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IBM still exists and makes processors? What architecture? Target market? Are they any good?
by jacob019 5y ago
IBM still exists and makes processors? What architecture? Target market? Are they any good?
- josephcsible 5y agoYes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_POWER_microprocessors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_POWER_microprocessors They're definitely good. They're what the Blackbird and FSF-RYF-certified Talos use: https://www.raptorcs.com/content/base/products.html https://www.raptorcs.com/content/base/products.html And they have another architecture (s390x) for mainframes too.
- CameronNemo 5y agoYes, probably POWER10, mainframes and financial databases (see article), no idea.
- guerrilla 5y agoThe IBM z series is for mainframes as the article explains. I think they're CISC. They also still make and develop POWER for supercomputing and scieintific workstations (and a tiny niche "PC" market.) Those supercomputers are dominating the charts though.
- CameronNemo 5y agoWait is the z series POWER or is it s390x?
- josephcsible 5y agoThe z series is s390x.
- guerrilla 5y agoIBM just refers to it as Z/Architecture now, the 64-bit sucessor of S/390 which looks like it ended in '98, no relation to POWER.
- djmips 5y agoSeemed like the Z/Architecture was backward compatible with S/390 up until IBM z13 (launched 2015) according to wiki. "z13s introduce a new vector architecture and are the last z Systems servers to support running an operating system in ESA/390 architecture mode"
- wtallis 5y agoThe operating system now needs to natively support the 64-bit z/Architecture, but application compatibility still goes all the way back to System/360.
- p_l 5y agoHuge chunk of the OS is still 24bit code, then 31bit, little 64bit. The removal of backwards compatibility meant you couldn't setup LPAR or VM with 31bit OS anymore
- flomo 5y ago"s390x" is the Linux nomenclature for this. Probably wasn't selected by IBM marketing.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Jweb_Guru 5y agoPOWER hardware is pretty insane, I wish it were more popular for "normal" workloads.
- mhh__ 5y agoPOWER10 looks like a bit of a monster, obviously we plebs aren't allowed to buy one...
- the_only_law 5y agoDoes POWER have any applications outside of iSeries and the expensive as hell Raptor Workstations?
- mhh__ 5y agoI wouldn't be surprised if IBM make decent money just off people using them as leverage for a better deal from an x86 company. POWER is definitely used, but no idea of anywhere public. Raptor unfortunately won't be doing a POWER10 box for a while if at all.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hindsightbias 5y agohttps://saponpower.wordpress.com/2021/09/01/ibm-power10-debuts-with-a-new-sap-benchmark/ https://saponpower.wordpress.com/2021/09/01/ibm-power10-debu... Not to mention Oracle, Db2, Epic.
- rrss 5y agoSummit, the current #2 supercomputer on the Top500 list, uses POWER9 CPUs.
- Bilal_io 5y agoIBM even acquired Red Hat a couple of years ago, so yeah, they still exist and are trying to dominate in different domains, including but not limited to cloud, AI and Quantum Computing.
- jhickok 5y agoIBM is the largest non-consumer security company in the world (I think McAfee is biggest in that space).