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Introduction to IBM AIX

AIX (Advanced Interactive eXecutive) is the name given to a series of proprietary operating systems sold by IBM for several of its computer system platforms, based on UNIX System V with 4.3BSD-compatible command and programming interface extensions.

AIX runs on 32-bit or 64-bit IBM POWER or PowerPC CPUs (depending on version) and can address up to 32 terabytes (TB) of random access memory. The JFS2 file system?first introduced by IBM as part of AIX?allows computer files and partitions over 4 petabytes in size.

AIX Version 1, introduced in 1986 for the IBM 6150 RT workstation, was based on UNIX System V Releases 1 and 2. In developing AIX, IBM and INTERACTIVE Systems Corporation (whom IBM contracted) also incorporated source code from 4.2 and 4.3 BSD UNIX.

Among other variants, IBM later produced AIX Version 3 (also known as AIX/6000), based on System V Release 3, for their IBM POWER-based RS/6000 platform. Since 1990, AIX has served as the primary operating system for the RS/6000 series (later renamed IBM eServer pSeries, then IBM System p, and now IBM Power Systems). AIX Version 4, introduced in 1994, added symmetric multiprocessing with the introduction of the first RS/6000 SMP servers and continued to evolve through the 1990s, culminating with AIX 4.3.3 in 1999. Version 4.1, in a slightly modified form, was also the standard operating system for the Apple Network Server systems sold by Apple Computer to complement the Macintosh line.

In the late 1990s, under Project Monterey, IBM and the Santa Cruz Operation planned to integrate AIX and UnixWare into a single 32-bit/64-bit multiplatform UNIX with particular emphasis on running on Intel IA-64 (Itanium) architecture CPUs. A beta test version of AIX 5L for IA-64 systems was released, but according to documents released in SCO vs. IBM, less than forty licenses for the finished Monterey Unix were ever sold before the project was terminated in 2002.

AIX 6 was announced in May 2007 and ran an open beta from June 2007 until the general availability (GA) of AIX 6.1 on November 9th, 2007. Major new features in AIX 6.1 included full role-based access control, workload partitions (which enable application mobility), enhanced security (Addition of AES encryption type for NFS v3 and v4) and live partition mobility on the POWER6 hardware.

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Versions POWER/PowerPC releases
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AIX V7 7.1, Sept 10, 2010[3]
  • AIX 5.2 Workload Partitions for AIX 7
  • Support for export of fibre channel adapters to WPARs
  • VIOS disk support in a WPAR
  • Cluster Aware AIX
AIX 6.1, November 9, 2007[2]
  • Workload Partitions (WPARs) operating system-level virtualization
  • Live Application Mobility
  • Live Partition Mobility
  • Security
    • Role Based Access Control RBAC
    • AIX Security Expert - A system and network security hardening tool
    • Encrypting JFS2 filesystem
    • Trusted AIX
    • Trusted Execution
  • Integrated Electronic Service Agent(tm) for auto error reporting
  • Concurrent Kernel Maintenance
  • Kernel exploitation of POWER6 storage keys
  • ProbeVue dynamic tracing
  • Systems Director Console for AIX
  • Integrated filesystem snapshot
AIX 5L 5.3, August 13, 2004[3]
  • NFS Version 4
  • Advanced Accounting
  • Virtual SCSI
  • Virtual Ethernet
  • Exploitation of Simultaneous multithreading (SMT)
  • Micro-Partitioning enablement
  • POWER5 exploitation
  • JFS2 quotas
  • Ability to shrink a JFS2 filesystem
  • kernel scheduler has been enhanced to dynamically increase and decrease the use of virtual processors.
AIX 5L 5.2, October 18, 2002[4], end of support April 30, 2009[5]
  • Ability to run on the IBM BladeCenter JS20 with the PowerPC 970.
  • Minimum level required for POWER5 hardware
  • MPIO for Fibre Channel disks
  • iSCSI Initiator software
  • Participation in Dynamic LPAR
  • Concurrrent I/O (CIO) feature introduced for JFS2 released in Maintenance Level 01 in May 2003[6]
AIX 5L 5.1, May 4, 2001 (Support discontinued April 1, 2006)[7]
  • Ability to run on an IA-64 architecture processor, although this never went beyond beta[8]
  • Minimum level required for POWER4 hardware and the last release that worked on the Micro Channel architecture
  • 64-bit kernel, installed but not activated by default
  • JFS2
  • Ability to run in a Logical Partition on POWER4
  • The L stands for Linux affinity
  • Trusted Computing Base (TCB)
  • Support for mirroring with striping
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AIX 4.3.3, September 17,1999
  • Online backup function
  • Workload Manager (WLM)
  • Introduction of topas utility
AIX 4.3.2, October 23,1998 AIX 4.3.1, April 24,1998 AIX 4.3, October 31,1997
  • Ability to run on 64-bit architecture CPUs
  • IPv6
  • Web-based System Manager
AIX 4.2.1, April 25,1997
  • NFS Version 3
AIX 4.2, May 17,1996 AIX 4.1.5, November 8,1996 AIX 4.1.4, October 20,1995 AIX 4.1.3, July 7,1995
  • CDE 1.0 became the default GUI environment, replacing Motif X Window Manager.
AIX 4.1.1, October 28,1994 AIX 4.1, August 12,1994 AIX 4.0, 1994
  • Run on RS/6000 systems with PowerPC processors and PCI busses.
AIX 3.2 1992 AIX 3.1, February 1990
  • Journaled File System (JFS) filesystem type
AIX 3.0 1989
  • LVM (Logical Volume Manager) was incorporated into OSF/1, and in 1995 for HP-UX[9], and the Linux LVM implementation is similar to the HP-UX LVM implementation.[10]
  • SMIT was introduced.
IBM PS/2 releases
AIX PS/2 v1.1, 1989
  • last version was 1.3, 1992.
IBM 6150 RT releases
AIX v1.0, 1986 AIX v2.0
  • last version was 2.2.1.

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