03/28/2012
IBM's Migration Factory has been striding into town and collecting competitive migrations for IBM Power Systems.
02/29/2012
When IBM integrated its System i and System p lines of servers into a single Power Systems lineup in 2008, it did far more than simplify its cost to develop the POWER-based architecture and system solutions. As a consequence, IBM ripped apart the identities of some of its most loyal fans. The question, of course, is how to rebuild those identities. . . .
01/27/2012
In the last 12 months, IBM Power Systems enthusiasts have experienced—and sometimes weathered—a wide-ranging flurry of activity. Cold fronts, warm fronts, sunshine and rain, the winds of change have whipped up recessionary cuts, “Smarter Systems,” a Jeopardy!-winning super computer, rising Power System sales, rising IBM i sales, a new appreciation for the Power architecture, and increased consideration for operating systems, road maps, competitive migrations, marketing tools, and a resurgence
12/19/2011
IBM has a new online tool to help IT and business managers model their own IT infrastructures against one based on IBM Power Systems to reveal the massive advantages a Power Systems-based architecture can bring. Called the IBM Smarter Computing Workload Simulator, the online tool hit IBM's web site in November, and was even slated to cycle on the IBM.com home page.
11/22/2011
There is a new vice president of Power Systems marketing piloting the ship these days, and her name is Zarina Stanford. She has a long history with software marketing for IBM, as well as sales experience in the telecommunications industry. I recently had an excellent and wide-ranging call with her. As a person, at least in my judgment based on an hour-long phone call, she’s engaged, excited, and listening to the market. Do I really know her? No way. But this is a start.
11/01/2011
Despite Oralce’s removal of support for MySQL last year, the popularity of PHP seems to have barely suffered a dent in IBM i land. Of course, the DB2 for i Storage Engine for MySQL is still available, and IBM and Zend’s support haven’t faltered. In fact, Zend will ship Zend Server 5.5 for IBM i this year, bundled by IBM with every sale of IBM i. Plus, Zend has committed to delivering a new database based on MySQL: Zend DBi.
11/01/2011
I might not have a read on how well my laptop is performing—at least, until it melts a pack of gum next to the vent—but I am aware of my own performance. In the office, I can blast through some projects and get bogged down with others, and I’m constantly refi ning my personal systems. On the basketball court, my performance is all about mitigating the march of age, combating the bent-over view I get of my shoes when I’m exhausted and sucking wind. Some days it feels like a losing battle—but it
10/28/2011
For a programmer, there may not be anything scarier than the entrance of a new CIO who is unfamiliar with an IBM i on Power or the System i/iSeries. If you’re lucky, the new CIO immediately understands and appreciates the value proposition of not only the IBM i but also the RPG programs that have been running the business for years.
If you’re not lucky, at best, green screens might look like a foreign language, and at worst, they might look utterly outdated and ripe for an all-out replacement.
10/01/2011
The world of enterprise operating systems is constantly in flux, and the IBM i OS is no exception. As Windows—and in particular, Linux—make massive gains in usage around the world, will hordes of small, single-purpose installations overwhelm the truly powerful enterprise operating systems like IBM i, AIX, z/OS, and other Unix variants? IBM i has seen three quarters of consistent growth . . . so is that an anomaly? Or a renewed understanding of IBM i’s core strengths?
09/01/2011
Before now, I have never actually set out to write an article knowing full well that the published project would likely contain several inaccuracies. Such is the case when it comes to finding the mythical IBM organizational chart. With so many divisions, operating units, executives, vice presidents, managers, and countries, it’s nearly an impossible task. In fact, IBM doesn’t even publish org charts internally.
08/01/2011
There’s a new guy working in IBM i land, and his name is Ari Kugler. While it’s clear that he’s an executive leader within IBM, it’s just as clear that he comes from outside IBM, and not because he works in an office in Montreal, Canada. He’s surprisingly candid, too.
07/01/2011
At the COMMON conference in Minneapolis, our editorial team had the opportunity to meet with several key IBM executives and managers, including Tom Rosamilia, general manager of Power and z Systems, and Colin Parris, vice president and business line executive for IBM Power Systems.
06/01/2011
Our survey, "The Role of IBM i in Enterprise Computing: 2011," illuminates surprisingly strong IBM i investment activity by our readers' companies, showing that while the average company has been using IBM i and its predecessor systems for nearly 19 years, their plans moving forward reveal ongoing commitment to the venerable i.
05/01/2011
The year 2010 was big for the IBM i world: IBM delivered a full suite of POWER7-based servers, all with massive performance gains over POWER6, and when coupled with a brand new operating system release, IBM i 7.1, customers can see even better performance. IBM introduced a radical new addition for application development, Rational Open Access: RPG Edition, and if that’s not interesting enough, the company experience a red-hot fourth quarter in which it sold out of its 720 models of Power
04/01/2011
IBM’s Watson super game show computer is made up of 90 IBM Power 750 Express servers that each boast 32 cores, resulting in a total of 2,880 POWER7 cores, all running at 3.55 GHz. If that’s not impressive enough, Watson wins, too.
02/01/2011
While IBM i and “cloud” might seem to be mutually exclusive terms these days, there’s far more IBM i cloud action going on than most i-focused pros might believe.
01/12/2011
There is no doubt that could computing is one of the hottest IT trends these days. There's plenty of reasons, not the least of which is that a new cool term--cloud--entered our conciousness and describes the remote and sliced computing principle far better than acronymns like SaaS or LPAR.Personally, I think we're barely looking up to clouds in IBM i land, and I think a good many IBM i-running enterprises are interested, too.
01/01/2011
It turns out that IBM i is not only well-suited to running in a cloud environment, the IBM i platform has been used for cloud-like deployments for years. Plus, it appears that the best is yet to come.
12/01/2010
While it’s still a rough and tumble world for web development on IBM i—despite plenty of tech, tools, and desire—some handy tips and a good strategy can keep your web app action close to the big black box.
12/01/2010
Arkansas Data turns reduces IT costs and complexity by consolidating IBM i and Windows applications with an IBM BladeCenter solution.