© Copyright IBM Corp. 2010. All rights reserved. 37
Chapter 2. Architecture and technical
overview
This chapter discusses the overall system architecture of the POWER7 processor-based
blade servers and provides details about each major subsystem and technology.
The topics covered are:
2.1, “Architecture” on page 38
2.2, “The IBM POWER7 processor” on page 38
2.3, “POWER7 processor-based blades” on page 46
2.4, “Memory subsystem” on page 46
2.5, “Technical comparison” on page 51
2.6, “Internal I/O subsystem” on page 52
2.7, “Integrated Virtual Ethernet” on page 61
2.8, “Service processor” on page 63
2.9, “Internal storage” on page 65
2.10, “External disk subsystems” on page 68
2.11, “IVM” on page 71
2.12, “Operating system support” on page 72
2.13, “IBM EnergyScale” on page 74
Note: The bandwidths that are provided throughout the chapter are theoretical maximums
used for reference.