Cost-cutting Power7 Express Servers From IBM

IBM is rolling out four entry-level servers based on Power7 processors designed for small enterprises and businesses with IT budget constraints.

The Power Systems Express server models 710, 720, 730 and 740 are based on the Power7 chip architecture the company announced in August.

High Capacity, Low Price

Available through IBM Business partners, the servers promise high computing capacities at an affordable price. They start under $6,500 and, depending on actual financing rates, a 36-month lease of the Power Systems Express server model 710 can come to a mere $188 a month, according to IBM.

Capable of running up to 30,000 different applications, the systems are designed to help businesses consolidate their hardware within the data centre. By getting rid of excess machines, businesses can reduce their overall IT bills and conserve energy. IBM has claimed energy reductions of up to 75 percent of equivalent performance capacity.

Designed to be scalable and flexible, the servers will be tailored by IBM’s channel partners for workload-intensive industries such as healthcare, mobile telecommunications and transportation.

The single-socket Power 710 is racked as a 2U (3.5-inch) unit and the similar Power 730 has two sockets. The Power 720 and 740 4U (7-inch) servers come in both rack and tower configurations. The two systems offer large memory capacities and internal storage, which solution providers can use for distributed applications, midsize databases and consolidation.

IBM has said in the past the Power7 technology supports four times as many processor cores as prior systems and uses the latest PowerVM virtualisation software to enable customers to run more than 1,000 virtual servers on a single physical system.

The Power7 Express servers are part of IBM’s latest line of affordable technology for midsize businesses. The company announced both high-end and entry-level Power7 systems in August, such as the high-end IBM Power 795 system and a Power7 processor-based workload-optimised Smart Analytics System that helps businesses draw real-time information from large amounts of data.

IBM is working to grab more market share in the $14 billion Unix server space from Hewlett-Packard and Oracle. HP and Intel have the next-generation Itanium processor and Oracle gained Sun’s market share through acquisition.