IBM has announced an open beta program for AIX 7, the company's open standards-based UNIX operating system. AIX 7 builds on the capabilities of previous releases of AIX and can fully exploit the performance and energy management capabilities of the new POWER7 servers that began shipping to customers earlier this year.

AIX 7 provides full binary compatibility for programs created on earlier versions of AIX including AIX 6, AIX 5, and 32-bit programs created on even earlier versions of AIX. This means that clients can protect previous investments in Power Systems by moving existing applications up to AIX 7 without having to recompile them. Full information on AIX binary compatibility is available at ibm.com/power/software/aix/compatibility.

AIX 7 can fully exploit the features of systems based on POWER7 processors, and it will also be supported on systems based on earlier generations of processors including POWER6, POWER5, and POWER4. This helps customers to take advantage of many of the new features and technology in AIX 7 on their existing hardware.

The beta program is open to all, and is designed to provide clients and independent software vendors (ISVs) with early access to the AIX 7 operating system. Clients and other interested parties can participate in the beta by visiting ibm.com/aix and following the links to the open beta Web page at http://www14.software.ibm.com/iwm/web/cc/earlyprograms/websphere/aix7ob/. The beta code is packaged as a DVD ISO image that beta participants can burn to physical media.

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