Server Sales in Q2 Reach Heights Not Seen Since 2000
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The box counters at both IDC and Gartner have taken the pulse and blood pressure of the server market for the second quarter of 2007, and as far as they can tell, their patient hasn't been this healthy since the peak of the dot-com boom seven years ago. Server revenues are matching levels not seen since 2000, and shipments are continuing to grow, even if more slowly than in past quarters. READ MORE >

Top Mainframe Stories from Around the Web

(CIO) When Ralph Crosby says "nights and weekends aren't what they used to be," he's not lamenting his old college days. He's talking about life in the mainframe data center where round the clock activity includes transaction processing overlapping batch runs, backups and restores. Crosby's essay challenges the ability of mainframe shops to deal with change. READ MORE >

(ComputerWorld) According to IDC's quarterly server market report, IBM mainframes running the z/OS operating system accounted for 9.5 percent of all server revenue in a market that is showing a healthy 6 percent growth rate. Enterprise-class servers (price tags of $500,000 and up) had a growth rate of almost 2 percent. READ MORE >

(SearchCIO) How 'bout them specialty processors on the mainframe? According to IBM about 25 percent of mainframe MIPS are running on Linux. That's a pretty good chunk and it means the Integrated Facility for Linux specialty processor is doing fairly well. Even with the substantial increases in capacity that can be achieved with zIIP and zAAP, those two specialty processors are in the waiting. READ MORE >

(Statesman.com) Last weekend, the Amtrak trains ran, but the reservations and ticketing systems were derailed when a power failure struck Amtrak's data center in Manassas, Virginia. Early reports pointed to a lightning strike as the cause. Later, that was changed to a software installation gone bad. Eventually, the blame was put on a circuit breaker. Network components and application servers were lost, however, the mainframes remained available, but without network connectivity. READ MORE >

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

See our full calendar of events at
http://www.itjungle.com/big/big-calendar.html

September 17-19 -- Las Vegas, Nevada - The Gartner Portals, Content & Collaboration Summit puts the focus on building, implementing, and managing portals; leveraging social networking for collaboration; and the challenges and pitfalls of enterprise content management projects. There will be 30 sessions within four separate tracks, peer networking, product demonstrations, and distinguished keynote speakers. LEARN MORE >

September 17-21 San Antonio, Texas - The IBM System z Conference and Expo presents sessions on topics such as virtualization, security, resiliency, workload management, and integration. More than 350 in-depth elective sessions will highlight IBM System z9 and zSeries and Systems Storage. The sessions are divided into the following focus areas: General Interest and Management, z/OS, z/VM, z/VSE and Linux. LEARN MORE >

October 8-11 -- Orlando, Florida - The IBM WebSphere Portal Technical Conference will feature the latest product upgrades and platform extensions for the popular middleware. Among the highlights will be an emphasis on faster deployment of composite applications, enhanced Web 2.0 support, simplified portal-based solutions, and increased integration with business processes. IBM product architects and developers, business partners, and customers will provide training, case studies, and best practices information. Certification testing will be available and a vendor expo will be included. LEARN MORE >

October 15-18 -- Dallas, Texas - More than 140 educational sessions, plus networking opportunities with IT managers, storage architects, and infrastructure professionals, and a vendor expo are combined at Storage Networking World, an event hosted by ComputerWorld. Guest speakers include Frank Abagnale, fraud and identity theft expert; James Onalfo, CIO of the New York City Police Department; Steve Fastook, Vice President of Technical and Commercial Operations at CNBC; Brian Cobb, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Systems Management at Fannie Mae, Parker Mabry, Senior Vice President and Manager of Network Systems Engineering at Morgan Keegan; and Joe Lacik, Senior Vice President, of Information Services at Aviall Services. LEARN MORE >

December 2-7 -- San Diego, California - The 33rd annual Computer Measurement Group conference, CMG2007, brings together data processing professionals interested in system evaluation to maximize performance measured in terms of response time, throughput, and through capacity management. Sessions are geared toward making enhancements to existing systems or designing new systems with the aim of providing adequate performance at a reasonable cost. The courses are divided into two groups. One group consists of platform agnostic sessions and provides attendees with basic knowledge that is independent of any specific hardware or operating system. The second group is platform specific specializing in operating systems such as z/OS, Windows, Unix and Linux. LEARN MORE >