IBM System p

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The RS/6000 (for RISC System/6000), now System p5, is IBM's current RISC/UNIX-based server and workstation product line.

1 History
2 Processors
3 Features
4 Deep Blue
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] History

Announced in 1990, the RS/6000 replaced the RT PC. This server family has undergone several name changes in its lifetime. It was originally a line of workstations and servers called RS/6000. The server line was then renamed to the eServer pSeries in 2000 as part of its e-Server branding initiative. With the advent of the POWER5 processor in 2004 the family was rebranded the eServer p5. Now with the global move of the server and storage brands to the System brand with the Systems Agenda, the family has been renamed yet again to System p5 in 2005. The System p5 now encompasses the IBM OpenPower product line.

[edit] Processors

Early RS6000 were based on the IBM POWER and POWER2 processor. After the development of the PowerPC instruction set architecture, many lower end servers and some workstations were based on PowerPC models such as the 603 and 604e. Higher end servers and SP clusters were still based on POWER due to its excellent floating point performance, while the RS64 variant of the PowerPC was developed for commercial based systems where integer processing and throughput are more important.

After developing the POWER4 processor the RS64 line was discontinued and the difference between throughput and number crunching optimized systems no longer exists. Nowdays System p machines use the POWER5+.

[edit] Features

All IBM System p5 and IBM eServer p5 machines support DLPAR (Dynamic Logical Partitioning) with Virtual I/O and Micro Partitioning.

System p generally uses the AIX operating system and, more recently, 64-bit versions of the Linux operating system.

[edit] Deep Blue

Deep Blue, an RS/6000 based supercomputer, was the first computer system to win a chess game against a reigning world champion (Garry Kasparov) under regular time controls. It is a massively parallel, 30-node, RS/6000, SP-based computer system enhanced with 480 special purpose VLSI chess processors. Its chess playing program is written in the C programming language and runs under the AIX operating system. It was capable of evaluating 100,000,000 positions per second.