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IBM Power Systems pros and cons

Vendor: IBM
4.4 out of 5

Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

IBM Power Systems offers excellent performance and stability, making it highly suitable for high-end databases and critical applications.
The virtualization capabilities of IBM Power Systems, particularly through PowerVM, provide flexibility and scalability without needing third-party software support.
IBM Power Systems is recognized for its reliable and resilient architecture, ensuring high availability, uptime, and the ability to run without downtime during maintenance or part replacements.
IBM Power Systems is highly secure and provides regular security updates and system hardening tools, enhancing its overall reliability and operational efficiency.
The support from IBM's technical team is highly rated, contributing to the positive experience and reliability of using IBM Power Systems.

CONS

IBM Power Systems faces challenges with software compatibility and vendor support, limiting the adoption of existing platforms.
Scalability is constrained and depends heavily on initial configuration, making it complicated compared to alternatives like Nutanix HCI.
The pricing of IBM Power Systems is perceived as high by many users, deterring potential adopters.
Migration and management processes are complex and difficult to streamline, creating additional barriers for users.
Limited cloud integration and graphical interface options hinder flexibility and ease of access for administrators.
 

IBM Power Systems Pros review quotes

SA
Nov 4, 2020
The availability of a solution depends on the requirement of the customer. The most valuable feature is the virtualization. You can have this one system or you can use it for many. They were using almost 120 servers within that specific service.
FA
Oct 29, 2020
Active Memory Expansion allows you to compress your memory on the run time to allow you to have less physical memory available, but provision more memory to your partitions, as everything will be compressed on the fly.
it_user756285 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 17, 2017
From a software developer standpoint, virtualization is really the key, as we can more easily spin up a new partition, virtual instance of IBM i.
Learn what your peers think about IBM Power Systems. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2025.
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it_user758181 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 19, 2017
The virtualization and the quality you get from it is one reason we like the solution.
SysArchi8bbf - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 19, 2017
From a reliability standpoint it has provided us with excellent performance.
BF
Oct 19, 2017
PowerVM.
it_user758208 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 19, 2017
It scales a lot, you can just keep on adding frames, you can add on CPUs, you get capacity on demand, you can tune the machine very easily to handle different workloads.
reviewer1070442 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 27, 2021
What we like the most is the ability to upgrade the scaling of the system itself. Whenever we need extra storage, we can do that. Whenever we need extra memory, we can do that as well. It's fast and it's available.
Foluso  Jibowo - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 28, 2025
With IBM Power11, downtime is virtually eliminated because the system has been fully optimized.
reviewer1456134 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 29, 2020
The technical support that clients get from IBM is excellent.
 

IBM Power Systems Cons review quotes

SA
Nov 4, 2020
The scalability process should be simplified.
FA
Oct 29, 2020
It does not offer the ability to run any X86 or X64 Intel architecture-based application on Power Systems. There are a lot of applications, lots of business use cases that do not support this architecture as of now. If somehow application tasks can be ported on to IBM Power Systems, that would be a big improvement.
it_user756285 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 17, 2017
Better manage heterogeneous footprints of all the different operating systems that are out there across one common interface.
Learn what your peers think about IBM Power Systems. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user758181 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 19, 2017
If you take advantage of some of these real advanced features, for oversubscribing as an example, it's not supported on Linux on Power. So that stops us, in particular, from going that way.
SysArchi8bbf - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 19, 2017
The lack of software vendors moving onto the platform, as opposed to fleeing the platform, is an issue.
BF
Oct 19, 2017
I think IBM needs a little more work on managing the overall environment with eliminating Systems Director.
it_user758208 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 19, 2017
I know lab services does a lot of work but systems, if they could include some kind of lab services and bundling of services to get you to the greatest and latest feature at the already included cost
reviewer1070442 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 27, 2021
The pricing of the product could always be lowered.
Foluso  Jibowo - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 28, 2025
There is a notion in the market that IBM is expensive, which is false.
reviewer1456134 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 29, 2020
IBM should be more flexible with marketing or offer marketing events themselves and invite the partners to attend. That might be far more productive.