IBM Canada Ltd. Announcement A08-0079, dated January 29, 2008

IBM PowerVM Lx86 expands the ability of IBM System p and BladeCenter servers to run applications

Reference information ...... 2 At a glance

PowerVM Lx86, a standard feature of all PowerVM Editions, is available at no additional charge to support the installation and running of most 32-bit Linux on x86 applications1 on any System p model with IBM POWER5, POWER5+, or POWER6 technology. PowerVM Lx86:

• Creates a Linux on x86 application environment running on Linux on System p servers by dynamically translating and mapping Linux on x86 instructions to POWER5, POWER5+, and POWER6 processors • Requires no native porting or application upgrade for supported applications

Overview

IBM is offering new and expanded options for POWER5™, POWER5+™, and POWER6™ processor-based System p™ servers so that clients can run x86 Linux™ applications that are not available as a native port on an IBM POWER™ platform running Linux. This enables clients to take advantage of the feature-rich IBM PowerVM Virtualization (formerly called System p Virtualization), high performance, and superb Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability (RAS) features available with System p and BladeCenter® servers. The PowerVM Lx86 feature expands the capabilities of POWER5, POWER5+, and POWER6 processor-based System p servers and PowerPC® and POWER6 processor-based blade servers to install and run most x86 Linux applications1. This new feature creates a virtual x86 Linux environment that will dynamically translate x86 instructions to POWER instructions and cache them to enhance performance, as well as map Linux on Intel® system calls to Linux on POWER system calls. PowerVM Lx86 allows 32-bit x86 Linux applications1 to easily install and run on System p and BladeCenter JS21 or JS22 servers that are using a Linux . Additionally, some of the key goals of this feature are to help ISVs expand their addressable market to Linux on POWER servers at minimal to no cost by allowing them to run their existing 32-bit x86 Linux applications in a POWER environment. It also helps IBM Business Partners and ISVs provide clients with a more comprehensive application environment. PowerVM Lx86 (formerly available as an Open Beta by the name of System p Application Virtual Environment or System p AVE) is offered as a standard feature of all PowerVM Editions (a set of virtualization products formerly known as Advanced POWER Virtualization or APV), including the PowerVM Standard Edition, the recently announced PowerVM Enterprise Edition with Live Partition Mobility, and the new PowerVM Express Edition. PowerVM virtualization with the Lx86 feature enables clients to consolidate many x86 Linux applications along with applications written to Power Architecture™ servers running on the Linux or IBM AIX® operating systems, offering the potential to reduce energy costs, lower total cost of ownership (TCO), and improve the

IBM Canada Ltd. Announcement A08-0079 IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation 1 flexibility of clients' IT. PowerVM Lx86 is also available for ISVs and developers from the IBM developerWorks™ portal. With this announcement, the Open Beta program will be discontinued. 1 PowerVM Lx86 runs most x86 Linux applications; however, PowerVM Lx86 cannot run certain applications. Refer to the Limitations section for further information.

Key prerequisites

PowerVM Lx86 for x86 Linux requires:

• A System p POWER5, POWER5+, or POWER6 processor-based server or PowerPC processor-based BladeCenter server • One of these operating systems: – Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4 for POWER – SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 9 for POWER – SLES 10 for POWER

Planned availability date February 8, 2008

Reference information

Refer to A08-0084, dated January 29, 2008. Refer to A05-1380, dated October 4, 2005, for Virtual I/O Server. Trade-marks

POWER5, POWER5+, POWER6, System p, POWER, Power Architecture, and developerWorks are trade-marks of International Business Machines Corporation used under license by IBM Canada Ltd.

BladeCenter, PowerPC, and AIX are registered trade-marks of International Business Machines Corporation used under license by IBM Canada Ltd.

Intel is a registered trade-mark of Intel Corporation.

Linux is a trade-mark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other countries or both.

Other company, product, and service names may be trade-marks or service marks of others.

This announcement is provided for your information only. For additional information, contact your IBM representative, call 800-IBM-4YOU, or visit the IBM home page at: http://www.ibm.com/ca/

IBM Canada Ltd. Announcement A08-0079 IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation 2