POWER Systems Pros and Cons
May 13, 2019

POWER Systems Pros and Cons

Roberto Etcheverry | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • Power9 Servers

Overall Satisfaction with IBM POWER9 Servers

Our customers trust IBM POWER Systems for their core systems. Its rock solid stability and incomparable performance allow them to focus on the other aspects of IT. Some of our customers use them only for their backbone, hidden behind web servers. Others use them for most of their operations be it with 5250 screens or modern web interfaces served directly from IBM i.
  • High-Performance Computing / AI
  • Versatile configuration (internal disks, external SAN, etc)
  • Broad software support (IBM i, AIX, Multiple Linux flavors)
  • In some edge cases, the software pricing doesn't work towards consolidation
  • IBM POWER Systems allow a better CAPex and lower OPex on SAP HANA deployment.
  • IBM allows migration of certain software licenses between older machines leveraging a company's investment on software.
  • The simplicity of management allows for less IT personnel to monitor daily operations.
Compared to x86, POWER Systems has better ROI and performance. Better performance and scalability allows for fewer machines which ease daily operations and also means less licensing and maintenance.
Current or new Linux workloads not tied to x86 code are well suited for migration to POWER Systems. Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads will benefit greatly from the AC922's CPU-GPU and GPU-GPU NVLink performance, shortening model training time. The POWER AI software bundle will also benefit users through the increased SMT8 performance that POWER brings.