IBM Power Systems Reviews

Our primary use case for IBM Power Systems is Oracle Databases.

The main feature that I have found most valuable is PowerVM - its virtualization feature which is the most powerful.

With the new POWER9, and even with the POWER8, processor, IBM has incorporated Linux compatibility into its platform. All its new developments on this platform are great. I really don't see anything at the moment which would be improving the platform. I'm totally grateful for the possibility of using Linux and AIX in the same hardware.

In the next release, I would like to see additional graphical dashboards to help the administrators access information more easily.

I have been using IBM Power Systems for five years. I work in a company selling IBM Power Solutions. I've been selling Power solutions for the last 10 years. We are IBM's partner in Bolivia.

I'm totally satisfied with the solution. It helps the IT team especially so they can work quite confidently.

IBM Power Systems' platform scales with the different types of equipment so you start using a little hardware, but not as little as it might sound because it is a very powerful platform, for the little servers. So you can grow up and scale out. You can scale up quite easily with the IBM Power Systems.

We have between 800 to 1,000 users. All of them have access to the apps that use the database.

In terms of staff required for deployment or maintenance, there are six guys who are database administrators and operating system administrators.

Right now we do not have plans to increase the usage, maybe in the future.

We needed to use IBM support just a couple of times and the onset time was quite comfortable so I can say I'm comfortable with quality of service support from IBM.

The initial setup is not complex. It's not quite easy, but with the service support it's quite easy.

With AIX it takes between two and six hours to prepare the platform for a new environment for the production stage and once the initial environment has been set up it is quite easy because you can replicate it or modify it according to your new requirements.

We have our own service team in our company so we didn't use external services.

We bought the license for a three year period. We always buy hardware with a three-year support and maintenance fee. It's just the standard fee.

To anyone considering it, I would say that the IBM Power platform is so secure and stable.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give IBM Power Systems an eight.

First of all, the reliability. Also, Power really is the most powerful chipset out there for midrange environments. Performance is also very important for me and all of the customers that I'm supporting.

Reliability and the performance. 

For management, they feel more secure. They feel they are not just running on any platform, on some Intel base that is going to fail sometimes. They trust that they are going to have 99.9% reliability. They are going to have customers satisfied who are accessing those new services that IBM is implementing. They just trust in Power, really trust in them for their reliability.

Right now, in our region, they are moving to contracting things over the cloud. There are some services that we are providing - we are leasing space, we are leasing machines. If customers could truly license cloud-based or, possibly, acquire cloud-based capacity to process things over the cloud, that would be great. That would be an improvement.

Almost six years.

We have never had any issues with scalability. It's the other way around. Customers like the Power system with IBM i because they can move move forward, they can acquire new equipment, they can upgrade versions of the operating system without affecting what they developed years ago.

I'm part of the support team where I work for. The support team at IBM is just excellent.

Our clients choose Power because they trust the platform. They trust IBM i. They are really comfortable with it. We even have new customers that had not previously used Power's servers or IBM i. They are moving to the platform because of trust, not just in Power itself, the hardware, but also their trust in IBM, the trust in their delivery, the trust in their support.

In terms of upgrades, if you compare it with other platforms, it's very straightforward. It's very easy and the documentation is very clear with everything that you have to take into account.

When moving from previous versions to POWER8, or in general when upgrading, you see a return on investment. You get an improvement in technology and that means customers trust in the platform, that they are going to invest money and they're going to get that money back. Not just in terms of upgrading the versions because they're performing badly, but in reliability for the customers because of the service they are providing.

IBM is a market leader and to stay there they need to keep going with the trends and the customers, keep moving towards the cloud, keep going in the cognitive area. IBM is going to be at the top of the list for a while.

We use this solution for the cloud and for some requirements related to the database.

I use the hypervisor of IBM Power Systems a lot.

Its price can be improved. It is too high. 

I have been using IBM Power Systems for about eight years.

It has very good stability. It has five nights of stability.

Its scalability is very good. You can scale it based on your demand and needs. We have four people who use this solution.

Their technical support is good. I would rate them an eight out of ten. It should be easier to contact technical support, and their response time should be quicker. 

The initial setup is a little bit complex. You need to have some technical knowledge to set up the system and interfaces. The deployment took about eight hours. 

The implementation strategy depends on the strategy of IBM and our enterprise.

Its price is too high.

Before implementing a solution, analyze the good points and benefits of different solutions, and make sure that the solution meets your requirements.

I would rate IBM Power Systems an eight out of ten.

I'm not sure of the actual term, but being able to delegate and take back the chips, and DB2. DB2 is a must.

We're able to streamline and clone our systems. All of our systems on the floor do the exact same thing, and that works for us.

Not sure. Everything works great.

IBM does a great job of incorporating the latest technology, but it's hard to give IT a 10 out of 10, we're always growing and fluctuating. 

None at all. (Then again, we keep developers off our systems). 

No issues. Unlimited growth with Power.

We have CE's and they're awesome. Scale of one to 10, they're tens.

We've had Compaq, we've had Solaris, we have Dell for our workstations, but IBM for our "big iron." It does what it's supposed to do, better, faster, and more efficiently. We also chose IBM for the support and the products.

Very straightforward. The field engineers usually come in and place the hardware on the floor and install it, and we take it from there. 

Compared to what we've dealt with, with Sun Solaris/Oracle and Compaq, the cost model is great.

In terms of the upgrade from previous systems to POWER8, we've seen a return on investment. We're able to do more with less. We're actually using fewer engineers to do it. I'm kind of skeptical that we could do even more with even fewer engineers, but yes, it can always be improved.

We have the whole scope of hardware, and we're running AIX 7.2. We have POWER7, POWER8. We actually still have some POWER5 on the floor. 

Power uniquely positions our company in the industry because of the unlimited growth.

I consider IBM to be the market leader in servers. They just need to keep doing what they're doing.

We are using it for database servers, and performance-wise it is one of the best available servers in the market.

For me, the AIX operating system is one of the best things because I'm a Unix guy and I like the flexibility of the operating system. It's very powerful.

One of the key features is that the performance is among the best. But also on the security side, we get regular security patch updates and system hardening. There are free tools available to harden the system. It's very unique.

One of the features that we would like, and I think they are also adapting to the latest trends in the market, is to make it more open, more flexible. Traditionally the Unix operating system was not very flexible. For example, if you are creating a virtual machine, it is not done the same way you would create it with VMware. With VMware, anybody can create a virtual machine without any knowledge of the server side. But with AIX it's a bit difficult. I think they are already in the process of improving it, making it more flexible and easier to use.

It is very stable. We haven't faced an issue with the servers until now.

It is scalable because the POWER8 server, the CPU allows up to eight or 10 cores. And you can add two more, so that is very good. Even the entry-level server will give you the option to have so many running on the same physical server.

We use the technical support from a local partner of IBM. They are very good. They know the technology very well and they have been highly professional during implementation and with support.

The setup is really straightforward, it's not that complex.

I would recommend, going for this solution, because it is one of the best solutions available in the Unix market now.

I would rate it eight out of 10. The reason is, as I said, the performance and stability, and the security included with the product.

In terms of selecting a vendor, we first go through the product features and evaluate them and see that the product suits our environment. Then, we look at the various product selection criteria, like ease of use and implementation. We also look at the cost, how costly it is to support in the future.