IBM has previewed a major new release of its flagship i5/OS integrated operating system, as well as the first System i products to feature its new Power6 processor. 

Version 6 of i5/OS is due for release in 2008 and will feature a range of new security, web services and virtualisation capabilities.

"Today we are announcing the first System i and i5/OS products from IBM's new Power Systems business unit," said Ross Mauri, general manager of IBM Power Systems.

The new System i servers will be released by IBM's Power Systems business unit announced earlier this month, and includes System p and high-end System i products for enterprise clients.

Improvements in i5/OS v6 include:

• An encryption feature to help companies encrypt data held on disk devices and backed up to tape
• Virtualisation support that allows one i5/OS partition to host storage for another i5/OS partition, eliminating the requirement for separate partitions to maintain their own individual hardware
• An integrated web application server to simplify the deployment of Java applications
• A range of utilities for simpler deployment and integration with web services

IBM's System i570 is powered by the Power6 CPU, currently the world's fastest processor. 

The system is aimed at medium and large enterprises and can offer up to twice the application performance of the previous generation Power5-based systems.

IBM has said that it will introduce a new 'pay-for-what-you-use' approach around the i5/OS and Power6 i570 to help make sure that clients pay only for the features they use.

There will be three simple base configurations offered with an initial processor licence of the i5/OS operating system and other components, such as additional processor activations, Linux, AIX or 5250 online transaction processing, which can be added per-processor based on each client's needs.

The i570 can be customised to run multiple transactional, collaborative and web applications simultaneously in up to 160 separate virtual server partitions that share the resources on a single system.

The new system will also offer 'capacity on demand' resources to make more stand-by power available that the client can access as and when they need.

The System i570 will be available in September starting at $165,000.