The Power of i

From Isociety

1:00pm US Eastern Time November 11th, 2008

isociety says: Welcome to the Fireside Chat with Ross Mauri.
Ross Mauri says: hello everyone

Question from Angus: Ross, how is the 'new' job going?
Ross Mauri says: it's been a lot of fun so far ... meeting new clients, new business partners, and completing the unification of the products into Power Systems. As always, there is a lot to learn in a new business ... so I still consider myself a newbie, especially when it comes to the long technical history that most of you all have with IBM i

Question from DrFranken: What has been the feedback for i on POWER Blades?
Question from Eevers: how are the new power i blade servers going over?
Ross Mauri says: so far we have a small number of customers using i blades, but we are getting good feedback from key early users, both in Bladecenter S and H chassis. For example BC-H ... Websphere on i on multiple blades appears to be a popular choice, for BC-S ... we see customers are mixing i blades and x86 blades to build a combined infrastructure. We just completed our first round of worldwide education on blades with business partners. We expect that to pay off in 2009. We are also investing in additional blade support virtual tape and new disk options ... so we will hit some key customer requirements for blades in the first half of 2009

Question from Eevers: do they seem more interested in S or H chassis?
Ross Mauri says: well, we see interest in both ... it really depends on the customers IT infrastructure

Question from DrFranken: When will RAID/Disk cache be available on BCS?
Ross Mauri says: RAID will be available in 1H2009 as well

Question from Eevers: and will BC-S have ability to link to external SAN?
Ross Mauri says: yes, but if you do link to an external SAN, then you will lose the internal disk capability

Question from DrFranken: Any chance we'll get an HMC to connect to a Blade Center?
Ross Mauri says: well, the new IBM System Director will be your answer here ... first off, Director is fully integrated with BladeCenter management. You can launch both iNavigator and HMC functions from Director. I have can someone post a link to a technical website on this topic since I am at the limit of my depth on this one.

LINK from iSociety...
http://www-304.ibm.com/jct03004c/systems/management/director/


Question from DrFranken: From what I've seen the POWER6 stuff absolutely screams - are you hearing that from the field as well?
Ross Mauri says: I heard a lot around Halloween ... but I think they might have been coming from Sun and HP :-)
kidding aside, POWER6 has shown very strong customers around the world as we migrate old and new applications to the platform
Note from Rrlair: We installed power 6 in Dec and it does "scream"
Ross Mauri says: we just announced a 32 core Power 570 ... 4 core 520 and 8 core 550 for IBM i clients ... so we have added more options and performance to the available product line

Question from DrFranken: What's the most exciting application you've seen since the POWER systems and 6.1 announcement?
Ross Mauri says: feedback from customers says that the virtual i partitions support is one of the most exciting new capabilities. Virtual partitions enables you to run multiple images of IBM i without dedicated hardware, so it's great for people who are testing apps

Question from Wrwatson: Can we get 3rd qt Power System numbers shipped with IBM i?
Ross Mauri says: well, no ........................................ but I will tell you that more than half of the worldwide customer shipments were POWER6 based products.

Question from Wtaylor: Hi Ross, will we be seeing more marketing/TV ads for the Power i soon?
Ross Mauri says: our marketing spend to attract new customers is not TV ads ... it's investment in co-marketing programs with ISVs ... we have seen real results from those types of programs because they speak directly to customers business needs more so than a generic TV spot ... and I do realize you all want to see IBM i on TV ...

Question from Pravinjose: one straight fwd question: which among the three is favorite OS of IBM among the three?
Ross Mauri says: come on ... I told you all that we have 3 tier one operating systems for Power. I said that and I meant it ... and I love all my children equally :-) ... and I really think you all want choice.

Question from Rrlair: what role do you see i/OS playing in the new world of SAAS and cloud computing
Ross Mauri says: we already have many partners offering IBM i based applications as a service - those partners are everything from small ISVs .. to the largest ... ie Oracle, JDE. the large ISVS especially like this because it allows them to reach down into small and medium businesses for the future as we move to cloud computing ... IBM i will be participant

Question from Tpm: How is the work going in the recruiting of new ISVs to the i OS platform?
Ross Mauri says: the area we are seeing the most new ISVs is around PHP/MySQL appls - seems that customers are taking advantage of the broad range of open source applications available today and also writing their new appls to this paradigm and I think the ability to integrate these new open source appls into their existing IBM i environment is a key value point

Question from K40: What has been the reaction to the planned discontinuation of native DASD for midrange and high end systems?
Ross Mauri says: well, we have not discontinued internal disk on MR and HE systems, but our large clients have told us they want to take advantage of the flexibility of SAN. Beginning with V6R1 we have invested in manageability and performance for the SAN environment. We are very committed to internal storage for our small and midsize clients ... but we are now seeing requests for low end SAN options there as well and we are currently providing support for that through VIOS under V6R1

Question from Traceyableone: You likely have long range forecasting in place ... in 2009, what % of customers will continue with standalone servers vs % of customers that will migrate their i5/OS workload to a Blade / SAN infrastructure?
Ross Mauri says: in 2009 we think we will still see the majority of our IBM i clients purchasing rack/tower systems, but we do see the adoption of blades picking up to the industry average - which IDC says is 15% (of server spend)

Question from Tpm: In regards to PHP-MySQL applications: When will we see the MySQL plug-in that connects to DB2?
Ross Mauri says: that function is currently in beta ... and when ready will come from MySQL ... hopefully in 1Q09

Question from Angus: What do you see in the future for IBM i?
Ross Mauri says: We are in the early stages of POWER7 development and so just designing v7 ... in fact we had the COMMON americas advisory council in Rochester last week reviewing requirements and current plans for the release. Since we announced Power Systems ... unified the product line ... and brought IBM i into the mainstream. You can be sure where ever the mainstream goes in the future ... IBM i will be there too.

iSociety says: Ross, thanks so much for your time today..
Ross Mauri says: Thanks for having me and listening ... take care all.

Redpiece - IBM Express Runtime Web Environments for i5/OS

IBM Express Runtime Web Environments for i5/OS (5733-SO1) provides an integrated
package of software products that you install and configure to your i5/OS® using a wizard.

The product does the following:

 Installs V5R4 iSeries® Access for Web (including PTFs), 5722-XH2

 Installs WebSphere Application Server - Express. Two versions of Express Runtime Web
Environments for i5/OS V5R4 are available:

– V1R1M0 contains WebSphere® Application Server-Express V6.0 (order Web
Enablement's feature 5905 for CDs and 5906 for a DVD)

– V1R2M0 contains the newer WebSphere Application Server-Express V6.1 (order
feature 5907 for CDs and 5908 for a DVD)

 If its not installed, installs V5R4 IBM HTTP Server (5722-DG1), including PTFs

 Configures a WebSphere Application Server profile and an HTTP server instance,
generates the WebSphere Application Server plug-in, and starts both servers

 Configures iSeries Access for Web

 Installs and configures an icon on the Windows® workstation desktop that links to a First Steps static HTML Web page. The First Steps Web page is designed to provide an easy way for you to get started using what the wizard deployed to your i5/OS.

The product includes several sample Web applications. Each Web application modernizes
the flght400 application, a well-known sample RPG application. The flght400 application is installed as part of IBM Express Runtime Web Environments for i5/OS.

The included sample Web applications are as follows:

 Host Access Transformation Services (HATS)

A sample application that demonstrates the presentation of an RPG program named
flght400, which was modernized using HATS.

 WebFacing

A sample application that demonstrates the presentation of flght400, which was
modernized using the IBM WebFacing tool.

 Web Services

This sample application queries flght400 by accessing it using a Web Service.
After the environment is successfully deployed, an icon is placed on your Windows
workstation desktop from which you can access the Web environment.

Web Enablement Environment

The IBM Express Runtime Web Environments for i5/OS product (5733-SO1) have one
option, Web Enablement Environment, V5R4M0.

The Web Enablement Environment significantly reduces the time that is necessary to set up a
Web environment on i5/OS. It installs all of the necessary middleware, fix packs, and program temporary fixes (PTFs). It also automatically configures the Web environment for immediate use of the following types of applications:

J2EE™ applications
 Web services applications
 WebFacing applications
 Host Access Transformation (HATS) applications
 WebFacing Deployment Tool with HATS Technology (WDHT) applications
 V5R4 iSeries Access for Web applications

System i Redbooks

AS400 and System I Redbooks

A Look at System i Integrated DASD Configuration and Performance under i5/OS

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpapers/abstracts/redp3919.html?Open

A Systems Management Guide to Performance Management for i5 and p5 systems

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/sg247122.html

AIX 5L on the IBM System i Platform: Implementation Guide

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246455.html?Open&open&cm_mmc=5526-_-n-_-vrm_newsletter-_-10300_119612&cmibm_em=dm:0:10347135

An Overview of Installing SAP Applications on System i Models

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpapers/abstracts/redp4189.html

Bringing PHP to Your IBM iSeries Server - Redpaper

http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedpieceAbstracts/redp3639.html

Bringing PHP to Your IBM iSeries Server - Technote

http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedbookAbstracts/tips0287.html?Open

Bringing Zip and Unzip to i5/OS PASE and QShell Environments

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0283.html?Open

DB2 for i5/OS: SQL Server Mode Primer

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0658.html?Open

DB2 for i5/OS: User-Defined Servers to the Rescue

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0659.html?Open

DB2 for Linux on iSeries: Implementation Guide

http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/redbooks.nsf/RedpieceAbstracts/sg246081.html?Open

DB2 Universal Database for iSeries Administration: The Graphical Way on V5R3

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/sg246092.html

Deploying IBM Workplace Collaboration Services on the IBM System i5 Platform

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246640.html

Discovering MySQL on IBM i5/OS

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247398.html?Open

Enabling Collaboration in WebSphere Portal Express V6 on i5/OS
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpapers/abstracts/redp4310.html?Open

Enabling WebSphere Application Server with Single Signon
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpapers/abstracts/redp4192.html?Open

Getting started with DB2 Web Query for System i
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247214.html?Open

HTTP Server (powered by Apache): An Integrated Solution for IBM iSeries Servers
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246716.html

i5/OS V5R4 Virtual Tape: A Guide to Planning and Implementation
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247164.html

i5/OS Diagnostic Tools for System Administrators: An A to Z Reference for Problem Determination
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/sg248253.html

i5/OS Program Conversion: Getting ready for i5/OS V6R1
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/redp4293.html?Open

i5/OS V5R4 Virtual Tape: A Guide to Planning and Implementation
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247164.html?Open

IBM eServer iSeries Security Guide for IBM i5/OS Version 5 Release 3
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246668.html

IBM Express Runtime Web Environments for i5/OS
IBM i5/OS IP Networks: Dynamic
IBM i5/OS Intrusion Detection System
IBM i5/OS Network Security Scenarios A Practical Approach
IBM Redbooks | i5/OS V5R3 A Guide to Getting There from Previous OS/400 Releases
IBM System i Application Modernization: Building a New Interface to Legacy Applications
IBM System i IP Telephony and Integrated Collaboration
IBM System i Platform IP Networks: Dynamic! - Draft
IBM System i Security Guide for IBM i5/OS Version 5 Release 4
IBM System i Security: Protecting i5/OS Data with Encryption
IBM System i5 V5R4 Technical Overview Redbook
IBM System Storage Copy Services and IBM i: A Guide to Planning and Implementation
IBM Systems Director Navigator for i
IBM Technology for Java Virtual Machine in IBM i5/OS
IBM WebSphere Portal V6 Self Help Guide
IBM WebSphere Portal V6: Best Practices for Migrating from V5.1
IBM Workplace 2.5 Development with Workplace Designer
IBM Workplace Web Content Management: Web Content Management for Portal 5.1 and IBM Workplace Web Content Management 2.5
Implementing POWER Linux on IBM System i Platform
Implementing SAP Applications on the IBM System i Platform with IBM i5/OS
Implementing SAP Applications on the IBM System i Platform with IBM i5/OS
Installing and Configuring WebSphere Portal Express V6 on i5/OS
Integrating DB2 Universal Database for iSeries with Microsoft ADO .NET
iSeries IP Networks: Dynamic!
Journal Standby Mode on IBM i5/OS: When It Makes Sense to Use
Journaling - How many journals should I configure?
Journaling - Journal Receiver Diet Tip 1: Eliminating Open and Close Journal Entries
Journaling - Common Remote Journal Questions
Journaling - Using APYJRNCHG for Disaster Recovery
Journaling at object creation on DB2 for iSeries
Journaling: How to View and More Easily Audit Minimized Journal Entries on the IBM System i Platform
Journaling: Unraveling the mysteries of sporadic growth of Journal receivers
Journaling: Why Is My Logical File Journaled?
Linux Connectivity with IBM i5/OS
Linux Integration with IBM i5/OS
Lotus Domino 7 Application Development - Redpaper
Lotus Domino Application Portlet: Configuration and Tips
Lotus Security Handbook
LPAR Simplification Tools Handbook
Mastering WDSC V7.0 and WDSC V7.0 Advanced Edition for i5/OS V5R4
Migrating from Microsoft Exchange2000/2003 to Lotus Notes and Domino 7
Modernizing IBM eServer iSeries Application Data Access - A Roadmap Cornerstone
OnDemand SQL Performance Analysis Simplified on DB2 for i5/OS in V5R4
Performance Management for IBM eServer iSeries and pSeries: A Systems Management Guide
PHP: Zend for i5/OS
Portal Application Development Using WebSphere Portlet Factory
PowerVM Virtualization Active Memory Sharing
Preparing for and Tuning the SQL Query Engine on DB2 for i5/OS
Rational Application Developer V6 Programming Guide
Remote Journal on i5/OS – Are You Selecting the Right Type?
RPG: APIs
RPG: Exception and Error Handling (Redbook)
Securing Communications with OpenSSH on i5/OS
Security Considerations in Notes and Domino 7: Making Great Security Easier to Implement
Security Guide for IBM i V6.1
SQL Performance Diagnosis on IBM DB2 Universal Database for iSeries
Stored Procedures and Triggers on DB2 Universal Database for iSeries
Stored Procedures, Triggers and User Defined Functions on DB2 Universal Database for iSeries
The IBM Virtualization Engine TS7510: Getting Started with i5/OS and Backup Recovery and Media Services
The Ins and Outs of XML and DB2 for i5/OS
The Journal Recovery Count: Making It Count on IBM i5/OS
Tips and Techniques for Using TCP/IP on i5/OS
Using IBM DB2 for i as a Storage Engine of MySQL
Using the Domino JSP Custom Tags: An Approach to Portalizing Domino Applications
WebSphere Application Server for i5/OS Handbook: Version 6.1
WebSphere Application Server for iSeries V6: Building Advanced Configurations
WebSphere Application Server V6 for OS/400: A Guide to Getting Started
WebSphere Development Studio Client for iSeries V5.0
WebSphere Development Studio Client for iSeries Version 5.1.2
WebSphere Portal Best Practices - Redpaper
WebSphere Version 5 Application Development Handbook
Who Knew You Could Do That with as400 RPG IV? A Sorcerer's Guide to System Access and More

Bye-bye as400 - System i revenue down a jaw dropping 92%

Bye-bye as400

From The iSeries Blog

This morning on the radio I heard that IBM had released fourth quarter and 2008 year end results, with the company reporting net income up 12%. But, the System i didn’t fare well in the company’s announced earnings, with a jaw-dropping decrease in revenue of 92% year-on-year. Last quarter, we reported that the System i revenue was down 82%. The explanation is that the company has combined the revenues from Systems i and p in the new converged System p numbers, and no longer attributes any new Power running i sales to the legacy system. On the positive side, revenues from the converged System p server products increased 8%, the only increase for the Systems and Technology hardware segment.

It seems that IBM, a company founded on “machines” has moved on and is now finding success in software, services and financing. In fact, IBM senior vice president and chief financial officer, Mark Loughridge, told a conference call of financial analysts that the company derived 90% of it’s revenue from these segments. But Loughridge shared the company’s optimism going forward, “With the stimulus packages being put in place, the economies will start to improve as we go to the back half of the year. Likewise, for the first quarter our performance will be relatively flat, with growth especially in second half of the year.”

Must admit I have heard the same thing from other sources. Iseries sales and services are now collapsing. Looks like the parties over.

Have we been right all these years, that part of the problem has been that IBM has never really promoted this system, and has allowed a great system to wither and die.

Bye-bye as400