The Disk Drive at 50: Still Spinning
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the announcement of an innovative storage technology that IBM created and launched for its early computers--a device that predates its vaunted System/360 mainframe by eight and a half years. Back in September 1956, it was just called the IBM 305 RAMAC, and it wasn't a disk drive so much as computing system attached to a giant disk drive. That device, the great-great-granddaddy of the spinning disk in your computer and those in use at your company, is arguably one of the most persistent pieces of technology ever created. READ MORE >

Top Mainframe Stories and Vendor Announcements

(SearchDataCenter) Why would a large insurance company pull the plug on its mainframe computers? Too costly to maintain hardware and software maintenance would be a good answer. Replacing the Big Iron with Hewlett Packard Superdomes running Unix will result in a $20 million savings over the next four years and $10 million annually after that, company officials say. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Describe a tool that's easy to use. A hammer? A saw? A screwdriver? As straightforward as those tools are, the circumstances dictate whether you have the right tool for the job at hand. The same is true for integration tools used in Big Iron service oriented architecture projects. What do you have on hand to access an application as a service? READ MORE >

(Logicalis) UK-based Logicalis, a worldwide provider of integration solutions for platforms including System z, is acquiring Computech Resources, an IBM partner based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. This is the third IBM business partner Logicalis has purchased in the past two years and it puts the company in position to bring in more than $200 million in IBM revenue in fiscal 2007. The company's annual U.S. revenue is currently estimated at nearly $500 million. READ MORE >

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

September 11-14 -- Baltimore, Maryland - The WebSphere Portal Technical Conference is set up to provide IBM's technically oriented product details and hands-on training, along with presentations of customer case studies and best practices from Big Blue's product architects and developers, IBM Business Partners, and customers. Sessions will be organized according to the following tracks: new features in WebSphere Portal, Portal basics, Portal development, and Portal administration. LEARN MORE >

September 12 -- Ottawa, Canada - IBM is hosting a WebSphere seminar designed for System z technical professionals, including application development management, application developers, and application architects. These seminars provide in-depth knowledge of WebSphere and the tools to implement a service oriented architecture. Topics include defining business models that reduce inefficiencies, integrating core application assets for reuse, running mixed application types and workload patterns, and generating advanced user interfaces for core applications. LEARN MORE >

September 14 -- Columbus, Ohio - IBM is hosting a WebSphere seminar designed for System z technical professionals, including application development management, application developers, and application architects. These seminars provide in-depth knowledge of WebSphere and the tools to implement a service oriented architecture. Topics include defining business models that reduce inefficiencies, integrating core application assets for reuse, running mixed application types and workload patterns, and generating advanced user interfaces for core applications. LEARN MORE >

September 19 -- Dallas - IBM is hosting a WebSphere seminar designed for System z technical professionals, including application development management, application developers, and application architects. These seminars provide in-depth knowledge of WebSphere and the tools to implement a service oriented architecture. Topics include defining business models that reduce inefficiencies, integrating core application assets for reuse, running mixed application types and workload patterns, and generating advanced user interfaces for core applications. LEARN MORE >

September 21 -- Chicago - IBM is hosting a WebSphere seminar designed for System z technical professionals, including application development management, application developers, and application architects. These seminars provide in-depth knowledge of WebSphere and the tools to implement a service oriented architecture. Topics include defining business models that reduce inefficiencies, integrating core application assets for reuse, running mixed application types and workload patterns, and generating advanced user interfaces for core applications. LEARN MORE >

September 25-29 -- Markham, Canada - A series of one-day System z workshops covering the operating system, hardware updates, security, and networking technologies. Additional workshop dates in October include locations such as Australia, Singapore, Germany, Netherlands, China, and Taiwan. LEARN MORE >

September 26 -- Atlanta - IBM is hosting a WebSphere seminar designed for System z technical professionals, including application development management, application developers, and application architects. These seminars provide in-depth knowledge of WebSphere and the tools to implement a service oriented architecture. Topics include defining business models that reduce inefficiencies, integrating core application assets for reuse, running mixed application types and workload patterns, and generating advanced user interfaces for core applications. LEARN MORE >

October 10 -- Webinar - Putting CICS in the heart of your SOA implementation means assessing applications and optimizing performance. This session will cover CICS TS 3.1 migration considerations and tools featuring products such as CICS Configuration Manager, CICS Interdependency Analyzer , CICS Performance Analyzer and CICS VSAM Transparency. The presentation begins at 11 a.m. EDT. LEARN MORE >

October 20 & 21 -- Chicago, Illinois - The Network and Systems Professionals Association annual conference, NaSTEC, features educational tracks on large systems/mainframes, distributed systems, and professional development and includes 24 total sessions. Topics include IT compliance, TCP/IP network health checks, and security, as well as others. LEARN MORE >