Recently, IBM formally announced the Power11 line of servers to the public through a global announcement of the product line that included a live broadcast.
The unveiling of IBM Power11 was an event not to be missed. However, not for the reasons many of us thought.
Over the years, IBM has advanced and updated the Power platform. The new release announcements have always focused on innovative features and improvements to the hardware/compute platform.
Each time a new Power processor line rolls out, we are shocked by the increases delivered related to Relative Performance (rPerf) and Commercial Processing Workload (CPW), along with the accompanying advancements in the memory technologies of the new processor line.
The capacities of the processor core counts, along with the performance metrics, have increased dramatically, roughly 50% over the previous generation. We saw this level of increase with Power8 through Power10, as noted in the chart below that compares Sx22 models with CPW values used for comparison.
| Model | # Cores | GHz | LPAR Size # Cores | CPW | CPW Per Core (estimated on 4 cores) | % Increase Over Previous Generation |
| S822 | 4 | 3.89 | 4 | 45,220 | 11,305 | N/A |
| S922 | 4 | 3.4-3.9 | 4 | 68,000 | 17,000 | 50.38% |
| S1022s | 8 | 3.0-3.9 | 4 | 106,300 | 26,575 | 56.32% |
| S1122 | 8 | 3.05-4.0 | 4 | 123,400 | 30,850 | 16.09% |
You may note that this performance improvement has dropped off, with the Power11 comparison model only showing a 16% increase. The performance gain in pure processor compute is not as dramatic when compared to past generations. However, this “speeds and feeds” viewpoint does not tell the full Power11 story.
One of the first things to note about the Power11 lineup is the increased potential for more cores. If you look at the S1124 model, which is a workhorse for many organizations, there are up to 60 processor cores available to configure and use for your Power compute needs, an increase over the 48 cores offered on Power10 model S1024.
More cores give you more flexibility to configure your partitions for the workloads needed to run and potentially get more done on a single server model at a lower cost per tier.
The same comparison can be made between the S1122 model at 30 cores and the S1022 models that peaked at 20 cores. These core offerings, along with better memory bandwidth usages in the DDR5 memory chips, give an organization more capability with Power11 than what they may have experienced with Power10 -- and certainly more than Power9 offerings -- at a lower cost potential in same physical footprint as the previous generations.
Getting beyond the hardware aspects (“the speeds and feeds”), IBM’s announcements highlighted some other business needs and functionalities that are often overlooked. A factor that affects all organizations is the dreaded downtime scenario.
The IBM Power platform has always been known for its reliability. As part of the announcements, IBM provided some insight into the Power11 platform’s ability to achieve 99.9999% (6 nines) of system uptime. In case you don’t want to do the math: this level of availability translates into 31.5 seconds per year of downtime.
Part of this reliability stems from advancements that potentially eliminate the downtime needed for maintenance on the Power11 system. IBM provides solutions for maintenance operations that include autonomous patching and automated workload movement through Live Partition Mobility on the Power11 platforms that help achieve 6 nines of availability. Not only that, but an organization can get back the time its IT staff usually spends patching systems.
Another aspect of Power11 that is separate from the core “speeds and feeds” is the focus on AI integration. The Power11 chips continue to have the on-chip capabilities introduced in Power10, along with the newly announced IBM Spyre Accelerator card.
Combined with RedHat OpenShift AI and ISV/open-source markets, the Power11 platform is poised to help organizations either enhance their AI stance or introduce AI. IBM is pulling in their watsonx platforms, as well as providing new tools, such as IBM watsonx Code Assistant for i, to help modernize and enhance code development for organizations.
Security aspects of the Power11 platform cannot be overlooked. Stating that the Power11 chips are quantum-ready is a bit of an understatement.
IBM has incorporated the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST)-approved built-in quantum-safe cryptography to help protect the platform and the data that is part of the system. The system firmware has integrity protections built in to confirm that the system only boots to a safe and verified firmware on the platform.
When you add in the IBM Cyber Vault solution, you have a cyber-resilient platform that can detect ransomware in less than 1 minute and then help you through the recovery processes.
Using IBM Storage, these resilient processes can include proactive immutable snapshots of your data that are captured, stored, and even tested, all managed through the Cyber Vault solution.
Last, but not least, the Power11 platform is offering better energy efficiency than ever before. While we see the need for high compute power, that power typically comes at the cost of energy expenditure.
IBM gives customers more flexibility in their energy consumption while delivering twice the performance per core of comparable x86 servers. Power11 servers include a new Energy Efficient Mode that allows the server to reduce the power on cores when less compute power is needed versus Maximum Performance mode. With Resource Groups for shared processor configurations, organizations can gain more efficiency in core performance.
So, what’s all the hype about if IBM Power11 isn’t delivering dramatic “speeds and feeds” increases as in previous generations?
The truth is that, while compute power is a big factor in making organizations run, IBM is switching lanes to offer more.
The enhancements around Power11 are more than just compute. In creating Power11, IBM focused on the solutions needed to help propel businesses forward with AI, efficiency, and growth around their organizations. Power11 is helping to reduce complexity in maintaining IT workloads, as well as enhancing the security of the systems and data.
So, yeah, Power11 is a big deal. Just in more ways than we might have originally thought.
As a Platinum IBM Business Partner, ProActive Solutions has deep expertise in IBM Power Servers. We offer consultative services and engineering expertise related to IBM Power as part of our Compute Infrastructure Capabilities.
Find out whether moving to IBM Power11 is the right move for your company. Request a consultation from ProActive Solutions.