AIX- IBM’s Operating System

Microsoft dominates the market for operating systems, but other less known players are out there with their own quality offerings, such as IBM’s AIX.

Advanced Interactive Executive, better known as AIX, is the name given to a series of IBM’s Unix-based operating systems. Designed first in 1986 and made available for production since 1990, AIX has undergone multiple upgrades and additions, making it one of the preferred operating systems to date.

Written in programming language C, AIX was created by IBM to accentuate its computer systems. It has been on the market for over 30 years.

The First AIX

The first AIX was made for IBM’s 6150 RISC workstation and used the foundation of Unix System V. It was the first operating system to have its very own filing system, and came with advanced processors, and network and disk virtualization. It used the source code of Unix 4.2-4.3BSD, a feature incorporated into every version of AIX since then.

Later Versions of AIX

After the initial 6150 RISC, AIX versions were designed and built for the IBM RS/6000 series, POWER and POWER PC processor systems, IBM System i, PS/2 personal computers, System/370 series and even Apple’s network servers.

After the success of the first AIX, Apple approached IBM for an operating system supporting their products, which led to AIX version 4.1.

Upgrade and Enhancements

AIX was then continually updated, with version 4.3.3 getting released on 1999.

2007 saw the release of AIX Version 6, which featured with a user role-based customization, workload partition to allow multiple application abilities, enhanced security to ensure privacy and protection, and Live Partition Mobility to take care of storage flexibility.

AIX Version 7.1

Version 7.1 of AIX was unveiled in 2010 and was upgraded to be much more scalable, with more app clustering to help with management of processes and data. Also integrated with high-speed communications and multi-terabyte storage space, 7.1 became very popular over the next few years.

AIX 7.2 – The Latest Version

The latest version of AIX, 7.2 and was introduced in 2015. The most striking new feature was the live kernel update, and a repackaged network system, that further enhanced efficiency and ease. IBM also continually upgrades the processors, with processor POWER7 being used in version 7.2 as well.