IBM To Introduce POWER4-Based Blade Servers

IBM unveiled new blade servers in November, based on its POWER processor technology.

The eServer BladeCenter JS20 blade servers, based on the same processors as its pSeries servers, fit in the same enclosure as the company's Intel Xeon-based HS20 blade servers, said Jeff Benck, eServer BladeCenter vice president.

"With the POWER technology, you can now have a 64-bit Linux blade sitting next to an Intel blade in the same chassis," Benck said.

The JS20 servers will initially support SuSE and Turbo Linux, said Benck, because the entry-level RISC space is moving to Linux. "We are seeing many customers on Sun today moving towards Linux," he said.

In mid-2004, the JS20 will support the AIX 5L operating system, Benck said.The JS20 will be available for ordering early next week, and volume shipments are expected to start early next year, said Benck. The blade servers are priced at $2,699 with two POWER4 processors and 512 Mbytes of memory. "It's a significantly lower price than the pSeries servers today," he said. "It will allow us to penetrate the space served currently by Sun's SPARC blades running Solaris."

Mark Melenovsky, research manager at analyst firm IDC, said his organization expects the blade server to be one of the hottest markets going forward. IDC forecasts that by 2007, about 2.3 million blade servers worth $6.2 billion will be sold, compared to a forecast of about 200,000 units worth about $600 million in 2003.