IBM Trina Project can open a breach in the x86 server market

"Tenkine Server channel February 26 News" October 2012, IBM launched the Trina plan, relying on the plan to launch the day of the application server, the Trina application server inherits the Power server technology high RAS characteristics, and has a more prominent economic and open source advantage. IBM launches the Trina plan to provide an alternative x86 solution for enterprise users. The market thinks that X86+linux distributed + Open source architecture is synonymous with flexibility and low cost, while Power+aix commercial + centralized architecture is the best guarantee of stability and security. In fact, the PowerLinux application server combines the advantages of open source and Enterprise Server--inherits the power server's high stability, high security gene, and absorbs the open source advantage, truly flexible, low-cost, stable and secure.

May 2013, IBM in Beijing set up the world's first IBM Power BAE Linux Center, with the help of the center's expertise, technology and market resources to promote the development of Linux in China. With the help of the center, more than 550 new applications have been ported to the PowerLinux platform so far. September 2013, IBM once again invested 1 billion of dollars in Linux, dedicated to supporting the development of Power Linux.

August 2013, IBM announced the establishment of the OpenPOWER Foundation, IBM will provide Third-party partners with power architecture, the goal is to promote the past mainly for high-end server power architecture hardware and software development. Since entering 2014, IBM has announced that Samsung Electronics has joined the OpenPOWER Foundation. And just last month, two Chinese enterprises announced to join the OpenPOWER Foundation, which is Suzhou Zhongsheng Acer Information Technology Co., Ltd. and Jiangsu Industrial Technology International Research Institute. IBM's intense push to join the OpenPOWER Alliance underscores the firm's determination to develop the power biosphere. After IBM sold the entire x86 product line to Lenovo, IBM was fully betting on power.

In addition to a series of open-source projects for power, IBM has been involved in more than 150 open source projects. In August 2012, for example, IBM supported the OpenStack Foundation as a founding member and Platinum member. November 28, 2012, IBM KVM Center of Excellence in Beijing, and partners to expand open Source virtualization ecosystem.

IBM Systems and Technology division of the Greater China, Zhang Simin, director of the service of the service, said that PowerLinux has two characteristics, the first is the use of distributed deployment, the second is open source, these two features at the same time the Internet business architecture in the server layer of the largest demand. It is clear that PowerLinux is in contention for the x86 market, but powerlinux and typical cases are more focused on cloud computing, large data and industry solutions. And the x86 market is mainly the standard workload, so in the author's opinion PowerLinux more is with the high-end x86 server competition.

Today, the largest share of x86 's market is dominated by Internet applications, with large internet companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and domestic Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent the biggest buyers of x86 servers. And these internet companies have set up x86, such as Facebook's Open Computing program, the Scorpio program set up by the domestic internet provider. Through the x86 server component and modularization, through the downstream vendors to achieve ODM customization. So at this point, the x86 architecture has the first advantage.

In recent days, Intel has officially released the Xeon E7 V2 processor, Intel has positioned the Xeon E7 v2 processor as a challenger to the RISC architecture minicomputer. The new x86 multi-channel server will have the ability to work with RISC architecture minicomputer in key business applications, regardless of key technical metrics such as reliability, stability, and security, and Intel's many partners have launched new products. And the four-way server becomes the focus of the vendors ' contention. According to the newly released 13 China x86 server market data, four or more server growth reached 58%, becoming the fastest-growing product shape of the year. Four-way and above product segment sales accounted for 26.5%, the product unit price reached the x86 product average level of 2.8 times times.

The current x86 server vendors began to put the product center to four road and above products, after all, the current low-end x86 server profit has been very low, Intel is also leading partners to enter the high-end x86 server market. One result is that IBM's market position is under threat because IBM has sold all x86 products to Lenovo, leaving only the power product line. Intel's medium-and high-end x86 strategy will undoubtedly impact IBM's power minicomputer, and IBM's Trina plan is clearly IBM's response.

After the launch of the Trina Application Server, the IBM power BAE family actually formed two different product lines: The power Aix that hosts the backend database and the power Linux that supports front-end applications. Power AIX, which mainly meets the requirements of database application and enterprise online transaction processing workload, is mainly used in server and database integration, and is more suitable for key business areas. PowerLinux combines the power platform's performance, security, and Linux system's openness and flexibility to meet the needs of large data, open source, and industry solution workloads, primarily for original x86 users, and to attract x86 users to the power platform.

All in all, Intel and IBM are entering each other's territory, and the confrontation between the two is inevitable. The conflict between x86 architecture and power architecture is unavoidable, and the key to success or failure is the perfection of the biosphere.