IBM had two distinct POWER- and PowerPC-based hardware lines since the early 1990s: • Servers running processors based on the
IBM PowerPC-AS architecture in the
AS/400 family (later known as iSeries, then System i) running OS/400 (later known as i5/OS, and now
IBM i) • Servers and workstations using POWER and
PowerPC processors in the
RS/6000 family (later known as
pSeries, then
System p), running
IBM AIX and
Linux on Power. After the introduction of the
POWER4 processor in 2001, there was little difference between both the "p" and the "i" hardware; the only differences were in the software and services offerings. With the introduction of the
POWER5 processor in 2004, even the product numbering was synchronized. The
System i5 570 was virtually identical to the
System p5 570. , based on Power System nodes In April 2008, IBM officially merged the two lines of servers and workstations under the same name,
Power, and later
Power Systems, with identical hardware and a choice of operating systems, software, and service contracts, based formerly on a
POWER6 architecture. The PowerPC line was discontinued. With Release 8 of
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, IBM has completed transition of POWER8 and POWER9 servers to
little-endian mode for Linux. AIX and IBM i continue to run in
big-endian mode. == Systems ==