The eServer i6 and i7 Wish List

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

There are very few things in life that you can get without asking for them, and the things you can get without asking are usually bad things, like getting laid off or contracting a disease. To say that asking for precisely what you want is important is a gross understatement; if you don't ask, how can you expect to get anything? It is in that spirit that we have always compiled a wish list from the iSeries community at holiday time--because it is the season of giving, of course--and just before IBM enters into development on the future i6 and i7 generations of OS/400 platforms.

I would like to thank the many readers who sent in their ideas about how to fix the OS/400 platform where minor issues are annoying and who spoke to larger issues that seem to be a bit more intractable. The details matter as much as the big stuff when you are trying to create the best computing platform in the world, and we all know that. The responses that we publish in this story are representative of what we see, and we start out with a little Christmas story that one reader sent in. I will end this article with my own suggestions for the platform. I have a few ideas of my own that I would like to share with IBM.

An iSeries Christmas Carol: Good Old St. Nicholas (Donofrio?)

I like Christmas. It gives me the chance to drop out of high gear for a few days and spend some more time with my family and do the things that Daddy's enjoy doing with their little girls. And the two I have are no exception.

This year, we had a Daddy Sunday Brunch with the girls and took them for a brunch with Santa. It's the same thing here in midtown Manhattan as I'm sure you have in your home. You get the kids dressed up, go to a breakfast in a room full of parents and kids. And after breakfast, everyone waits for their names to be called so their kids can visit Santa and Daddy can get a few nice pictures for his photo album. In reality, what's determined is what will last longer: the length of the line, the parents' blood pressure medicine, or the sanity levels of the elves holding all this together while all around them are in chaos.

I leaned back in this menagerie of sights and sounds and wondered where the IBM Santa was, what he looked like, and how I might get my wish list heard? So I slyly called over one of the elves, and after promising her a copy of the latest Mannheim Steamroller Christmas album, was lead down a hall, to the Blue Room. As I entered, I noticed it was empty of people but had a nice pot of coffee and Danish, so I sat down and made myself at home. Presently, the IBM Santa entered. He was a jolly old elf, about as round as he was tall, with a white beard, and dressed in a red and white outfit with blue trim.

"Merry Christmas," he announced as he approached my table and helped himself to the coffee and Danish. "So what can Santa put in your card tray this year?"

"Uh, Santa, it's a stocking," I responded in disbelief. "Cards really haven't been used in a long time."

"Ho! Ho! Ho! Just a little levity there, my little friend," he responded. And then the serious bargaining for stocking stuffers began.

"Santa, I'm an AS/400 user, and there are a few things I'd like to ask for in my i6 system next year," I stammered.

"AS/400, you say? Never heard of it. Is it anything like OS/VS?"

"No, Santa."

"Windows? You know I've had so many people asking for that stuff that one of my reindeer broke her back last week loading the sled!"

"No, not Windows, Santa. O-S-slash-400."

"NEAT-3? Xenix? I can get you plenty of that stuff!" he said with a broad smile, and I could see that my little girls were going to be wondering what happened to their daddy before I got past my usual lump of coal. "Do you need any help with anything or perhaps an expensive training class? You know we're a 'services company' nowadays."

"Santa, OS/400 is an operating system written by IBM in Rochester, Minnesota, and I really like it, but I need some things that just aren't there yet."

Sensing he was up against the wall, he opted to bail for saving face. "Ya know, I got a reindeer from there . . . or was it Reistersville? I get those places confused. Anyway, let old Santa know what's on your mind, and I'll see what the elves can whip up for you."

Alas, my chance had arrived.

"Santa, there's CL. I know they made some nice enhancements in the latest release, but it's only a portion of what the informal task force at the Baltimore COMMON asked for, and there are so many other things we'd really like to have. Could you please get the CL task force back together and help streamline the requirements functions? It would really be nice to have more features in CL for my i6 and i7 when they arrive.

"Then there's this new concept of eServer consolidation. I know it's all supposed to be one big Power chip, and I'm really supposed to be able to run i5/OS on a pSeries and AIX on a iSeries, but geez, Santa, the costs of not running the operating systems on their native platforms just doesn't make it cost-effective to want to do so! It's as if there were some huge political turf war going on between IBM Somers, IBM Rochester, and IBM Austin, with each of them trying to protect their own struggling fiefdoms.

"Santa, it's getting harder to find AS/400 jobs. The newspaper and job search engines used to be replete with them, but now it's all about Windows, Unix, Oracle, and .NET. I have kids to feed and get through college, Santa, and I'm concerned that people aren't going to have a job for me.

"Santa, one of my best friends lost his job last month. The company he was working for hired a new CIO, and all the new guy learned in college was Unix, Windows, and how old and dead OS/400 was. Santa, can we please get a major push in the colleges and trade schools to show people coming through the education system that they need to be taught a superior and stable environment to run their companies with?

"And, Santa, when I go to the PTA meetings, the kids' parents don't have a clue what an AS/400 is. Could you please get someone up in IBM to care enough to start a serious publicly campaign of promoting and marketing this brand? It really sucks to be joked about when nobody has ever heard about the stuff you've been working on since 1987. And it hurts even more when even IBM refers to OS/400 as a 'legacy system.' I mean, people talk about OS/400 the same way they talk about systems that used to boot from paper tape readers!

"Oh, Santa, it's been many years since we've had COMMON at a place that I could attend. Each time, my boss tells me it's too expensive and the hotel costs are outrageous. Could you please find a place to have COMMON that has affordable hotels? Maybe Vegas?

"Could you bring back the iSeries Nation, please Santa? It was a nice idea, run by this little guy from England with a weird accent. But he made sense. And for a while, it was fun.

"Santa, could you please simplify pricing. I know I'm asking a lot, but when I want an Oracle or an AIX upgrade, all I have to do is call an 800 number, give them an ID, and ask for it. I don't have to go through all kinds of payment upgrade schemas, pass codes, smoke signals, or business partners. Just one call and I get my Oracle releases to my desk. Can you do that with OS/400, please?

"Santa, my user group is on shaky ground. Fewer people are coming to it because fewer people are working on AS/400s. We really have a great time and learn a lot of good stuff there. It would really be a shame to see it go the way of the AS/400."

Sensing that my kids would be wondering where their father was, if indeed he still existed, I thought I'd better beat a hasty retreat. "Santa, I know I've asked for a lot, but it's really important stuff to us. We love this box."

--Name Withheld

Give Us an Entry iSeries Server

I would like to see a very low-cost, entry-level eServer i5. This machine would support up to 14 green-screen users. It would have three 17.54 disk units (as a minimum) using RAID 5 data protection, have at least 1 GB of main memory, a Gigabit Ethernet port, an OS/400 base partition, a Linux partition, and an AIX partition. Also, a Windows server partition would be nice, eliminating the IXS/IXA. It would all cost under $5,000. Basically, it would look like an Apple G5 Xserve with the Power 6 processor.

This system would be cheap enough for independent developers, small businesses (with between five and 50 employees), work-at-home corporate developers, and for companies that deploy hundreds of duplicated/replicated small systems such as video stores, community banks, small government agencies, rental agencies, property management agencies, law offices, small doctor offices, and so forth. IBM needs to remember that small businesses grow or fail. If they grow, they will continue using the hardware and software that they started off with.

Of course, this new entry level system should be rack-mounted and expandable with more disk and memory, and, as always, it must be competitively priced.

It would be nice to have a one-to-seven-user system, as well as the 14-user system described above. It would have single-processor micropartitioning, and there must be no constraints on the CPWs inside the box.

--Name Withheld

The iSeries Drive Toward The 22nd Century

I've been with the AS/400 and iSeries for about 14 years, with expertise in administration, development, operations, engineering, and system programming, and I know its hardware and software.

If I were to write out my whole wish list, it would take me a lot of time: I have a very long list. I believe in some ways IBM has made some improvements in the black box, but not significantly.

Today, I am in a project to automate on multiplatforms; I have been doing such projects for eight years. The thing that bugs me most is automation in the iSeries. There is very little improvement done on that area. IBM should provide some FREE utility tools that will at least enhance the existing automated operational process (normally user-written CL programs). I've coded tons of CL/RPG/COBOL/ReXX programs to automate our current environment. Just like the TAA Tools, now under Al Barsa's wings (known as QUSRTOOLS). Previously it was FREE, but now you have to buy it.

With Unix, there are built-in commands, such as sendmail, that allow you to capture e-mail content and mail it to almost anyone! Well, we have an iSeries command called SNDDST, but that needs a lot of settings and configuration before you could make it work.

There is a lack of in interplatform-supported tools in the iSeries, such as programs that communicate to Unix, mainframes, and Windows servers. Time and again, we, the users, have to code our own programs to perform this task. Of course, I know there are third-party programs out there, but we don't have the budget to acquire all those tools. This is not Linux and the open source concept, where if I have a problem or got stuck in a Shell script, I just need to interact with the open Linux community to provide me with solutions.

One last thing. Every time I tell people what I do, I have to explain what kind of server I'm supporting to my non-AS/400 colleagues and to my loved ones. In the Asia/Pacific region, where I work for a big consultancy, I don't see any ads for the iSeries. What happened? The Asia/Pacific region is as big as the Americas, Europe, and Africa combined! Talk about potential customers in Asia: this is an extremely GIGANTIC opportunity! IBM, to look seriously at Asia. It's time to wake and smell the coffee.

--Sham
"Small things make BIG difference"

Future iSeries: A Small Request

In addition to the line number and date, our shop would like to see the user that last made a modification to a line of code added to the source of a program.

--Carl

Give Us That Old-Time Command Line

We are long-time users of the IBM midrange platforms and are currently transitioning out of the "green screen" world for our OLTP processing but still use DB2/400 and the batch programs, which serve us very well. We are so close that our next system (we are ordering an i5 in 2005) will be the Standard Edition.

The most challenging transition is using iSeries Navigator for operational functions. The non-interactive nature of this product makes it laborious to use. We would like to see this become more efficient. Submitting commands and going to Management Central to find out if it ran is a nuisance.

Thanks for putting this forward for us.

--Name Withheld

eServer i6 Wish List

I'd love to see IBM do any of the following:

1. Take a note from Apple's OS X Mac machines and wrap OS/400 (oh, alright, "i5/OS") with either Apple's licensed GUI framework, or Sun's new 3D framework, or the best open-source GUI framework (KDE? GNOME? Eclipse?) and package it in a variety of form factors: laptops, desktops, and 1U pizza box servers, and blade servers.

2. Switchblade: I want an OS/400 blade server with general purpose and specialty cards to expand processors, main memory, disk capacity, adapters, and so forth. I want IBM to create flexible and highly scalable systems from low-end single blade programmer editions to multi-blade, multi-chassis, multi-rack, multi-partition high-end systems, using high-volume, low-cost, standard components, based on Power chips and i5/OS.

3. Put a bullet into RPG. It's time to move on.

--Doug

Wish List Item: Upgrades and PTFs

The last upgrade I performed for a client (from V4R5 to V5R1) was tedious from the perspective of identifying what PTFs I had applied to V4R5 that I would need on V5R1. I had to review the PTF/Fix Cross-Reference Summary. I just checked the IBM Support Site, and it still exists for V5R2 to V5R3. What you're supposed to do with this doc is match PTFs you have on the current release to the next--manually!--so you can order the appropriate PTFs for compatibility when upgrading to the next release.

Isn't this the perfect job for a program to analyze your system, identify the installed PTFs against IBM's master list (which I'm sure changes), and tell you what PTFs you need to maintain compatibility? Or better yet, build a PTF order for those needed PTFs, with the option to omit some, and then place it for you?

Maybe I just think like a programmer and believe there are better ways to do things than manually.

Thank goodness I don't do upgrades that often.

--Name Withheld

Get Rid of This Damned HMC

Here's a first thought on the eServer i6 and i6/OS: get rid of this damned Hardware Management Console!

If you can partition an iSeries down to a 10th of a processor and run Linux in it, then I'll give up a 10th just to not have a separate piece of hardware to worry about. If IBM wants to dedicate a slot, or a bus, or something to make it less vulnerable, that's cool, too.

IBM says that single point of failure is the issue behind the HMC, but it doesn't have to be. I've been on an i5 for two weeks, and I could put this on a CD. There is no need for any of this hardware. The partition data is all table-driven. Hypervisor my @##%&#! This stuff is not hardware; it's all software. The firmware reads the tables and updates tables. That's it. Hypervisor is a cool name, but it's like changing the "Little Clown's" name to Napolean. It's a name, but it's still just a bunch of tables.

IBM should buy Apple. You're right.

--Tuner

Timothy Prickett Morgan's iSeries Wish List

1. A sustained marketing campaign for the iSeries that explains what the box is, how it is different, why it is more secure, and why businesses should buy it. I am not sure where to run such ads, but the combination of print, radio, and TV ads seems like a good cocktail. The key word is sustained. IBM, stop propping up eServer profits by not spending enormous amounts of money on iSeries marketing. You have been derelict in this duty for the better part of a decade.

2. Run all of the core benchmarks on the i5 and i6 machines and demonstrate that the iSeries is the best bang for the buck for the market. If you can't do that, we all know it is not a performance issue. Cut prices until this is true and become a volume player. If you can't do that because IBM Rochester is not a high-volume, low-cost producer of iSeries servers, then outsource Power server manufacturing now, rather than waiting the 18 to 24 months I believe you will take to do it. Sell the Rochester factory to employees, and I bet they can do a better job than you are allowing them, too. How embarrassing is it for IBM that Lexmark, the former Big Bluegrass printer manufacturing business in Kentucky, not only survived its spinout from IBM but went on to thrive as the only rival to Hewlett-Packard? IBM Rochester is not the problem. The short-sighted, short-term thinking of IBM headquarters just north of me in New York State is.

3. Get that $5,000 complete iSeries system--including operating systems (OS/400, AIX, and Linux), compilers, open source applications, and trial versions of popular ERP suites--out the door. Like yesterday, not some time in early 2007. Let me clue you in about your market. It used to be dominated by small businesses that loved those B10, C04, D06, and similar desk-side machines. These boxes were the Wintel servers of their time, offering great bang for the buck compared with Unix and NetWare alternatives. The eServer i5--not even the geared-down Model 520 Express machine--is not price competitive.

4. IBM, if you can't--or won't--be a high-volume, low-cost manufacturer of iSeries systems, set up a giant utility data center in conjunction with the big iSeries resellers and carve it up to sell access only to small accounts (customers with 10 or fewer users); they can get some experience with an i5 before they decide in a year or two to invest in their own i6. It has to be dirt-cheap, including the cost of the software. A hosted application model for small customers, where you can limit their computing power directly and proportionately to the cost of the capacity they actually use, might be a better idea than trying to build cheap i5 iron. Remember, when you ask a small business to spend money, you are usually asking founders or presidents to spend what they perceive as their own money on IT. No matter how good the sales pitch is, there is no way I am going to spend a 3X premium on a server, even if it does save me 3X money over the long haul. Small businesses can't think over that long haul; they are just trying to make it through this year without going broke.

5. And while I'm thinking about it, prove that the iSeries has a lower total cost of ownership in an absolutely honest and quantifiable way. Stop paying IDC to fudge some apples-to-oranges comparison to Windows and Linux once every two years. No one outside the iSeries community believes the IDC reports, and many inside don't, either. However, many of us do believe that the iSeries does have big benefits: security, platform-agnosticism, integration, ease of programming, and administration. Call me Missouri, but prove it.

6. Figure out what the next GUI interface is going to be for the world and make the iSeries the premium platform for it. If that means converting 5250 green screens to a native XML interface, then do it. (I am no expert on this.) Get ahead of the curve on this. Unix and Linux have terrible and incompatible interfaces that make it tough to code across. Make sure you leave a command line interface for the vast majority of system administrators who prefer this. No feature or function in an XML interface screen for OS/400 should be missing from the command line. That should be the rule.

7. Make OS/400, DB2/400, and the RPG and COBOL compilers open source. Let it go. If you cannot afford to support it anymore, let the community do it. This community would go absolutely crazy with joy and help in ways you cannot even imagine. If you are worried about protecting iSeries intellectual property, remember that open source does not have to mean using the GNU Public License. Look at Java. It's open under the Java Community Process, but Java is clearly still under Sun's control. This is not the ideal open source approach, however.

Look at the numbers. Moving from a licensing model where you only push 20,000 to 25,000 licenses a year is not going to work in a world where independent software vendors are looking at millions of shipments each in Windows, Linux, and Unix. You need to pump up the iSeries volumes now and hope like hell you can make money later. You got yourself into this mess, IBM, no one else did. Now you need to get out of it. It takes courage and pluck.

Sun Microsystems is desperate, and it also has courage. That's why it is embracing the Opteron chip in its current and future Sun Fire servers and making its Solaris 10 variant of Unix open-source. Sun is also giving away the right to use the Solaris 10 binaries for free. More important, it is charging very low prices on three tiers of support (basic patch, 9 to 5, and 24/7) that put Red Hat's and Novell's prices to shame for their Linux variants. Sun is taking a big risk. If it pans out, Sun will revitalize Unix, or at least the Solaris variant of it. If it doesn't, Sun will go broke and be eaten by Fujitsu. You can bet that Scott McNealy, whose father ran American Motors before he had to sell it to Chrysler, is going to do everything in his power not to repeat the family history. That is why Sun is making these huge changes in the way it thinks about selling hardware and software.

To beat Windows and Linux, you have meet Linux on its terms and then up the ante. Sun (finally) understands this. Do you? To compete means going open-source. It means free right to use for binaries. It means community development. And it means moving to a priced-support model for those customers who want hand-holding from IBM for OS/400. You can adopt this model, or be defeated by it. The choice is yours.