IBM Power & AS400 Glossary
Definitions of IBM Power Systems, AS400, iSeries, and IBM i terminology for IT professionals and decision-makers evaluating IBM Power upgrades.
A
- AS400 IBM's Application System/400, a midrange business computing platform introduced in 1988, now evolved into IBM i on IBM Power Systems.
- AIX Server An AIX server is IBM Power hardware running IBM AIX, the UNIX operating system used for enterprise applications and databases.
- AS400 Power Requirements AS400 power requirements describe the circuits, UPS capacity, power supplies, redundancy, rack, and cooling needs for AS400 or IBM Power hardware.
I
- IBM i IBM's operating system for Power Systems, evolved from the AS400 OS/400. IBM i 7.5 is the current release, actively developed and supported by IBM.
- iSeries The name IBM used for the AS400 platform from 2000 to 2006, when it ran on POWER4 and POWER5 processors. Now superseded by the IBM i on Power branding.
- IBM Power Systems IBM's line of RISC-based enterprise servers running IBM i, AIX, and Linux workloads. The current generation is IBM Power 11, announced by IBM on July 8, 2025.
- IBM Power System An IBM Power System is a single IBM Power server used to run IBM i, AIX, Linux, or mixed workloads through logical partitions.
- IBM Power Server An IBM Power Server is enterprise hardware from the IBM Power Systems family used for IBM i, AIX, Linux, and mixed workloads.
- IBM Power Server Model An IBM Power Server model identifies a specific class of IBM Power hardware, but the actual buying fit depends on configuration and feature codes.
- IBM Machine Type An IBM machine type is a numeric hardware identifier used to identify an IBM system family, model class, service path, and compatible parts.
- IBM Feature Code An IBM feature code identifies a specific hardware or licensed feature inside an IBM Power, AS400, iSeries, or related IBM system configuration.
- IBM P Series IBM P Series is an older IBM server name commonly associated with AIX workloads that later became part of the IBM Power Systems family.
- IBM Power 11 IBM's current generation Power Systems hardware, introduced in 2024. Power11 delivers improved per-core performance, AI acceleration, and energy efficiency over Power10.
- IBM Power 10 IBM's previous generation Power Systems hardware, introduced in 2021. Power10 introduced the Matrix Math Accelerator (MMA) for AI workloads and enhanced memory bandwidth.
- IBM FlashSystem IBM's family of external all-flash storage arrays, built on Storage Virtualize software and populated with FlashCore Module NVMe drives.