IBM Power System E980: Technical Overview and Introduction

IBM Power System E980: Technical Overview and Introduction

by Scott Vetter, James Cruickshank, Volker Haug, Yongsheng Li, Armin Röll
Released January 2020
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: 9780738457123

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Book description

This IBM® Redpaper™ publication provides a broad understanding of a new architecture of the IBM Power System E980 (9080-M9S) server that supports IBM AIX®, IBM i, and Linux operating systems (OSes). The objective of this paper is to introduce the major innovative Power E980 offerings and relevant functions:


  • The IBM POWER9™ processor, which is available at frequencies of 3.55 - 4.0 GHz.
  • Significantly strengthened cores and larger caches.
  • Supports up to 64 TB memory.
  • Integrated I/O subsystem and hot-pluggable Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) Gen4 slots, double the bandwidth of Gen3 I/O slots.
  • Supports EXP12SX and ESP24SX external disk drawers, which have 12 Gb SAS interfaces and double the existing EXP24S drawer bandwidth.
  • New IBM EnergyScale™ technology offers new variable processor frequency modes that provide a significant performance boost beyond the static nominal frequency.

This publication is for professionals who want to acquire a better understanding of IBM Power Systems™ products. The intended audience includes the following roles:

  • Clients
  • Sales and marketing professionals
  • Technical support professionals
  • IBM Business Partners
  • Independent software vendors (ISVs)

This paper expands the current set of IBM Power Systems documentation by providing a desktop reference that offers a detailed technical description of the Power E980 server.

This paper does not replace the current marketing materials and configuration tools. It is intended as an extra source of information that, together with existing sources, can be used to enhance your knowledge of IBM server solutions.

Table of contents

  1. Front cover
  2. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  3. Preface
    1. Authors
    2. Now you can become a published author, too!
    3. Comments welcome
    4. Stay connected to IBM Redbooks
  4. Chapter 1. General description
    1. 1.1 System overview
      1. 1.1.1 System control unit
      2. 1.1.2 System nodes
      3. 1.1.3 Hardware components highlight
    2. 1.2 Operating environment
    3. 1.3 Physical package
      1. 1.3.1 Lift tools
    4. 1.4 System features
      1. 1.4.1 Minimum configuration
      2. 1.4.2 Power supply features
      3. 1.4.3 Processor module features
      4. 1.4.4 POWER9 processor highlights
      5. 1.4.5 Memory features
      6. 1.4.6 System node PCIe slots
      7. 1.4.7 USB
      8. 1.4.8 Disk and media features
    5. 1.5 I/O drawers
      1. 1.5.1 PCIe Gen3 I/O Expansion Drawer
      2. 1.5.2 I/O drawers and usable PCI slots
      3. 1.5.3 EXP24SX and EXP12SX SAS Storage Enclosures
    6. 1.6 System racks
      1. 1.6.1 New rack considerations
      2. 1.6.2 IBM 7014 Model T42 rack
      3. 1.6.3 IBM Enterprise 42U Slim Rack 7965-S42
      4. 1.6.4 1.8 Meter Rack (#0551)
      5. 1.6.5 2.0 Meter Rack (#0553)
      6. 1.6.6 Rack (#ER05)
      7. 1.6.7 The AC power distribution unit and rack content
      8. 1.6.8 PDU connection limits
      9. 1.6.9 Rack-mounting rules
      10. 1.6.10 Useful rack additions
      11. 1.6.11 Original equipment manufacturer racks
    7. 1.7 Hardware Management Console
      1. 1.7.1 New Hardware Management Console features
      2. 1.7.2 Hardware Management Console overview
      3. 1.7.3 Hardware Management Console code level
      4. 1.7.4 Two architectures of Hardware Management Console
      5. 1.7.5 Connectivity to POWER9 processor-based systems
      6. 1.7.6 High availability Hardware Management Console configuration
  5. Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview
    1. 2.1 The IBM POWER9 processor
      1. 2.1.1 POWER9 processor overview
      2. 2.1.2 POWER9 processor core
      3. 2.1.3 Simultaneous multithreading
      4. 2.1.4 POWER9 compatibility modes
      5. 2.1.5 Processor feature codes
      6. 2.1.6 Memory access
      7. 2.1.7 On-chip L3 cache innovation and intelligent caching
      8. 2.1.8 Hardware transactional memory
      9. 2.1.9 POWER9 accelerator processor interfaces
      10. 2.1.10 Power and performance management
      11. 2.1.11 Comparison of the POWER9, POWER8, and POWER7+ processors
    2. 2.2 Memory subsystem
      1. 2.2.1 Custom DIMM
      2. 2.2.2 Memory placement rules
      3. 2.2.3 Memory activation
      4. 2.2.4 Memory throughput
      5. 2.2.5 Active Memory Mirroring
      6. 2.2.6 Memory Error Correction and Recovery
      7. 2.2.7 Special Uncorrectable Error handling
    3. 2.3 Capacity on Demand
      1. 2.3.1 New Capacity on Demand features
      2. 2.3.2 Capacity Upgrade on Demand
      3. 2.3.3 Static activations
      4. 2.3.4 Elastic Capacity on Demand (Temporary)
      5. 2.3.5 IBM Power Enterprise Pools and Mobile Capacity on Demand
      6. 2.3.6 Utility Capacity on Demand
      7. 2.3.7 Trial Capacity on Demand
      8. 2.3.8 Software licensing and CoD
    4. 2.4 System bus
      1. 2.4.1 PCI Express Gen4
      2. 2.4.2 Service processor bus
    5. 2.5 PCIe adapters
      1. 2.5.1 New PCIe adapter features
      2. 2.5.2 PCI Express
      3. 2.5.3 LAN adapters
      4. 2.5.4 Graphics adapters
      5. 2.5.5 SAS adapters
      6. 2.5.6 Fibre Channel adapters
      7. 2.5.7 USB adapters
      8. 2.5.8 InfiniBand host channel adapters
      9. 2.5.9 Cryptographic Coprocessor
      10. 2.5.10 CAPI adapters
      11. 2.5.11 ASYNC adapters
    6. 2.6 Internal NVMe storage
    7. 2.7 External I/O subsystems
      1. 2.7.1 PCIe Gen3 I/O Expansion Drawer
      2. 2.7.2 PCIe Gen3 I/O Expansion Drawer optical cabling
      3. 2.7.3 PCIe Gen3 I/O Expansion Drawer SPCN cabling
    8. 2.8 External disk subsystems
      1. 2.8.1 EXP24SX and EXP12SX SAS Storage Enclosures
      2. 2.8.2 IBM System Storage
    9. 2.9 Operating system support
      1. 2.9.1 AIX operating system
      2. 2.9.2 IBM i
      3. 2.9.3 Linux operating system
      4. 2.9.4 Virtual I/O Server
  6. Chapter 3. Virtualization
    1. 3.1 IBM POWER Hypervisor
      1. 3.1.1 POWER processor modes
    2. 3.2 Active Memory Expansion
    3. 3.3 Single Root I/O Virtualization
    4. 3.4 PowerVM
      1. 3.4.1 Multiple shared processor pools
      2. 3.4.2 Virtual I/O Server
      3. 3.4.3 Live Partition Mobility
      4. 3.4.4 Active Memory Sharing
      5. 3.4.5 Active Memory Deduplication
      6. 3.4.6 Remote Restart
  7. Chapter 4. Reliability, availability, serviceability, and manageability
    1. 4.1 Power E980 specific RAS enhancements
    2. 4.2 Reliability
      1. 4.2.1 Designed for reliability
      2. 4.2.2 Placement of components
    3. 4.3 Processor RAS details
      1. 4.3.1 Correctable error introduction
      2. 4.3.2 Uncorrectable error introduction
      3. 4.3.3 Processor core/cache error handling
      4. 4.3.4 Cache uncorrectable error handling
      5. 4.3.5 Cyclic redundancy check and lane repair for processor fabric buses
      6. 4.3.6 Split internode connection bus with symmetric multiprocessing cable redundancy
      7. 4.3.7 Processor instruction retry and other try again techniques
      8. 4.3.8 Predictive processor deallocation
      9. 4.3.9 Core-contained checkstops and PowerVM handled errors
      10. 4.3.10 PCIe controller and enhanced error handling
      11. 4.3.11 Memory channel checkstops and hypervisor memory mirroring
      12. 4.3.12 Persistent guarding of failed elements
    4. 4.4 Memory RAS details
    5. 4.5 PCIe I/O subsystem RAS details
      1. 4.5.1 I/O subsystem availability and enhanced error handling
      2. 4.5.2 PCIe Gen3 I/O Expansion drawer RAS
    6. 4.6 Enterprise systems availability
    7. 4.7 Availability effects of a solution architecture
      1. 4.7.1 Clustering
      2. 4.7.2 Virtual I/O redundancy configurations
      3. 4.7.3 PowerVM Live Partition Mobility
    8. 4.8 Serviceability
      1. 4.8.1 Detecting errors
      2. 4.8.2 Error checkers, fault isolation registers, and first failure data capture
      3. 4.8.3 Service processor
      4. 4.8.4 Diagnosing
      5. 4.8.5 Reporting
      6. 4.8.6 Notifying
      7. 4.8.7 Locating and servicing
    9. 4.9 Manageability
      1. 4.9.1 Service user interfaces
      2. 4.9.2 IBM Power Systems Firmware maintenance
      3. 4.9.3 Concurrent Firmware Maintenance improvements
      4. 4.9.4 Electronic Services and Electronic Service Agent
    10. 4.10 Selected POWER9 RAS capabilities by operating system
  8. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks
    2. Online resources
    3. Help from IBM
  9. Back cover

Product information

  • Title: IBM Power System E980: Technical Overview and Introduction
  • Author(s): Scott Vetter, James Cruickshank, Volker Haug, Yongsheng Li, Armin Röll
  • Release date: January 2020
  • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
  • ISBN: 9780738457123