IBM launches AIX-to-cloud app migration program

IBM has launched the Power Private Cloud (PPC) Rack solution, a converged infrastructure product that migrates on-premises apps running on its POWER9/AIX systems to the cloud.

The solution consists of three POWER System S922 servers with 20 CPU cores, 256GB of RAM, and 3.2TB of NVMe local storage, plus a new storage enclosure, the FlashSystem 5200, with a minimum of 9.6TB and a pair of SAN24B-6 switches with 24 Fibre Channel ports.

On the software side, the bundle comes with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, IBM PowerVM Enterprise Edition, IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform (OCP), and Red Hat OpenShift OpenShift Container Storage (OCS).

The reliance on OpenShift makes sense, as OpenShift is very popular and used by all the major cloud vendors, and IBM didn’t spend $34 billion on Red Hat for nothing.

The solution combines an optimized stack of hardware and software to simplify the deployment of cloud-native apps in a private cloud environment.

The PPC Rack solution comes in two deployment sizes: PPC Rack for new deployments, described above, and PPC Rack starter deployment, a single-node configuration with Network File System (NFS) storage only and RHEL 8, PowerVM, PowerVC, and Red Hat OCP software.

IBM claims these bundles mean “traditional eight-week deployment is condensed to eight hours” through automation. It also as claims twice as much performance per compute node and 3.2 times greater container density per core as compared to x86 architectures.

Through integration of existing AIX and IBM i (its former OS/400 operating system) workloads with new cloud-native apps, IBM says PPC “protects past investments with a seamless integration of existing applications with new cloud-native technologies.” It also suggests using this hardware to migrate i applications to cloud-native environments.

In a nutshell, what IBM has done with PPC is offer a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) similar to what HPE, Dell, Lenovo, VMware, and Nutanix offer: container-centric converged or hyperconverged machines. It’s just that IBM is offering it for POWER9/AIX/i users looking to migrate to OpenStack.