Canny System i people who also use Unix servers are advised to check out the incentives IBM is offering them to migrate HP and Sun hardware to Power Systems.

Both Big Blue's Migration Factory and Power Rewards worldwide programmes offer hefty enticements on new Power System hardware for those that make the switch to its AIX flavour of Unix or even Linux. There is one almighty battle going on in the Unix space right now and if i users can benefit from consolidated Power Systems upgrade paths, then so much the better.

Whether we like it or not, the i community is being sucked into IBM, HP and Sun's server war anyway. Currently, Power i sales are bundled in with Power p by IBM, so i sales are used to bolster its claims to be Unix market leader. Such is the ferocity of this three-way punch-up that claims and counter claims abound from the vendors involved. Last month, IBM issued a press release claiming that 5,000 companies worldwide have replaced HP, Sun and EMC products with IBM systems and storage since 2004.

So why is this struggle so titanic? Scott Handy, IBM's Power Systems vice president of worldwide marketing and business strategy, explains that 30 % of total spend on servers worldwide is still on Unix servers, making it an $18 billion market.

"We’re the only Unix that grew in the last five years and our business model is predicated on the strategy that we will be the only Unix to grow in the next five years and so it is based on taking share from Sun and HP and that’s why we’re very aggressive on attracting the Sun and HP customers to our platform," he explains.

Handy estimates that users of HP and Sun hardware can benefit from tens of thousands of pounds worth of free migration consultancy under IBM's Migration Factory programme. The five-step initiative has its origins in IBM's purchase of OS migration specialist Sector 7 in 2003. Since then, what is now the Application Migrations Services division of IBM Global Services has grown to around 250 employees and Handy also wants to see 100 business partners equipped with the same migration skills.

Importantly, business partners and customers alike can benefit from kickbacks from IBM's associated Power Rewards migration programme. The programme, which IBM describes as being similar to a frequent flyer incentive, offers reward points based on the number of HP, Sun or other cores "retired" when customers move to Power Systems. Customers can redeem points toward no-charge migration services or training.

For instance, in October IBM increased the value per core for Sun or Fujitsu servers based on SPARC, UltraSPARC, or SPARC64 processors from 1,000 points to 4,000 points per core, making each core of a SPARC processor redeemable for up to $4,000 worth of no-charge IBM migration services (at present, all figures are in U.S. dollars).

IBM points out that customers can turn in multiple servers – all with multiple cores – to build up considerable free migration points. A user that moves the workload from one Sun V890 server could earn up to 64,000 points, worth up to $64,000, and a customer who replaces a 256-core Sun M9000 server could earn up to 1,024,000 points, worth more than $1 million in free services.

Talking of the Sun V890, Handy says: "You could actually put 34 of those servers on one rack of our power 570. So that’s really taking 544 cores down to 64 and getting equivalent performance. Now, with virtualisation you can take that pool of 34 servers, which we’re assuming is on average 20% utilised, and bring it up to 60% utilisation because of PowerVM, so that’s part of the equation. When you look at this equivalent performance, it’s a floor space reduction of 93%; 34 servers to, basically, one rack. The number of cores is reduced 88%, so if Oracle’s charging per core, that's a huge Oracle saving."

Customers can see the full scope of the Power Rewards programme here [2]. The details of how business partners can profit from the scheme are, of course, rather more murky. Right now there are five participating partners in the UK: Atos Origin, Centiq, PCS, Cap Gemini and, oddly, Fujitsu. Handy would now like to involve UK Power System partners who are better known in the System i world.

"It’s a great deal," he says. "Every partner who actually hears it says: 'Are you serious?'. And I say 'Yes I am'."