IBM launched a new server series that taps into its latest Power10 processor and furthers the computing giant's hybrid-cloud focus. Chip analysts noted that existing IBM Power customers will likely jump on the update initially, but that it could eventually draw data center business from its x86 or ARM-based server competitors.

The new Power E1080 server is the first to use IBM's Power10 processor that it first unveiled just over a year ago. IBM noted that it offers additional security tools for hybrid-cloud environments compared to the previous model E980. 

IBM claims that the Power10 processor provides “transparent memory encryption” to avoid additional management setup. It has four-fold more encryption engines per core, allowing 2.5-times faster Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption, compared to the previous generation of the Power servers.

The E1080 also uses IBM PowerVM as its built-in hypervisor, which has significantly fewer common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE) than competitive hypervisors, according to IBM.

“One of the most interesting things is how we've gone beyond just some of the concepts and rhetoric around confidential computing to deep levels of security improvements right with pervasive encryption in the memory,” said Steve Sibley, VP of product management at IBM Power. He mentioned that one recent customer plans to incorporate the Power10 processor mainly because of its security features.

The server is also the first on-premises system planned to support metering by the minute for Red Hat’s platforms Enterprise Linux and OpenShift. The executives said the new server offers more than four-times greater OpenShift containerized throughput per core compared to the x86-based servers. IBM spent $34 billion on Red Hat to boost its ability to compete against larger rivals in the hybrid-cloud space.

In a presentation, IBM explained that one of its customers projected they could consolidate an industry-standard transactional database running across 126 x86-based servers down to two IBM Power E1080 servers, with an 80% reduction in server energy use and 70% cut in per-core software licenses.

“The immediate impact and value of Power E1080 solutions will mainly be enjoyed, at least initially, by existing IBM Power customers, including a substantial majority of the Fortune 500 and other large enterprises,” Pund-IT President and principal analyst Charles King told SDxCentral. “If the E1080 delivers the goods that IBM promises, it could draw a significant number of new businesses to Power Systems solutions.”

King also noted that “IBM's focus on container performance mirrors the company's larger positioning of the E1080 as a solution designed from the ground-up for hybrid cloud applications, use cases, and deployments. ... That should be a boon to the company's customers in their engagements with public cloud platforms."

Clabby Analytics President Joe Clabby concurred, noting that “the key target clientele for E1080 are enterprises seeking extreme performance, scalability, energy efficiency, and security for their digital environments." He added that “many workloads are being run on x86-based servers today that belong on power-based servers.”

IDC research director Peter Rutten explained in an email to SDxCentral that while “IBM will continue to support its installed base with technologies that their customers need for digital transformation, hybrid cloud integration, AI, etc.," that "the IBM Power market is small, and a new generation Power systems does not impact the entire worldwide server market much in terms of market shares. It does, however, impact the market in terms of setting a baseline for new capabilities.”

Rutten tied those new capabilities to the Power10 processor, which "is anything but an incremental step and ventures into important forward-looking territory."

“With the Power10 chip as the engine of the new Power E1080 platform, IBM continues to push enterprise computing toward a sweet spot where the best of all worlds come together: openness, compute power, hybrid cloud, AI, security, scalability, sustainability, and reliability in a single platform,” Rutten added.