Understanding the Product Name

Typical of IBM branding, their naming makes no sense and everyone still uses AS/400 to refer to IBM i.

...

I still don't know which OS is the host OS yet.

Acquiring Hardware

As of 2013 I am encountering the OS IBM i 6.1 and IBM i 7.1 in major Financial Institutions. Because the OS will not run in modern (2013) VMs like VMWare or Parralells I need to get a hold of hardware. So where do we even begin?

Requirements,

• Run at least 2 LPARs one for 6.1 and 7.1 at the same time.
• Nice to have, be able to run 3 LPARs with Linux as the third one.
• Run modern WebSphere ND.
• Be as low price as possible (these servers even refurbished are in the thousands)