoy attacking and tearing Power apart because you fear it and it threatens what you know and like. Understandable.

              Well, if the IBM crowd had not spread so much FUD about SPARC ("SPARC is dead", etc) and other cpus during the years, none of my posts would have been written. "What comes around, goes around". But it is always funnier to attack others, right? Suddenly when I post links about IBM says AIX is going to be killed, all over the place - it is not fun anymore right? The difference is that IBM crowd FUDs and make up lies. I do not, I only post links from IBM, etc. So when you spread FUD it is ok. When someone links to IBM - it is not ok. Right?

              Don't care about M6 other than Power8 E870 delivers almost 4X the number of SAP Users per core. That translates into less software licenses and cost while doing more work on each processor. Stronger cores make for more efficiency.

              So you acknowledge that SPARC M6 exists? So SPARC is not dead anymore? Are you contradicting yourself again?

              Regarding core talk. A company buys servers looking at business gains. If one cheaper server can serve 10.000 users, and another server only has 16-sockets and can only serve 5,000 users - which server do you think provides the most business advantage? You tell me.

              With regard to M7 - I'll take the bet now that M7 won't be twice as fast as Power8....not on a per core basis.

              So you admit M7 might be twice as fast as POWER8, cpu wise? So the M7 cpu might be a twice as fast as a POWER8 cpu. In my book, that makes the M7 cpu twice as fast as POWER8 cpu. But not in your book, because POWER8 might have faster cores. Even if POWER8 core is faster, it does not carry over to make the POWER8 cpu twice as fast.

              Have you heard about comparing apples to oranges? You reason about apples, and try to make everyone believe about oranges too. That is faulty logic.

              On your last T2+ and Cell comment - it's time to take your medicine again. The shadows are coming out and beginning to attack you.

              But these benchmarks exists, you really do need fourteen POWER6 cpus to match four SPARC T2+ cpus. Am I crazy for have studied these benchmarks? I can give you links, so you can study them too - which also will make you crazy. Everybody that study a benchmark where SPARC beats POWER are crazy. Well, that is perfect and fine IBM logic. "Have you studied the SPARC T2+ benchmark SIEBEL v8? Then you are a tainted soul and crazy!"

              1. PowerMan@thinksis

                Re: Need to know who @MadMike is

                I'm just going with "You are crazy"!

                1. MadMike

                  Re: Need to know who @MadMike is

                  You're welcome. :-)

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