Red Hat Linux Offered on a Per-Server Basis by IBM on Power Systems

IBM, along with Red Hat, a commercial distributor of Linux, have teamed up to provide Enterprise Linux 6 on IBM's Power Systems that are sold by Big Blue along with first level and second level support provided by Big Blue. Obviously, that isn't very new news.IBM has been a huge OEM partner with Red Hat for years now. What is new is that in an announcement letter, IBM and Red Hat have revealed a per-server license price for Power Systems machines running RHEL 6 which started up back in November. With RHEL 6 out but not certified on the new Power iron, IBM began giving away a free RHEL license on Power Systems Express configurations. IBM has now worked with Red Hat in order to tune up RHEL 6 for Power6, Power6+ and Power7 servers. This includes integration with IBM's PowerVM hypervisor for Power iron. The new licensing for RHEL 6, which became available on April 15th, allows for every pair of sockets in the box to be licensed with 15, 30 or 60 logical partition ceilings per socket pair. A standard 12x5 business hour support contract for RHEL 6 for a socket pair on a Power Systems box costs $1,350 per year for a setup with a 15-LPAR ceiling. Now if you want to increase that to a priority 24x7 support, then your price will increase to $2,150 per year. Doubling up the LPAR ceiling to 30 on a four-socket Power System doubles your support costs and if you quadruple it up to a 60-LPAR ceiling on an eight-socket machine, you quadruple your prices to $5,400 and $8,600 for a 12x5 or a 24x7 coverage. IBM, just like Red Hat, does give discounts to customers who purchase a three-year contract. IBM did, however, stop selling the earlier RHEL 5.5 on April 12. Source: IT Jungle - IBM Offers Red Hat Linux on a Per-Server Basis on Power

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IBM Cancels Irish Server Works

In a recent report from the Irish Times, it appears that IBM is cutting off what is left of the server manufacturing jobs at the company's Emerald Isle factory. The reason for the loss is said to be due to the fact that IBM is shifting its server-making to factories the company owns in Shenzhen, China.

With this cutback IBM has lowered its overall workforce in Ireland to around 4,000 employees. This number does include the 190 jobs that IBM just cut as well as 200 employees that the company recently added back in March for a Smarter Planet research center and an additional 100 added to the company's software labs around the country.

IBM released in a statement not too long ago that they were moving their high-end server manufacturing for the Asia/Pacific and EMEA regions to factories in Singapore. IBM did note that they were keeping a "foot in the door" in the European Union by keeping entry and mid-range server manufacturing in the factory IBM has in Mulhuddart, which lies just outside of Dublin.

IBM has also shut down and outsourced all of their x64 server plants located in Scotland aside from very high-end System z and BladeCenter platforms. The Power Unix manufacturing that IBM had in Austin, Texas was also recently moved to Rochester, Minnesota.

Due to this recent cut in jobs, Ireland will be out of the IBM server manufacturing business completely. This also raises questions as to when IMB's mid-range Power Systems will be shifted to China as well. IBM said that they will try to find jobs for as many of the 190 employees as possible. IBM said that all of the 190 employees will receive five weeks of severance pay for every year they served with the company.

According to IBM, "This change will place us closer to our growth markets and suppliers while providing greater operational efficiency and cost savings." The shipping costs to get Power and z10 processors to China or Singapore are fairly small. However, the expensive shipping costs it takes to transport finished Power Systems and mainframe servers to European and African customers is definitely offset by the lowered labor costs of China and Singapore.

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