Osram Sylvania (north of Boston) is using AIX 7. Are you also using it? What do you think about it compared to the 6?
re: "compared to AIX 6" - i am sure you know all the leaflets and the marketing mumbo-jumbo, so i skp that. The most striking gain, IMHO, is the possibility to run WL-partitions with AIX 5.3 within a 7.1-LPAR, because actually 5.3 is still widely used among my customers, despite being out of maintenance since 2012. Some applications my customers depend on are not guaranteed to run with 6.x or 7.x and this alone is a reason not to switch.
On the other hand, 5.3 runs natively, as an LPAR, even in the latest POWER7 hardware without problems, even in 32-bit mode, if this is still necessary (for some applications it is). I have tested this on a p-795 in my last project.
re: "do you use it": I use everything my customer(s) want to use. Some systems run with 7.x, some with 6.x and some with 5.3, a select few even with other 5.x-variants and one system with 4.3.3. It is no secret, but i fail to see in which way this helps you in any way.
bakunin
The main difference between AIX 5.3 and 6.1 compared to AIX 7.1 (on Power7) is ability to have up to 256 processors, and using smt4 - 1024 logical (scheduable) CPUs.
In AIX 7.1 TL1 - ASO was introduced as main new feature that was AIX 7.1 only (as it has been introduced into AIX 6.1 TL8).
Basically, in terms of most features AIX 6.1 TL6, TL7, TL8 compares very well with AIX 7.1 TL0, TL1, TL2 respectively.
As mentioned above: AIX 6.1 only supports regular WPAR while AIX 7.1 supports regular and versioned WPAR (vWPAR is available in both AIX 5.2 - which I am told has been very popular with Oracle 8 customers/users) and more recently, AIX 5.3.
While AIX 5.3 can run natively on POWER7 it can only run in POWER6 emulation mode (and smt2) while as a vWPAR it can utilize SMT4, i.e. run in POWER7 mode. Also, as a WPAR it is mobile (whereas - if I am not mistaken - AIX 5.3 is not supported under LPM (Live Partition Mobility).
Basically, if your application is supported under AIX 7.1 I recommend the upgrade (from AIX 5.3) - rather than to AIX 6.1 as AIX 6.1 is already in it's 6th year while AIX 7.1 only in it's third. Hopefully, such an update will not be needed again in 4 to 5 years (remember AIX 5.3 is in it's 10th year (starting in 2004)).
Please excuse the rambling - and I hope this helps (someone :))
Thanks for the responses! I think it's helpful to know who else is using the 7 for idea sharing.