Deciding When (and How) to Make the Jump to Power11
IBM Technical Lifecycle Services assists enterprise upgrades; customers cite lower TCO, better ROI as motivating factors
IBM’s newest and most formidable Power11 servers for high-end, mid-range and entry level customers, ship in general availability Friday, July 25.
IBM redesigned the Power11 platform at every layer of the stack including the processor, the hardware architecture and virtualization software stack. It is engineered for AI inferencing and hybrid deployment on-premises or in IBM Cloud. The Power11 servers boast an array of advanced features including IBM’s new AI-dedicated chip, the PCIe-mounted Spyre accelerator (due out in in Q4 2025), a guaranteed minimum of “six nines” reliability and leading-edge quantum security.
The Power11 also processor delivers a 55% core performance improvement over Power9 and can incorporate 25% more cores on a single chip than comparable Power10 servers, said Bargav Balakrishnan, VP of product management for IBM Power, during recent press and analyst briefings.
Now comes the tough part for the “tens of thousands” of IBM Power global customers: when to migrate and how to ensure a trouble-free transition that delivers tangible business value.
IBM Technology Lifecycle Services Brings Holistic Approach, Tangible Results
IBM Technology Lifecycle Services (TLS) is a managed services offering that provides IBM customers and technology partners with a “holistic approach” to ongoing infrastructure maintenance and management. Additionally, the global TLS team of 12,000 support specialists provides prescriptive guidance to help users manage their current environments and plan for upgrades, Calline Sanchez, VP of IBM Technical Lifecycle Services Management, said in an interview with TechChannel.
Sanchez said IBM TLS strives to be “complementary and is pushing the [lifecycle management] envelope” with respect to enterprises’ critical daily operational needs, like fast error recovery for IBM devices vis a vis aging hardware and aging code. The TLS experts also assist customers in identifying and mapping strategic planning and upgrades to the Power11 servers.
The Power11 platform, like the IBM Z mainframe, is “very complex,” Sanchez noted. The TLS team collaborates with enterprises to map out and build lifecycles based on specific use cases. “Some [firms] have invested more in hybrid clouds than others, while other companies are more focused on security or AI. Whatever, the customer’s need, the TLS team will examine infrastructure vectors like code aging, resiliency, and provide them with predictive and prescriptive guidance to lower costs, get the best return on investment and mitigate risk,” Sanchez said.
To assist customers from a practical standpoint, Sanchez said IBM TLS “is looking to reacquire parts and identify this to partners in a holistic way. We’ll tell them, ‘You have to get new parts for break fix and end of life.’”
Sanchez cited the example of a large Japanese firm that has been on an enterprise tape library for years. “We proactively work with them and determine how to migrate these parts for optimal resiliency, how to adjust to new higher workloads and address issues like provisioning new apps and harden security, and how to make the best use of AI,” she says.
Enterprises Say IBM TLS Delivers Immediate ROI
IBM TLS customers note that their C-suite executives, CTOs, IT and security departments face the daunting task of executing smooth, efficient upgrades that are reliable, secure, compliant and resilient enough to solve current and future business challenges. Businesses, including IBM Power11 customers running IBM i, Linux and AIX operating systems across all vertical markets, must ensure that server and infrastructure upgrades don’t break the legacy infrastructure—or their budgets.
The sheer complexity of migrations in interconnected environments that span on-prem data centers, the network edge, cloud environments and remote offices can overwhelm even the most expert IBM enterprises.
“We have an incredible team of expert IT and security administrators and application developers, but even they are hard-pressed to keep up with the latest configuration changes, security updates and compliance requirements,” said the VP of IT at a nationwide financial institution based in the Midwest. The bank, a longtime IBM Power and Z mainframe customer, has used IBM TLS services for years. The VP of IT said his firm “definitely plans to utilize TLS in its upcoming Power11 rollout over the next eight to 12 months.”
“We can’t afford any hardware upgrade or application provisioning glitches that could cause downtime. An outage of even five or 10 minutes could potentially cost us millions per minute depending on the transaction, the application and whether it occurred at peak usage time,” the VP of IT said.
“IBM TLS experts partner with us to cover every aspect of our infrastructure and application lifecycles,” he said. That includes configuration requirements, break fixes, recommendations on retrofitting and upgrading existing servers and bolstering security to keep pace with the latest threats. “TLS saves us approximately 30% in annual operating expenses. And more than that, it lets me sleep at night,” the VP of IT said.
Another customer, a national insurance company in the Northeast, will also use IBM TLS to assist with its planned IBM Power11 upgrade over the next 12 to 24 months, according to a security and IT manager at the company. “As an insurance company, our business is protecting our customers. IBM TLS does the same for us. When it comes to security, we take no chances. TLS is well worth the expense,” the security and IT manager concluded.