INDUSTRY

IBM Friday said it has filled out its top-end eServer range with three multiple-processor systems aimed at data centers. The p5-595 and i5-595 systems can incorporate up to 64 Power5 processors and the p5-590 up to 32, enabling users to run up to 250 virtual servers off each machine. Benchmarks show that the Power5-based systems can outperform high-performance servers from Sun running the UltraSPARC IV processor and HP running either PA-RISC or Intel Itanium processors. The p5-595 can use either 1.65 GHz or 1.90 GHz Power5 processors while the p5-590 only uses the slower processor. The new systems support Versions 5.2 and 5.3 of IBM's AIX variant of Unix as well as Linux. IBM said the new systems represent a significant power to cost improvement over current IBM servers. The p5-595 is nearly three times as fast as the current top-end server, the IBM eServer pSeries 690, the company said. The p5-590 is 45% faster and costs 40% less than its immediate predecessor. IBM will take orders from Oct. 19 for the new systems, which will be available worldwide from Nov. 19, according to BM.