At the beginning of the year, we laid out a new strategy for IBM Power under the leadership of Ken King, who will be retiring by the end of 2023 after forty years with IBM. It is with immense gratitude that I thank Ken for his leadership not only across IBM Power, but for his service to IBM in various roles spanning IP, strategy and software during his distinguished IBM career. I am excited to announce, therefore, that a few months ago I took on the role of IBM Power general manager. As Ken passes the baton, I want to take stock of the progress we’ve made — and point to where we are prioritizing — across four critical areas to help address our clients’ digital transformation imperatives: Continuing to innovate key capabilities for core business workloads by strategically investing in three operating environments on IBM Power: AIX, IBM i and Linux Driving growth with SAP HANA on Power on-premises and in the cloud Supporting clients’ banking and industry modernization journey Providing greater flexibility with subscription services and Power as a Service Our value proposition is the ability to combine hybrid cloud and AI with clients’ trusted data on IBM Power to fuel business outcomes. Let’s dig in to some specifics. Down to the core We’ve continued to innovate and invest in operating environments on IBM Power to help ensure business continuity, reliability, availability, serviceability and security for clients. In the latest IBM i Technology Refresh — IBM i 7.5 TR3 and 7.4 TR9 — announced in October, we listened to feedback from our IBM i Advisory Councils and prioritized advancements in ease of use, productivity, and automation with enhancements to Navigator for i and new additions to SYSTOOLS for automating Db2 for i. We also have a new release of AIX — AIX 7.3 TL2 — building on Power10’s high availability leadership with performance and scale enhancements to Live Kernel Update (designed to give the ability to update AIX without unplanned downtime), optimized file system performance and enhancements designed to improve AIX encryption performance and audit event checking. You can learn more about this latest release on the AIX webcast on November 14. We are expanding IBM Db2 Warehouse on Power with a new Base Rack Express at a 30% lower entry list price, adding to today’s S, M and L configurations, while still providing the same total-solution experience, including Db2 Data Warehouse’s connectivity with watsonx.data to unlock the potential of data for analytics and AI. Oracle will be releasing Oracle Database 23c on Power, as part of their next Long Term Release as reported in April 2023. Separately, in 2024, clients will be able to look forward to continued enhancements to the AIX, IBM i and Linux roadmaps.
Accelerating business transformation with SAP HANA on Power As the 2027 end of mainstream maintenance for SAP’s legacy ERP is approaching, our customers are all in different stages of their business transformation journey. SAP is accelerating this journey by offering the current ERP, S/4HANA, as a managed service offering with SAP RISE. IBM Power is supporting our customers in their business transformation journey by offering customer infrastructure solutions designed to meet customers where they are. Whether they need Power10 systems on-premises to upgrade their SAP landscapes, Power Virtual Server capacity to accelerate migration to S/4HANA, or SAP RISE in IBM Cloud on Power, we are providing solutions on Power infrastructure. In addition, IBM is also offering a hybrid cloud consumption model that will allow flexibility for both on-premises and cloud…
To meet client demand, throughout the year, we’re focusing on transforming the Proof of Concept (PoC) experience for IBM Power Virtual Server. We’re simplifying the process, making network configuration easier, adding power edge routers, and implementing a step-by-step automated modernization approach for IBM i, AIX and Linux that’s designed to be as straightforward as an on-premises migration from Power9 to Power10. We’re also moving away from a “Do It Yourself” (DIY) model for High Availability/Disaster Recovery (HA/DR) solutions to a prescriptive and automated one. The goal is to provide clients with a clear path forward for business continuity, ensuring a smoother and more efficient process. For more on our fourth quarter plans to meet clients’ expectations for running production workloads effectively on IBM Power Virtual Server, read here. IBM Power backed by IBM Expert Care We’re also making strides in our service offerings for IBM Power. IBM Power10 can be sold together with IBM Power Expert Care, a tiered support model that makes it easier for clients to choose the right level of support for their needs and budget at the time of sale. Earlier this year, IBM adjusted the IBM Power E1080 Expert Care Premium tier to align to client expectations for proactive support. IBM Power Expert Care Remote Support and…
