AIX

Highlights

Well-proven, scalable, open standards-based AIX operating system
New features for virtualization, security, availability and manageability designed to make AIX® 6 even more flexible, secure and available than previous versions
Built on POWER™ technology and virtualization to help deliver superior performance, increase system utilization and efficiency, provide for easy administration and reduce total costs

The next step in the evolution of the AIX OS

Businesses today need to maximize their return on investment in information technology. Their IT infrastructure should have the flexibility to quickly adjust to changing business computing requirements and scale to handle ever expanding workloads—without adding complexity. But just providing flexibility and performance isn’t enough; the IT infrastructure also needs to provide rock solid security and near-continuous availability and while managing energy and cooling costs.

These are just some of the reasons why more and more businesses are choosing the AIX operating system (OS) running on Bull Escala designed with Power Architecture™ technology. With its proven scalability, advanced virtualization, security, manageability and reliability features, the AIX OS is an excellent choice for building an IT infrastructure. And, AIX is the only operating system that leverages decades of POWER technology innovation designed to provide the highest level of performance and reliability of any UNIX operating system.

The newest version of AIX, Version 7, is binary compatible with previous versions of the AIX OS, including AIX 5L™ and even earlier versions of AIX. This means that applications that ran on earlier versions will continue to run on AIX 7—guaranteed. AIX 7 is an open standards-based UNIX OS that is designed to comply with the Open Group’s Single UNIX Specification Version 3.

AIX 7 runs on systems based on POWER4™, PPC970, POWER5™, POWER6™ and the latest generation of POWER™ processor, POWER7. Most of the new features of AIX 7 are available on the earlier POWER platforms, but the most capability is delivered on systems based on the new POWER6 processors. The AIX OS is designed for the Bull Escala server product line, including Bull Escala blades based on Power Architecture technology.

AIX 7 extends the capabilities of the AIX OS to include new virtualization approaches including the ability to relocate applications between systems without restarting the application, new security features to improve and simplify security administration, new availability features and numerous features designed to make the AIX OS easier and less expensive to manage.

Features and benefits

Features	Benefits
Virtualization
Workload Partitions	Reduced administration, improved system efficiency
Live Application Mobility	Increased application availability, enhanced workload manageability and energy savings
Live Partition Mobility	Increased application availability, enhanced workload manageability and energy savings
Multiple Shared Processor Pools	Greater resource management flexibility and reduced application software expense
Shared Dedicated Processors	Improved server utilization
Security
Role Based Access Control	Improved security, decreased administration costs
Encrypting File system	Improved security
Trusted AIX	Highest level of security for critical government and business workloads
AIX Security Expert	Improved security, decreased administration costs by enabling federated management of security across multiple AIX systems
Secure by Default	Improved security on initial installations of AIX 7
Trusted Execution	Improved security
File system Permissions Tool	Improved security
Near-continuous availability
Concurrent AIX Updates	Greater system availability, improved security by enabling critical security patches to be installed without causing an outage
Storage Keys	Improved AIX availability and improved application availability
Dynamic Tracing	Easier resolution to application execution and performance problems
Enhanced First Failure Data Capture	Increased AIX reliability and quicker problem resolution
Non-intrusive Service Aids	Increased AIX reliability and quicker problem resolution
Functional Recovery Routines	Increased AIX and application reliability and availability
Manageability
Workload Partitions	Reduced administrative expense by reducing the number of AIX operating systems to maintain. Greater flexibility to deploy and manage workloads
Live Application Mobility	Improved flexibility to improve application availability and performance and to reduce energy costs
Workload Partitions Manager	Reduced management costs by providing federated management of workload partitions across the enterprise
Live Partition Mobility	Improved flexibility to improve application availability and performance and to reduce energy costs
IBM System Director Console for AIX	Reduced administrative costs and improved administrative effectiveness by enabling Web-based administration across multiple AIX instances
Automatic Variable Page Size	Improved performance with reduced administrative effort