IBM POWER7 systems

This paper describes the system architectures and designs of the IBM POWER7® servers. From the smallest single-processor socket blade to the largest 32-processor-socket 256-core enterprise rack server, each system is designed to fully exploit the performance and the scalability of the POWER7 processor. This paper describes the enhancements made to the memory and input/output subsystems to achieve balanced and scalable designs, the changes made to the power and cooling circuitry to manage energy consumption and power dissipation, and the enhancements made to reliability, availability, and serviceability. These enhancements enable the POWER7 processor-based servers to achieve significant increases in the performance density and the performance per watt, as compared with the predecessor POWER6® processor-based servers.