IBM Power Systems H922 and H924 Technical Overview and Introduction

IBM Power Systems H922 and H924 Technical Overview and Introduction

by Scott Vetter, Young Hoon Cho, Gareth Coates, Bartlomiej Grabowski, Volker Haug
Released December 2019
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: 9780738457000

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Book description

This IBM® Redpaper™ publication is a comprehensive guide that covers the IBM Power System H924 (9223-42H), and IBM Power System H922 (9223-22H) servers that support memory-intensive workloads such as SAP HANA, and deliver superior price/performance for mission-critical applications in IBM AIX®, IBM i, and Linux operating systems. The objective of this paper is to introduce the major innovative Power H92 and Power H922 offerings and their relevant functions:


  • The new IBM POWER9™ processor, which is available at frequencies of 2.8 - 3.8 GHz, 2.9 - 3.8 GHz, 2.8 - 3.8 GHz, 3.4 - 3.9 GHz, 3.5 - 3.9 GHz, and 3.8 - 4.0 GHz.
  • Significantly strengthened cores and larger caches.
  • Two integrated memory controllers that allow doubled the memory footprint of IBM POWER8® servers.
  • An integrated I/O subsystem and hot-pluggable Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) Gen4 and Gen3 I/O slots.
  • I/O drawer expansion options offer greater flexibility.
  • Support for Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface (CAPI) 2.0.
  • IBM EnergyScale™ technology provides new variable processor frequency modes that provide a significant performance boost beyond the static nominal frequency.

This publication is for professionals who want to acquire a better understanding of IBM Power Systems™ products. The intended audience includes the following roles:

  • Clients
  • Sales and marketing professionals
  • Technical support professionals
  • IBM Business Partners
  • Independent software vendors (ISVs)

This paper expands the current set of IBM Power Systems documentation by providing a desktop reference that offers a detailed technical description of the Power H92 and
Power H922 systems.

This paper does not replace the latest marketing materials and configuration tools. It is intended as an extra source of information that, together with existing sources, can be used to enhance your knowledge of IBM server solutions.

Table of contents

  1. Front cover
  2. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  3. Preface
    1. Authors
    2. Now you can become a published author, too!
    3. Comments welcome
    4. Stay connected to IBM Redbooks
  4. Chapter 1. General description
    1. 1.1 Systems overview
      1. 1.1.1 The Power H922 server
      2. 1.1.2 The Power H924 server
      3. 1.1.3 Common features
    2. 1.2 Operating environment
    3. 1.3 Physical package
    4. 1.4 System features
      1. 1.4.1 Power H922 system features
      2. 1.4.2 Power H924 system features
      3. 1.4.3 Minimum features
      4. 1.4.4 Power supply features
      5. 1.4.5 Processor module features
      6. 1.4.6 Memory features
      7. 1.4.7 PCIe slots
    5. 1.5 Disk and media features
    6. 1.6 I/O drawers for Power H922 and Power H924 servers
      1. 1.6.1 PCIe Gen3 I/O expansion drawer
      2. 1.6.2 I/O drawers and usable PCI slots
      3. 1.6.3 EXP24SX SAS Storage Enclosure (#ESLS) and EXP12SX SAS Storage Enclosure (#ESLL)
    7. 1.7 System racks
      1. 1.7.1 IBM 7014 Model T00 rack
      2. 1.7.2 IBM 7014 Model T42 rack
      3. 1.7.3 IBM 42U Slim Rack 7965-94Y
      4. 1.7.4 #0551
      5. 1.7.5 #0553
      6. 1.7.6 #ER05
      7. 1.7.7 The AC power distribution unit and rack content
      8. 1.7.8 Rack-mounting rules
      9. 1.7.9 Useful rack additions
      10. 1.7.10 Original equipment manufacturer rack
    8. 1.8 Hardware Management Console
      1. 1.8.1 New features
      2. 1.8.2 Hardware Management Console overview
      3. 1.8.3 Hardware Management Console code level
      4. 1.8.4 Two architectures of Hardware Management Console
      5. 1.8.5 Hardware Management Console connectivity to POWER9 processor-based systems’ service processors
      6. 1.8.6 High availability Hardware Management Console configuration
  5. Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview
    1. 2.1 The IBM POWER9 processor
      1. 2.1.1 POWER9 processor overview
      2. 2.1.2 POWER9 processor features
      3. 2.1.3 POWER9 processor core
      4. 2.1.4 Simultaneous multithreading
      5. 2.1.5 Processor feature codes
      6. 2.1.6 Memory access
      7. 2.1.7 On-chip L3 cache innovation and Intelligent Cache
      8. 2.1.8 Hardware transactional memory
      9. 2.1.9 Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface 2.0
      10. 2.1.10 Power management and system performance
      11. 2.1.11 Comparison of the POWER9, POWER8, and POWER7+ processors
    2. 2.2 Memory subsystem
      1. 2.2.1 Memory placement rules
      2. 2.2.2 Memory bandwidth
    3. 2.3 System bus
    4. 2.4 Internal I/O subsystem
      1. 2.4.1 Slot configuration
      2. 2.4.2 System ports
    5. 2.5 PCIe adapters
      1. 2.5.1 PCI Express
      2. 2.5.2 LAN adapters
      3. 2.5.3 Graphics accelerator adapters
      4. 2.5.4 SAS adapters
      5. 2.5.5 Fibre Channel adapters
      6. 2.5.6 InfiniBand host channel adapter
      7. 2.5.7 Cryptographic coprocessor
      8. 2.5.8 CAPI adapters
      9. 2.5.9 USB adapters
    6. 2.6 Internal storage
      1. 2.6.1 Backplane (#EJ1F)
      2. 2.6.2 NVMe support
      3. 2.6.3 Backplane (#EJ1C)
      4. 2.6.4 Split backplane option (#EJ1E)
      5. 2.6.5 Backplane (#EJ1D)
      6. 2.6.6 Expanded Function Backplane (#EJ1M)
      7. 2.6.7 Backplane (#EJ1D and #EJ1M)
      8. 2.6.8 RAID support
      9. 2.6.9 Easy Tier
      10. 2.6.10 External SAS port
      11. 2.6.11 Media drawers
      12. 2.6.12 External DVD drive
      13. 2.6.13 RDX
    7. 2.7 External IO subsystems
      1. 2.7.1 PCIe Gen3 I/O expansion drawer
      2. 2.7.2 PCIe Gen3 I/O expansion drawer optical cabling
      3. 2.7.3 PCIe Gen3 I/O expansion drawer system power control network cabling
    8. 2.8 External disk subsystems
      1. 2.8.1 EXP24SX SAS Storage Enclosure and EXP12SX SAS Storage Enclosure
      2. 2.8.2 IBM Storage
    9. 2.9 Operating system support
      1. 2.9.1 Linux operating system
  6. Chapter 3. Virtualization
    1. 3.1 POWER Hypervisor
      1. 3.1.1 Virtual SCSI
      2. 3.1.2 Virtual Ethernet
      3. 3.1.3 Virtual Fibre Channel
      4. 3.1.4 Virtual (TTY) console
    2. 3.2 POWER processor modes
    3. 3.3 Active Memory Expansion
    4. 3.4 Single root I/O virtualization
    5. 3.5 PowerVM
      1. 3.5.1 Multiple shared processor pools
      2. 3.5.2 Virtual I/O Server
      3. 3.5.3 Live Partition Mobility
      4. 3.5.4 Active Memory Sharing
      5. 3.5.5 Active Memory Deduplication
      6. 3.5.6 Remote Restart
  7. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks
    2. Online resources
    3. Help from IBM
  8. Back cover

Product information

  • Title: IBM Power Systems H922 and H924 Technical Overview and Introduction
  • Author(s): Scott Vetter, Young Hoon Cho, Gareth Coates, Bartlomiej Grabowski, Volker Haug
  • Release date: December 2019
  • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
  • ISBN: 9780738457000