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back to article Better hot-patches, more virty in Big Blue's next AIX

As well as the range of Linux servers it released last week, Big Blue also announced version 7.2 of its venerable AIX operating system. Still a heavy-hitter in the world of big enterprise workloads, AIX is part of that declining population of Unix-based rather than Linux-based operating systems. Customers have a fair whack of …

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  1. Denarius
    Meh

    odd EOLing

    As expected, sniffs cloudiness. Baffled by AIX enterprise 7.1 biting dust 6 months before AIX Enterprise 6.1. Odd as it has better frame hopping capabilities, especially if one does not use vSCSI. Vanilla AIX releases continue as expected. Does this mean AIX Enterprise has a hopefully nice surprise upgrade coming so the various customers can block another badly needed upgrade ?

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: odd EOLing

      Just a guess but:

      It may be that 6.1 gets a long tail-off because it's the last of the 6.x line, and the next upgrade is a major upgrade to 7.x. So IBM gives customers lots of time to prep for that upgrade.

      On the other hand, 7.1 gets a shorter run out because the next upgrade is a point upgrade to 7.2. And IBM wants to encourage that upgrade so it doesn't have to run two patch streams for 7.x.

      This would be consistent with what most other enterprise companies do, IME

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      1. Cesar Maciel
        Reply Icon

        Re: odd EOLing

        Just a clarification - AIX 7.1 Enterprise Edition (the product that brings AIX 7.1 OS, PowerVC, PowerVP, and others) is the one being sunset, not the AIX 7.1 OS. And the reason for the sunset is because some of the products bundled inside AIX 7.1 EE will change, and therefore a new product number is required. AIX 7.1 OS will still be available for a long time, along with AIX 7.2.

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  2. jayk
    Boffin

    Re: odd EOLing

    IBM withdrew the old AIX Enterprise Edition which included either AIX 6 or AIX 7.1 and replaced it with two new products:

    - a new AIX 7.1 Enterprise Edition V1.1 and

    - a new AIX 7.2 Enterprise Edition V1.1

    The End of Support date for the old Enterprise Edition for AIX 6 was synced up with the End of Support for AIX 6 Standard edition, April 2017.

    But the End of Support date for the old Enterprise Edition for AIX 7.1 had a shorter End of Support date because it was replaced by the new AIX 7.1 Enterprise Edition V1.1.

    Part of the confusion is that IBM rules state that products can only be withdrawn in April or September (which is why the old AIX Enterprise Edition was withdrawn on September 29).

    But IBM could not announce the new AIX Enterprise Editions because US accounting laws require that the product must ship in the same quarter as the announcement - so the new product announcement was done on October 5, in the fourth quarter.

    I explained it better in my blog at https://kruemcke.wordpress.com/2015/10/05/aix-7-2-and-october-power-software-announcements/

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