IBM Power Systems Reviews

We primarily use the solution for its use as a bank and commercial solution. We use it for core banking and for day-to-day work on the DBA, the database.

The performance is the solution's most valuable asset. It has one of the highest levels of performance I have ever seen. It's quite remarkable, in that sense.

The memory is great. We can have a huge amount of memory. However, the main reason to work with the solution is the performance, since inter-servers cannot be compared with the cores of both systems.

The PowerVC make it so simple since we can deal with it just like VMware, just like virtual machines, and it's really simple.

The solution is currently working on the old PowerVCs. We welcome this improvement.

It would be ideal if the solution was more simple to work with. 

The initial setup is difficult.

I've been dealing with the solution for about two years now.

I haven't found the solution to have any stability problems. I don't think I can recall dealing with bugs or glitches that disrupted our work. The system doesn't freeze or crash. It's quite reliable and offers great performance.

Scaling the solution is possible and would be quite easy. Companies that need to scale up can do so with this IBM product.

We've had to reach out to technical support in the past. The level of service they offer has been quite good. We've been very happy with them so far.

The initial setup is not straightforward. It's quite complex, especially for those implementing it for the first time. While it will never be simple, per se, it does get easier the more setups you end up performing.

A non-tech person would simply not be able to handle the implementation. You will need someone that's knowledgable.

Not just the implementation, but the registration, and many other parts of the deployment take a rather long time. It's not a quick process. If we're just talking about the installation with servers, you are looking at four or five days right there. However, if you factor in migration or other administrations, you are looking at a one to three-month deployment timeframe.

We're partners. We have a business relationship with IBM.

I'd advise others considering the product that, while it is pricy, you can't beat the performance you get on it.

I'd recommend the solution for big databases and high-performance applications.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. If it wasn't so complex, I'd give the solution higher marks. Most people nowadays look for simplicity and they want to have non-technical people deal with everything, just like a cloud solution. However, you need someone specialized in order to handle it.

While the solution is quite expensive, the level of service provided is second to none. It makes it worth the price.

We tend to use the on-premises deployment model as cloud versions are not very popular in Jordan.

We primarily sell the solution to clients.

Faster. We use JDE 9.1, and from the time that we started using the POWER8 hardware and processors, we could see a big difference in the processing for the JDE 9.1.

From an IT perspective, on my side of the systems, we don't have the JDE CNC team down on us all the time trying to blame everything on the system running too slow. Now they can't blame it on us because everything's so fast, they're just amazed by it.

We're in oil and gas and I think, right now, we're on the top of our competitors with the systems that we've had. From some of the other companies I've talked to, they're still using old IBM systems or they've gone to other platforms.

The CPU. It could always get faster. Pricing's always an issue - with every company; it could always be better.

A year and a half, roundabout.

On a scale of one to 10 - I've been doing this for 30 year's - I'd give it a ten, being the best. They're always there. They're always available. When the other platforms are going down, and they're working on them all the time, mine's always up. When the other platforms are having security issues, no one's getting into mine.

Very good. Sometimes.

I have one thing that I have a problem with, it's when they outsourced everything to India. I would rather have gum surgery than get on the phone and talk to somebody to try to put me with a technical consultant. Whenever I do get someone who picks up the phone here in the USA, I think, "This is going to go quick." It just never does when I get someone else, and my colleagues feel the same way.

We were using the POWER7 and moved up to the POWER8, because our contract was running out and we got a pretty good deal to move up to POWER8 hardware.

It was complex. We had IBM lab services come do it for us rather than our business partner, and it went well.

We see a return on investment from the move to POWER8.

Only IBM, for now.

We're using POWER8 with IBM i.

It let's me work more efficiently. Keeps me around a lot longer.

I consider IBM to be market leader in servers. To remain a market leader in the servers sector they need to keep doing what they're doing. I think they're going in the right direction.

IBM Power Systems is used for the core banking applications. We have accounts with financial enterprises in Egypt. We propose this solution if you are a bank, you are upgrading or migrating bank applications from Oracle or other vendors, and you would like to have a stable platform in terms of hardware and software.

We value the stability and technology capability of this solution the most. It is very stable, and the processor technology of IBM is very good. When you have a CIO and you are dealing with C-level every day, you can, without any doubt, support the core banking or critical applications with this solution. 

Its management can be made easier because it is not easy to manage. They should also find a new way for migrating from an old Power Systems to a new one. The migration process is currently very complicated.

It should be made easier to scale. Currently, its scalability depends on the initial sizing, whereas in Nutanix HCI, you can add whatever you need and whenever you need it.

I have been using this solution for one year.

It is a very stable platform in terms of hardware and software.

Scalability is there, but it depends on the initial sizing. You need to plan for scalability from the beginning because it depends on the series of our systems, processors, and the number of processors that have been activated during the implementation. So, it depends on the sizing, whereas with Nutanix HCI, you can add whatever you need and whenever you need it.

It is usually focused on enterprise customers. In our company, we have around 20 to 25 users. We plan to increase its usage.

I don't contact their support team, but based on the experience of our team, they are usually supportive. Our team doesn't seem to have any issue with IBM technical support. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

I am into sales, and I don't implement Power Systems. Based on the experience of our technical team, the initial set up usually goes smoothly. The issue comes only while migrating from the old one to the new one. For the whole migration, which included the initial setup and testing, it took at least six months.

We upgraded Power Systems from version 7 to version 9, and we worked with the IBM team during the implementation phase. We successfully completed its implementation with their help.

Its price depends on the sizing.

We evaluate Oracle Exadata or Nutanix HCI. For a huge sizing, we go for Power Systems. For a small sizing, we can use an Intel-based solution. Nowadays, some of the core banking applications are moving to the Intel platform, and that's why we are recommending Intel-based solutions, but IBM Power Systems is still a number one solution. It is our preferred platform for core banking applications.

Before starting the implementation, I would advise others to take enough time in planning its implementation, especially the sizing.

I would rate IBM Power Systems a seven out of ten.

We like the virtualization, PowerVM, the live partition mobility, and dynamically adding the processors and the memory. Also AIX. The beauty of AIX is really something to be admired. AIX is a very useful operating system. The volume management is really good.

I have been using POWER5, POWER6, POWER7, and then we transferred onto POWER8. We really have reduced our billing cycles from days to hours. 

Secondly, it is really good for billing jobs. It is reducing our time. We used to do billing in multiple days, now have reduced it to hours. That's great.

The HMC and PowerVM need a more catchy graphical interface. 

Secondly, the command line interfaces should be converted into graphical interfaces. It is such a complex thing in making LPARs when you are using it through a wire server. It should be easy rather than be complicated. I'll give an example of the graphical interface. The V7000 is really great. Anyone can use it, there's no complexity in there. PowerVM and the VIOS interfaces should be like the V7000.

Every two years we have to buy a new server. It is kind of complex, because we have to compare it with Oracle servers. We have to do RFPs. We have to service both the servers, both the technologies, and then everything goes under pricing.

We continuously engage with IBM for different service requests. 

It's good. There are a few different kinds of support available in our area, Premium Services and the Remote Services. We usually use the Remote Services. We just open a ticket and give them the logs and they give us a solution.

They are helpful.

No. We are already invested in IBM, so we won't go towards anything else. We have lots of investment in IBM equipment. We are certified with IBM equipment as well as for hardware and software support by IBM.

We have been using IBM the last 15 years or so, and the performance that IBM servers are giving us is really good. Secondly, in our geographical area, it's the support. IBM has got good support. And the workloads we do have in our environment, IBM has got the equipment which can handle those workloads.

Regarding upgrades it's a tricky game. It's a complex thing, because in our environment when something is running smoothly we don't want to stop it or give it downtime. We try to keep it running as long as we can. So in this way we sometime miss the upgrades, we don't upgrade it. But we are now focusing on the upgrades in a timely manner, rather than waiting for years and years. We are working on that.

My rating of nine out of 10 is for the hardware. However, the software still has lots of issues. For example, we need to upgrade the software very frequently, so I'd give it seven out of 10.

In Pakistan, IBM is a market leader, and to maintain that position the main thing is support. If the support guys are good - the people who are managing the accounts for enterprise organizations - are good they are very much in contact with the organization, keeping it informed about the new technologies and the new offerings. These certainly can help in keeping IBM's position right now in the server industry.

I would say the converged feature. You can have all of your storage, your processing, your database, everything in the one platform, and all under IBM. That's the best part of it. 

It has helped them improve in a lot of ways. It has improved their efficiency as well as their scalability, from a growth perspective. They want to add more servers, more processing power, things like that. They can be much more easily done now.

I would say that in general we would prefer it if the software was more transparent, in terms of how you are using it. 

Right now it depends on the level of the system and how much more you might have to pay for the same software. And being a cloud provider, we get into a lot of situations where our customers might need just a fraction of a processor, but they still have to pay for a bigger portion of the software costs.

We have been providing this for the last 15 years.

Upgrading from POWER7 to POWER8 was not a big deal. It was pretty straightforward, I would say. Going from version 5.4 to a 6, that was more of a challenge, but now it is pretty stable. We have some partitions running 7.3, some running 7.2 version. All over the map.

Scalability is great. With the VIOS, the Power and the Power platform, we can virtualize. We can create many more LPARs.

It is definitely a more flexible solution, compared to earlier versions. You want to be able to cater to multiple customers on one particular system. We have dozens of systems running in our environment right now.

Back in the day, it used to be more hardware-centric. Now, with the software version, it is much easier for us to create multiple partitions. We may run a POWER8 system with 20 cores, and we could have, maybe, 30 customers on that one box by slicing and dicing it. So it is pretty good, from that perspective.

We are the service provider and so we have the IBM i at every level in the cloud. This is pretty much due to the demand from the customers. It's not us, it's really our customers asking for it.

We also work with other solutions. We do everything; we do Windows, Linux, AIX, as well as IBM i. All different platforms. 

Compared to Intel, Power is a much more stable solution. Security is also much better. Compared to the other platforms, Power definitely has more capabilities.

There are not many companies in the US who can provide the IBM i platform in the cloud so we are uniquely positioned in being able to cater to that particular requirement of our customers.

I would consider IBM to be a market leader from the Power side, but not in other areas. I think they were getting there but they made a big mistake by selling the PureFlex to Lenovo.

I am happy with the performance. Now that we are moving to Linux on Power, I'm really surprised at how fast it is, compared to AIX, seeing them side by side. Linux doesn't have all of the wrapping around it that AIX does to provide various security measures and things of that nature, so it can run much faster.

The improvements that I would like to see are probably the same as what everyone else wants, more speed, less electricity and less HVAC required to run it.

We have been using POWER8 since it came out in 2014. We are using POWER8 and POWER7. We are really off of six at this point. I am just waiting for POWER9 now.

Well, from what I have done with it, it's pretty nice and very easy to do all that.

Excellent, really excellent. They try really hard to make sure the tech guys who are going to do the service and support are brought up to speed before it goes out and hits the market. Although they can only go so far with that and some things just have to be learned once it's out in the field, it's pretty impressive how ready they are when it hits the market.

Upgrading the hardware from one version to another was pretty simple but the software, not so much.

This doesn't really apply to me, but I certainly think the customers are seeing ROI in their move from seven to eight. I don't know anybody who moved to eight and said, "Darn, I wish I had stuck with seven." They seem to be pretty happy and that's usually the best measure, right?

I didn't get to choose, it's the platform that I was given to work on. But if I had to choose, I'd probably choose Power anyway. I like that it's not Intel because we have a monoculture in CPU's.

We are on AIX and we're starting to move to Power Linux. That's new for us this year. It's marketing requirements. The customers are voting, they are requesting it.

The UNIX market, in general, is shrinking and Linux is not considered UNIX. I'm not sure it's so similar, but it's a different kernel. They don't want to go to Windows either, so you're running out of choices so they move to Linux. If we want to stay viable, we have to do that as well. 

AIX will always have a spot. If you look at the history of all the problems with these platforms, Linux, in its young life, already has way more than AIX. If that's your thing, if you want it to be rock solid, then you are going to stick with AIX forever, as long as you possibly can. But a lot of people are making the jump, a jump into Linux. We are jumping too.

The Open Power Foundation has brought about advances by introducing new ideas. As I mentioned earlier with the monoculture thing, you get the same group of people who work on these things forever and they are really smart, they get out and they read books, and they get all the information they can, but you really need that stimulus from outside. You need to come to conferences, you need to get around and involved with more people. That is why Opensource works so well. It's the same idea. You need that diversity of opinion and thought to really get the best out of it. I think if we are going to see really big leaps forward on the Power platform, it's going to come from that.

I definitely think that IBM is a market leader in the server sector. I think what they need to do is stick with the open approach that they have adopted over the years. That is really the only way that works anymore. I think the days of enterprise companies being completely closed are just about gone and I'm glad they are. You just get so much better work out of the community.

I just like the levels of redundancy that are there. Your power's redundant, your pathing's redundant. You can split up your buses, split up your expansion units. It's hard to take those boxes down, really. So, if they are up they'll run for years.

One other thing I really like is how they are going to integrate the HMCs into the frames now, so you don't have a standalone appliance, it's just built into the frame. I haven't worked with anything like that yet but hopefully soon.

One of the big things I've seen is that you can dynamically move devices or processor memory, capacity on demand, things like that. We actually just used the CUoD feature this past year. We enabled four more cores on our server. It kinda got us out of a gray spot.

For me, as an AS/400 I series guy, I think there's a lot of benefits to that OS. I think a lot of users really like it, despite the green screens. But after you get working with it, you're very familiar with it. So, to me, the hardware's there and I think the AS/400 or iSeries OS is very good as well.

I would like for there to be more clarity around the licensing. You'll get your PVUs and CPWs and some apps are licensed on one, some are on another.

That box has probably been running for us for over 10 years. I've been working with Power directly for over five years.

I primarily work with Power 570, and so we're running some of our AS/400 on it with IBM i. We are also running POWER8 in the right spots in our environment. I'm kind of known as the legacy track but I'm glad to have the 570 anyway.

The stability is beyond belief. You can't beat it. 

We experience issues every once in a while. I think it's more due to our applications and how we're licensed that sometimes we have to get a little crafty there.

They're very strong. And especially the FSRs that come out. Those guys have been working with Power boxes for decades.

No, we are pretty set with IBM Power. We're running AIX and SAP all on Power boxes.

I definitely see IBM as a market leader in the server industry in regards to their hardware. There is a lot of talk about them going more open-source and I think they are there, running Linux on Power and being more actively involved with that user group. But that's maybe a catch-22 as well, but I think they are leveraging that and that is what is going to take them forward.

The performance, the resiliency, and in the capacity that IBM provides the customer, that you can support old versions like, for example, AIX 5.3/ 6.1 in the new versions.

In our case we are a business partner, we sell solutions. But I think what our customers appreciate most is that they can save space, since Power is high performance. You can have fewer machines, fewer servers and good performance in your environment.

Since the cloud is so in demand right now, there is a feature that VMware has which is vMotion. I would like this with PowerVC, NovaLink, PowerVM. I would like IBM to improve that feature so that we can sell it to our customers and improve their satisfaction.

IBM is definitely a market leader in servers but to maintain that position it needs to improve how the information gets to the customer. Sometimes IBM is very good at doing new things but nobody knows about it.

We have been using Power since before it was named Power, RS/6000 and the like. We've worked with POWER more than 10 years.

We had issues, but not so big. Most of the time they have been simple things, performance, microcode updates and things like that; but never a big issue that I can recall.

I think scalability is wonderful because you can get start with a small machine and you can grow as you want.

In our regions it's Argentina that provides the service to us. It's very good. They always help us.

It's straightforward, it is very simple.

When it comes to upgrading from POWER7 to 8, or other upgrades, there can be a return on investment because you can use some parts of a POWER7 machine and build them in to a new POWER8 and I think it's a cost savings for our customers.

I don't know too much about licensing or prices or the like, even though I get involved in the configuration, presales and that kind of thing. I am just hoping to see what is coming with POWER9.

We haven't considered any competitors at the moment, but we do have competition back there in my country, of course. We chose IBM because of its performance, resiliency and the capacity you have to make LPARs. It's very good.

We have POWER8, POWER7, we still have some POWER6 and some POWER5. We're using it for AIX.