IBM Power6 FAQ

Check the machine type/model label on the physical unit, or run WRKHDWRSC / DSPSYSVAL in IBM i, or lscfg -vp | grep -i model in AIX. It reads as a 4-digit machine type, a dash, then a 3-character model code, for example 9117-MMA for a Power 570. See our Identify Your Power6 page for the full model-to-machine-type table.

It's a risk, not an emergency by itself. IBM ended standard hardware maintenance for Power6 on March 31, 2019, so you're running without IBM's own support contract available, on parts that are increasingly scarce, on an IBM i release that's also past its own end of program support. The real question is what your recovery plan is when a component fails, not whether it's currently working.

March 31, 2019, for both Power6 and Power6+ hardware, per IBM announcement letter 917-163. Power7 and Power7+ got six more months, through September 30, 2019.

The biggest shift was strategy, not just speed. Power6 (2007) bet on very high clock speed with two cores per chip; Power7 (2010) moved to four, six, or eight cores per chip at lower individual clock speeds, a core-count-first approach every Power generation since has continued. Power7 also added on-chip eDRAM cache.

For most Power6 shops, skip straight to current generation. You're already re-verifying IBM i, application, and storage compatibility regardless of which generation you land on, so landing on hardware with a full support lifecycle ahead of it is usually the better outcome for the same migration effort.

Not from IBM directly, standard IBM parts sourcing ended with the March 2019 end-of-service date. Third-party maintenance providers source parts from decommissioned units, refurbished stock, and specialized inventory instead.

POWER6+ is a higher-clocked refresh of the same POWER6 processor generation, not a separate generation, reaching up to roughly 4.7-5.0 GHz on some Power 570 and Power 595 configurations versus the original's 3.5-4.2 GHz. For support, EOS, and migration purposes, Power6 and Power6+ are treated identically.

The April 2008 unification, timed with the POWER6 generation, recognized what was already true underneath: System i and System p ran on the same POWER processor family and the same underlying virtualization capability, just sold and marketed as separate lines. Merging them into Power Systems turned that into one brand, capable of running IBM i, AIX, and Linux on the same hardware.

Power6 hardware tops out around IBM i 7.1, several releases behind what current Power hardware supports. That IBM i release reached its own end of program support well before the hardware's own March 2019 end-of-service date.

There's no meaningful generic number, it depends entirely on the target generation and model, IBM i user count and software tier, and migration services scope. See our resource library and directory for reseller and service partner discovery to get a specific quote.

Often, yes. Running core business systems on hardware with no vendor-backed support path is a real finding in many security and compliance reviews, independent of whether the hardware happens to be running fine today.