The Ultimate Guide to Migrating to IBM Power11 Systems (2025-2026)

Migrating to the IBM Power11 platform is not merely a technical refresh; it is a strategic decision driven by compelling business and operational factors. It ensures your services remain reliable, secure, future-proofed, and deliver the performance your business demands.

Modernisation Demands

Legacy systems often hinder business agility and innovation. Moving to Power11 enables a modern platform that can handle large data volumes, integrate with cloud architectures, and support rapid digital transformation. This leads to faster time-to-market for new products and services.

Modernising existing enterprise applications facilitates a smoother transition to hybrid cloud, providing the flexibility to run applications anywhere, anytime.

Efficiency and Sustainability

IBM Power11 offers significant energy efficiency improvements, addressing mounting pressure from both a commercial and regulatory standpoint. Compared to a Power9 system, a Power11 server can reduce energy consumption by up to 60% for the same performance, while cutting its data centre footprint by up to two-thirds.

A new Energy Efficient mode can reduce energy consumption by up to 28% with only an approximate 10% reduction in performance. This is a crucial factor in achieving corporate sustainability goals.

AI Integration

The Power11 platform is “AI-ready by design,” featuring on-chip Matrix-Math Accelerators (MMAs) that dramatically boost performance for AI and machine learning inference workloads. This on-chip acceleration significantly boosts inferencing speed, reducing the need for external GPUs in many scenarios and accelerating time-to-value for AI initiatives.

The processors are also designed to be complemented by the new IBM Spyre Accelerator card, which is optimised for generative AI.

Beginning with IBM’s Power10 chip and improved with Power11, each core integrates four Matrix Math Accelerators (MMAs) capable of supporting a wide range of AI inference workloads directly on the CPU.

Support Costs and Licensing

Continuing to run on older hardware increases security risks and maintenance costs. The superior per-core performance of Power11 can allow for workload consolidation onto fewer cores, potentially cutting software licensing costs from vendors like Oracle by up to 50%. This often results in a better Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) compared to maintaining legacy systems.

The IBM Power11 family builds upon the strengths of its predecessors with substantial architectural advancements, delivering a new standard for enterprise computing.

Processor Architecture and Performance

The Power11 processor introduces several key enhancements, including more cores per chip (up to 25% over Power10) and higher clock speeds. It leverages advanced 7nm technology and Integrated Stacked Capacitor (ISC) technology for improved power delivery and efficiency.

The portfolio is segmented into three tiers to meet different needs:

• High-End
  The Power E1180 (9080-HEU) is the flagship, designed for extreme scalability with up to 16 cores per chip, 256 cores in a full system, and 64 TB of DDR5 memory.
• Midrange
  The Power E1150 (9043-MRU) is a 4U server that uses a Dual Chip Module (DCM) with up to 30 cores per socket and supports up to 120 cores and 16 TB of DDR5 memory.
• Scale-Out
  The Power S1122/L1122 and S1124/L1124 models are optimised for cost-effective, horizontally scalable workloads, supporting up to 60 cores in a two-socket system and up to 8 TB of memory.

Comparison to Older Systems

The transition to Power11 offers significant advantages over previous generations. As seen in the table below, the architecture has evolved to deliver massive performance gains, increased memory bandwidth, and modern I/O capabilities.

Enhanced Security

The Power11 architecture is engineered with a multi-layered approach to security. It introduces Quantum-Safe Encryption (QSE), which is designed to resist attacks from future quantum computers. It also features pervasive memory encryption, which operates at the hardware level with minimal performance impact, ensuring data is secure while in memory.

Virtualisation and Management

Power11 systems are designed for Autonomous IT, with embedded automation and AI-infused workflows orchestrated by tools like IBM Concert. The platform integrates deeply with the PowerVM hypervisor, enabling features like Live Partition Mobility (LPM), Capacity on Demand (CoD), and dynamic resource allocation.

At Covenco, we understand that many customers upgrade their business-critical platforms once every five to ten years. Fortunately, we deliver these upgrades regularly, and we have a clear, multi-stage process to ensure a seamless POWER upgrade.

At Covenco, we understand that many of our customers upgrade these business-critical platforms once every five to ten years. Fortunately, we deliver these upgrades regularly, and we want to outline our steps to a seamless POWER upgrade.

Discovery

All engagements start with understanding the here and now. Therefore, Covenco will work with you, and with access to IBM records, to gather:

• A high-level understanding of the environment – how many physical servers, how many partitions, existence of VIO and/or HA, external SAN etc.
• A hardware output of your existing environment – this could be an lscfg-v on AIX, or Start Service Tools (STRSST) and F6 (Print) on the Hardware Service Manager on IBMi Partitions.
• A System Plan of the LPARs from the HMC.
• Details of the OS Level by partition.
• An understanding of the closely coupled systems – web front ends, printing services etc.
• Software listings (i.e. an WRKLICPRG on an IBMi server).
• Understanding of Third-Party products and any in-house written systems (especially the base code and its observability).

Appraisal of Business Needs

We collaborate to define the minimum requirements of your upgrade, factoring in future growth and business events. This includes discussing new features you wish to adopt, such as enhanced High Availability (HA) options, secure backup, and AI capabilities. We will also outline a strategy for disaster recovery and cyber resilience using solutions like IBM Power Cyber Vault.

We need to consider additional features or functions you wish to incorporate into the new system design.

Solution Design

We compile the information gathered in the previous stages into a detailed Discussion Document that presents all potential technical and commercial options. This output includes a clear analysis of the TCO and ROI against your current systems, highlighting potential carbon reduction and electricity savings.

Covenco will address any considerations in a detailed Discussion Document. All potential options will be included, each with a commentary on the technical pro’s and con’s, with the full commercials and an analysis of the TCO and the ROI against your current systems…

De-risking the Upgrade:

This is often the most daunting part for our customers, but our process is designed to mitigate risk at every stage. We highly recommend a test environment for the upgrade, whether it’s an existing test partition, an LPAR on a new server, or a completely new cloud partition. Once this environment is in place, we’ll help you create a copy of your current live system for testing. We can also arrange for temporary ITIL licenses from IBM to support this testing.

Testing the Go-Live

The test environment is an excellent opportunity to validate the eventual go-live methodology and timings. We’ll work with you to test various migration options:

• Backup and Restore:
  Simple but requires a sizeable outage. We can provide a rental interim tape solution to bridge any technology gaps.
• Partition Mobility (LPM):
  Where feasible, this method allows for migrating the partition while active, making the process invisible to your users.
• MIMIX/PowerHA:
  For systems already using these solutions, we can design a temporary replication path to the new Power11 server, allowing for a minimal outage role swap. We can also provide this as a temporary solution even if you are not currently using HA.
• Disk Swing:
  With proper planning, we can clone an environment using a SAN and remount it on the new server, greatly reducing downtime.

Ready to Go Live

Once functional and connectivity tests are complete, the go-live methodology is agreed, and the window is arranged. We will be available at this critical time, often early on a Saturday morning. We’ll perform final checks, including a full backup of the current live system, a run-through of the fall-back plan, and a check that all software keys are in place.

Handover

Finally, we are available during that critical moment when users access the systems for the first time. We will help address any teething problems that need to be fixed forward. As a last action, if you are migrating licenses, especially cores, we will need to update the IBM POE websites and add the Kill Key’s to the donor systems where applicable. The outcome is a safe, seamless migration, new functionality, a better performing system, better ROI, and increased security and resilience.

Technical:

1. Operating System Compatibility
   Power11 servers require a minimum OS level. AIX 7.3 with at least Technology Level 3 and Service Pack 1 is required for native Power11 mode. AIX 7.2 instances and older can run in a compatible mode, as can older IBM i releases (IBM i 7.4 TR12, 7.5 TR6).
2. Virtualisation
   PowerVM is integrated directly into the firmware, providing a high-performance hypervisor for LPARs. For Linux workloads, the platform also offers deep support for Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) within a PowerVM LPAR, giving you the best of both worlds.
3. Hardware Management Console (HMC)
   A V11R1 M1110 HMC is required to manage Power11 systems. This version is only supported on the 7063-CR2 physical appliance or the Virtual HMC appliance. Older HMC models (7063-CR1, 7042) are not supported.

Financial:

Migrating to Power11 can lead to significant financial benefits beyond raw performance improvements.

• Reduced Licensing Costs:
  Power11’s superior per-core performance can enable workload consolidation onto fewer cores, leading to a direct reduction in software licensing costs for core applications. Read our article on the financial benefits of upgrading to new hardware compared ot continuous extended support on older Power systems. 
• Lower TCO and ROI:
  The reduced power consumption, smaller physical footprint, and lower cooling requirements of Power11 contribute to a lower Total Cost of Ownership. Studies have shown clients deploying IBM i can achieve an average ROI of 191% over three years, with a payback period of just six months.

Operational:

Power11 is built for modern, autonomous IT operations, simplifying management and enhancing efficiency.

1. Automated Maintenance
   The Automated Maintenance Framework automates the full maintenance lifecycle for system firmware, VIOS, and I/O adapters. This can be executed with zero planned downtime by using Live Partition Mobility (LPM) to migrate LPARs during updates. This process can be triggered directly from the HMC or orchestrated by IBM Concert’s AI-infused workflows.
2. Enhanced Monitoring and Support
   The HMC now provides real-time monitoring of energy and carbon emissions at the partition level. It also features a streamlined process for creating support cases directly from the console, automatically gathering and submitting diagnostic data to IBM Support, which can reduce problem resolution time by hours.
   Read more about Covenco’s advanced Power System Monitoring and Support tools.
3. Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
   The platform is highly compatible with modern automation tools like Ansible and Terraform. These tools enable IT teams to automate the entire lifecycle of their infrastructure, from provisioning to configuration, ensuring consistency and repeatability.

Backup & Recovery:

A migration to Power11 is the ideal time to reassess your backup and recovery strategy to ensure it meets modern cyber resilience demands.

1. High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR)
   We can implement solutions like IBM PowerHA SystemMirror for AIX and IBM i, which provide automated failover and data replication for business continuity. For a flexible, OS-agnostic approach, VM Recovery Manager (VMRM) allows for quick LPAR recovery on a different physical server in the event of an outage.
2. Cyber Resilience
   Our solution includes IBM’s Power Cyber Vault, a complete cyber-resilient solution. It combines immutable snapshots on IBM FlashSystem storage with near real-time threat detection. This enables an automated “clean room” recovery process, allowing you to return to full operations in hours, rather than months, following a ransomware attack.

Upon receiving an integrity alert, IBM Power Cyber Vault automatically initiates the validation process by creating an immutable backup of the VM within seconds and spinning up a copy of that VM in the clean room within minutes.

IBM Power Virtual Server (PowerVS) is a cloud-based infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering that extends the Power platform to the cloud, giving clients a seamless hybrid cloud experience. PowerVS can be used as a reliable tool in any Power11 migration project, either as an intermediary solution, production environment or as a DR failover environment.

Cloud-Ready Flexibility

PowerVS allows for rapid provisioning of virtual servers in under 10 minutes, making it ideal for dev/test and disaster recovery environments. A PowerVS DR solution model provides a frictionless way to move workloads between on-premises and cloud environments. A key benefit is the day-one availability of Power11 in PowerVS, providing immediate access to the latest hardware without any capital investment.

Hybrid Billing

PowerVS offers flexible consumption models, such as pay-as-you-go pricing and tiered storage options to reduce TCO. It also supports seamless hybrid cloud integration for more complicated scenarios. Additionally, customers can take advantage of fractional core billing for redundant DR environments until such time as they are needed for production workloads (such as in the case of a disaster and fail-over to the cloud.

Consistent Experience

A key benefit is the day-one availability of Power11 in PowerVS, providing immediate access to the latest hardware without a capital investment. It also supports seamless integration with over 250 IBM Cloud services.

Read more about PowerVS here.