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IBM AIX Reviews and Ratings

Rating: 9.4 out of 10
Score
9.4 out of 10

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for IBM AIX are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Efficient Patching Process: Users have noted IBM AIX's capability to apply new patches seamlessly, eliminating the need for system restarts and enhancing operational efficiency significantly. This feature allows businesses to maintain continuous operations without disruptions, leading to increased productivity and cost savings.

Innovative Features: Customers appreciate IBM AIX for pioneering the journaling file system and offering advanced software features, showcasing its innovative nature and technological advancements in the industry. The introduction of these cutting-edge technologies sets IBM AIX apart from other operating systems, providing users with enhanced performance and functionality.

Stability and Reliability: Reviewers consistently praise IBM AIX for its exceptional stability, with systems running continuously without necessitating reboots, underscoring the high reliability and robustness of this operating system. The reliable performance of IBM AIX instills confidence in users, allowing them to focus on their tasks without worrying about system failures or downtime.

Reviews

12 Reviews

IBM AIX, a robust and friendly Unix enterprise operating system

Rating: 10 out of 10

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use IBM AIX in own our organization and support many customers running AIX on our cloud environment with IBM POWER servers.

IBM AIX gives us a highly scalable, robust and secure operating environment for business critical software, like Oracle, DB2 and SAP.

The IBM AIX operating system is designed as an enterprise operating system and has excellent RAS features (for reliability, availability and stability). Many settings can be done on-the-fly without requiring a reboot, and Live Kernel Update is available for fixes/updates that would otherwise require a reboot.

IBM AIX is also very secure, requiring much less fixes for security vulnerabilities compared to other operating systems. And features like secure-by-default, role-based access control, file permission manager, trusted execution and secure boot enhance security. It also integrates well with tools like IBM PowerSC to tighten security even further.

AIX needs to run on IBM POWER hardware, which is in a class of its own as far as RAS and performance are concerned. If you look at TCO, the combination of AIX, POWER system(s) and an application often produce a better performing combination at a lower cost, compared to many alternatives.

Pros

  • For an operating system based on Unix AIX is very user-friendly. In addition to the manual pages, it also includes SMIT (a system management interface tool) both graphically and text-based, that helps administrators execute complex commands. SMIT logs all AIX commands (and their output) to logfiles, so you can review (and duplicate yourself) what it executed 'under the covers'.
  • AIX has high (or sometimes dynamic) limits on lots of settings. Of course you can tune a lot of variables that determine how the operating system acts, but the defaults have evolved over decades and are generally great. A lot of settings are by default based e.g. on the amount of memory and scale with the system.
  • In combination with IBM POWER hardware and PowerVM (built in to the hardware of every modern POWER system) AIX can make full use of dynamic features like adding (and removing) additional processing capacity, memory, SAN-based disks etc. to an AIX virtual machine (LPAR) on the fly.
  • AIX has excellent built-in security, where a secure-by-default installation skips installation of software components notorious for causing security issues, disables services that are normally considered unsafe (like plain ftp) etc. File permission manager allows you to select wanted degrees of security (based on profiles provided or obtained from other sources) to tighten security. Trusted Execution allows you to restrict execution only to programs that haven't been modified - the OS refuses to run (unauthorized) modified programs. Secure Boot makes sure the software used to start the system, including AIX itself is not tampered with.

Cons

  • I would like Live Kernel Update not to be dependent on a connection to the HMC.
  • I would like IBM to provide more "thirdp arty" software in installp format (AIX-native install packages) instead of relying on RPM packages to be installed with rpm, yum or dnf.

Likelihood to Recommend

IBM AIX is well suited for mission-critical applications, especially the ones that need to run on well-performing hardware and need less downtime. It is also perfect for applications that need a lot of CPU, because AIX scales well on the IBM POWER hardware, so adding additional CPU almost always generates higher performance/throughput.

IBM AIX runs unmodified from the smallest IBM POWER machine (S1022, with 12 Power10 cores) to the biggest machine (E1080, with 240 Power10 cores).

Because IBM POWER systems have very fast CPU’s, you typically need a lower number of CPU’s when compared to alternatives. This may bring a reduction in cost for software licensed per core.

Unfortunately, not all software vendors port their software to IBM AIX, so sometimes you may have to run Linux on POWER, or skip the POWER platform altogether. But many vendors happily support AIX and POWER.

Using AIX for decades.

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use AIX as the preferred UNIX solution for our database servers, backup servers, and application servers.

Pros

  • Logical volume manager.
  • Stability
  • Linux compatibility.

Cons

  • Easier VIO management.
  • Better integration with rpm/yum/dnf.
  • Ability to change a filesystem to INLINE log.

Likelihood to Recommend

IBM AIX is well suited for spectrum to protect servers (backup servers), and database servers demanding high processor performance.

Strong, reliable, multi-purpose, great performance

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We've been using IBM AIX servers running Oracle databases. These include small to very large databases running business-critical systems.

Pros

  • Reliable servers
  • Excellent performance
  • Fully supported for all versions of Oracle

Cons

  • Proprietary IBM AIX multi-threaded architecture makes it difficult to estimate required CPU power for new systems
  • Would help if AIX shell command set would be 100% compatible with Linux
  • Some of the performance metrics seem proprietary to AIX, and it would be good if this was more standard and closer to Linux

Likelihood to Recommend

Large DB installations and HA clusters

Vetted Review
IBM AIX
8 years of experience

IBM AIX at it's best

Rating: 10 out of 10

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We do use the IBM AIX Operating system to divide the memory and CPU between various jobs and provide support to the customers. This powerful UNIX OS continues to provide game-changing features such as AIX Live Update, which allows you to apply new IBM AIX OS levels without a system restart and will have more efficient performance to the customers.

Pros

  • The newer version of IBM AIX allows to apply new patches without system restart
  • IBM AIX was the first operating system to have a journaling file system and have enhanced software features.
  • IBM AIX will have good vendor support 24/7 and will ensure reliability to the customers and more performance when compared to it peers.

Cons

  • IBM AIX will not support in cloud environment, it should start with support of cloud.
  • The cost is expensive when compared to it peers.
  • IBM AIX has preferred licenses
  • IBM AIX doesn't have GUI feature enabled by default.

Likelihood to Recommend

IBM AIX is well suited for environments for most critical and which needs most secure features especially banking & Health care industries prefer to have IBM AIX OS servers in their environments. IBM AIX is most often used by companies as it has good support from the vendor 24/7 and for smooth operations.

Vetted Review
IBM AIX
10 years of experience

IBM AIX Review

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In my organization, most of the databases and critical applications are running on IBM AIX due to numerous reasons like error handling. One of its most important features helps a lot with downtime, as well as the quick allocation of necessary resources and deallocation in case of release.

Pros

  • Centralized management
  • Easy to patch with an alternative disk
  • Easy to analyze errors

Cons

  • An opensource file set customization should be made
  • Yum creation should allow for checking updates on a regular basis
  • Snapshot options to add by default for the profile itself

Likelihood to Recommend

I recommend IBM AIX for wherever you feel like you have critical applications and databases. On the other hand, if you have a datacentre with DR due to heavy criticality then go with a very stable one. IBM AIX is best suited to make your business highly available.

IBM AIX review

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

IBM AIX is used by the entire organization. We run propriety processing apps in production, mostly legacy software.

Pros

  • It is extremely reliable
  • Feature rich, fully fledged *IX system
  • Delivers good performance on IBM POWER

Cons

  • Management of the virtualization, especially using IVM can be clunky

Likelihood to Recommend

*IX based applications that require excellent uptime. The hardware servers/clusters AIX is typically deployed on are very robust with a lot of redundancy built is and allowing many interventions done concurrently, without downtime.

Vetted Review
IBM AIX
20 years of experience

Stable platform but limited new features

Rating: 4 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We currently use IBM AIX as the compute power behind our main legacy ERP system, D3. AIX provides a very stable platform for D3 and allows hundreds of internal customers to connect to our centralized software without batting an eye.

Pros

  • IBM AIX is a very stable server product, and I can't recall a time when the server has crashed due to a hardware fault.
  • If you have legacy software that can't run on the new-fangled Linux flavors, AIX might be the way to go.
  • AIX has a host of built-in management tools that makes system configuration easy for a novice.

Cons

  • A lot of the built-in commands have not been updated in years. If you're used to some fancy CLI options in Linux, you may be out of luck with AIX.
  • Out of the box, you cannot run open-source Linux utilities on AIX. There is a toolbox you can install, however, it's not the same versions as you would get in different Linux flavors.
  • Tab completion for files and Up arrow to re-run previous commands don't work out of the box without running a Korn shell. A small annoyance, but one that catches me every time!

Likelihood to Recommend

If you need to run legacy software that is specifically written for AIX, then the server is great. The hardware is also solid and a lot of thought has gone into making it a robust and stable system. Otherwise, my default choice would be to just stick with Linux.

IBM AIX in a healthcare enterprise

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

IBM AIX has been used to support the core, enterprise systems here at Tucson Medical Center for more than 14 years. AIX runs our mission-critical applications such as Epic Electronic medical record, Sunquest Lab, Oracle databases, Intersystems Cache Databases, and PeopleSoft. These systems support the enterprise at both the departmental and enterprise levels.

Pros

  • Stability. In the 14 years that I have used the product, I cannot think of a single time that we had an OS level failure. It is rock solid. We have had systems that have been booted and run for literally years without interruption.
  • Virtualization. We run IBM AIX as LPARS on Power infrastructure. All of our AIX infrastructure is virtualized making it easy to scale as needed.
  • Their logical volume manager makes the task of managing storage very simple. It is feature complete and they have mitigated much of the complexity that usually is inherent in LVM implementations.
  • I have a love/hate relationship with Smit. It is their administrative interface. It is very powerful and very complete which is why I marked it as a pro. It is also a bit clunky and somewhat arcane in its interface but still usable.

Cons

  • Staying current with open source software such as MySQL, Apache, Python, Perl, PHP, etc. These packages are usually only available from third parties and are often very out dated and difficult to implement.
  • Software maintenance is cryptic, difficult to manage, and fragmented. There are Service packs, Technical Levels, APARS, RPM updates, CPAN updates, and each has its own way of being managed and applied.
  • IBM AIX could be more security conscious. By default, insecure protocols such as Telnet and FTP are enabled and are the expected interface.

Likelihood to Recommend

IBM AIX is a very powerful and extremely stable operating environment. It is well suited for applications that are business critical and cannot tolerate outages. It is best used to address large enterprise level application needs where stability and scalability are of paramount importance. IBM AIX is less useful for small enterprises.

AIX performance vs commodity operating systems

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Aix is utilized across the organization for workloads that require exceptional stability and performance.

Pros

  • Aix has exceptional security, if you configure it properly to best security practices.
  • Using the new Power9 platform we are able to have great price to performance ratios on our workloads.
  • Aix is now available in a cloud option so we are looking at extending our hybrid configurations.

Cons

  • While there are options to install some standard Linux tools like Bash, they are not always easy to procure
  • Allowing easier flexibility in how some tools and CLI options work would make it easier for admins to float between operating systems.

Likelihood to Recommend

High-performance OLTP database transaction processing.

Vetted Review
IBM AIX
5 years of experience

AIX is a stable platform to build your missing critical applications

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

AIX currently runs critical ERP systems across the organization. The stability, ease of use and robustness of the platform allows us to focus on the applications and worry less about the implementation and uptime concerns.

Pros

  • Performance Management
  • Volume and Filesystem management
  • Ease of Use
  • Backup and Recovery

Cons

  • Bringing new features online
  • Configuration Management
  • Difference enough from Linux to create concerns

Likelihood to Recommend

[Well suited for] Any application that can benefit from higher uptimes, online management and a robust platform (Power systems). It is less appropriate for platforms where cost is a key concern and the architects are ok with limited uptime and failures can be routed around.

Vetted Review
IBM AIX
8 years of experience