The Four Hundred

OS/400 Edition
Volume 12, Number 3 -- January 20, 2003

A New Year, a New Attitude, a New Deal iSeries

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

You can't see it, but I am actually doing the Happy Snoopy Dance. My sheepdog thinks I am crazy, and I probably am. She's dancing with me anyway, because happiness spreads like a good idea. And I must be crazy, since I did start an IT publishing business in the aftermath of the dot-com blowout. But I don't care, because IBM has listened to all of us, after all of those years of complaining and coercing, and it has made an honest-to-goodness New Deal, an almost ideal iSeries.

Many of us knew that IBM was up to something with the iSeries line, but its exact plans were kept tightly under wraps. So was the delivery date for new iron and, as it turns out, a significantly revamped pricing and packaging model that, as far as I can tell without having all of the pricing information (which will not be announced until January 28), makes the iSeries absolutely competitive with the Unix midrange, and a strong case can now be made for the iSeries against, or in conjunction with, Windows and Linux servers.

This kind of thing doesn't happen every day, so be patient with me as I indulge a little.

In September 1993, when IBM debuted the first so-called server model of the AS/400, which was the first machine that flagrantly used governors, I didn't like the idea. In August 1997, IBM introduced the AS/400 Apache servers and implemented the interactive features--what I have called green-screen governors and the interactive software tax--and in the first five minutes I saw what IBM was doing, I warned the people in Rochester (you know who you are) that I thought this was a bad idea and that it would backfire terribly. Since about 1998, I have watched as the AS/400 and then the iSeries fell sadly behind the price/performance curve of the midrange at large, and the OS/400 platform business was cut in half, in terms of revenues and shipments. I've watched as companies using well-established RPG and COBOL applications and their 5250 green-screen protocols were penalized because they liked what they had. Price cuts on server models, which didn't really support 5250 applications, were supported on the backs of the AS/400 faithful so the server models could show decent price/performance compared to Unix and Windows servers, but these machines did not reflect how companies really used OS/400 machines. To say that all of us have been unhappy about it is an understatement. We all earn our living in this market, and my urging of IBM late last year, in the five-part iDeal iSeries articles that ran in this newsletter, convinced me and more than a few of you that IBM could create competitive OS/400 servers, even in this cut-throat server market. The iSeries could get back in the game and go after that very large base of nearly 500,000 installed AS/400 and iSeries machines with modern hardware and software, and pursue new accounts like it used to.

Well, now we will get to find out. (Be careful of what you ask for, I guess.) And although the test may not be under the ideal conditions of a strong economy, life is about taking risks, because that is where the rewards are--monetary and otherwise. (The "otherwise" is a big part of why Guild Companies exists, despite the risks of being an IT publishing company, which brings in enough of that "monetary" to make the "otherwise" possible. I get a kick out of doing what the press should always do: afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.) I know IBM didn't do everything I wanted with the iDeal iSeries I was proposing, but it came pretty close. IBM didn't do this because I asked for it, but rather because it made sense. This is what IBM has learned from the "Green Streak" discounts from 2002. No matter how much IBM or its business partners have protested otherwise, the OS/400 platform has not been hindered by bad marketing, but by non-competitive pricing. Great pricing, performance, and features are the only kind of marketing that matters.

I'm happy about the iSeries revamping, but I'm not naïve. The devil will be in the details, which will emerge over the next couple of weeks. Anyone who tells you they can give you a complete sense of the scope and meaning of these announcements has not done his homework, and hasn't seen some of the documents I have, which have holes. I know I need to do more digging. The new machines won't even be orderable until January 28 (which was also when pricing information was expected to be announced, but IBM might release it on January 24). Moreover, the new iSeries line won't be available until February 17. We have the time, and it is smart to use it.

IBM has been saying that this is the most significant announcement it has made in the past 10 or 15 years concerning its OS/400 platform. The new iSeries iron is simple enough to comprehend--and much simplified, thankfully--but capacity on demand, changes in software packaging, pricing, and support, and other factors make this an announcement that cannot be quantified and qualified easily in a few thousand words. That's why this newsletter is going to take its time and walk you through the new iSeries line over the next several weeks. We will gather all the information we can and interpret how it affects your IT budgets in the short term and the long term. We will talk to partners and customers about what they think of the new iSeries. We will examine how the new line stacks up to current Unix, Windows, and Linux servers and the old iSeries and AS/400 lines. And, for kicks, I will compare the new iSeries to the iDeal iSeries I was proposing at the end of 2002.

One last thing: I am well aware that the complete revamping of the iSeries is not going to make it easy for IBM or its reseller partners to make the kind of money that they used to in the late 1990s, but this is 2003 and it's a whole new game. Best to face that head-on. All that I know is that the revamping shows that IBM is clearly committed to the platform, is willing to adapt, and is ready to take risks. I haven't seen this from IBM since 1995. Welcome back, Rochester. You're in the game. And now, OS/400 server installed base, so are you. It will soon be up to you to determine how this iSeries game plays out. The ball will soon be in your court.

The View from 25,000 Feet

In a nutshell, here's what IBM has done, and has not done, with the OS/400 platform:

IBM has added entry servers using 540 MHz and 750 MHz S-Star PowerPC processors, and midrange and high-end machines that use the 750 MHz S-Stars, the 1.1 GHz Power4, and 1.3 GHz Power4 processors. The new line gets rid of the Model 270 and replaces it with a much more sensible and cost-effective Model 800. The other machines very much resemble IBM's pSeries Unix server line, which is something we had been anticipating.
IBM is making capacity on demand available on all but the smallest iSeries machines, and this capacity can be activated incrementally, either permanently or temporarily. This temporary activation of on-site capacity (as opposed to a service bureau or application service provider marketing model) makes the iSeries the first true on-demand utility server. Another first for IBM Rochester in a long line of firsts.
Generally speaking, IBM has not removed the 5250 governors from the iSeries line, but it has repacked the OS/400 software stack and apparently priced the stack that includes 5250 green-screen support in such a way that will make customers much more happy. IBM is not calling it interactive capacity any more, since the word interactive has cooties; it now calls it 5250 OLTP and is stressing that this protocol is really a transaction monitor, like IBM's CICS for mainframes or Tuxedo for Unix. This is correct. In any event, interactive capacity is, on most machines, an all or none proposition, as explained below.
The new iSeries machines come bundled with a Standard Edition and an Enterprise Edition OS/400 software stack. OS/400 is licensed on a per-processor basis, with the cost of OS/400 for the base number of processors in a machine being bundled into the price of the hardware. The Standard Edition includes OS/400, DB2/400, support for logical partitions (running either Linux or OS/400), WebSphere middleware, Java support, and the ability to run 5250 applications that have been converted to Java applications using IBM's WebFacing tool (and presumably any other third-party tool that gets around the 5250 screens and its communications protocol). The Enterprise Edition includes all of that, plus full 5250 software support; in other words, all of the CPW capacity of a machine can be dedicated to 5250 workloads. There are no pricey interactive features that gradually step up the interactive capacity on a machine. The Enterprise Edition of the iSeries-OS/400 bundle also includes a license for WebSphere, Lotus Sametime and Quickplace, DB2 tools, and various Tivoli programs. In the Enterprise Editions for the Model 825, 870, and 890 servers, IBM tosses in a 1.6 GHz Integrated xSeries Server and a bunch of education and services vouchers; with the Model 870 and 890 machines, IBM throws in a free processor activated for Linux.
The entry iSeries Model 800 machine comes with fixed amounts of 5250 green-screen processing capacity and a much higher fixed amount of generic server capacity, just like the iSeries machines from the prior generation. These Model 800 boxes come in three flavors: a "fighter model" Value Edition, a more expensive Standard Edition, and a bigger and even more costly Advanced Edition. The Model 800 overlaps the existing S-Star-based Model 270s and offers better bang for the buck. Perhaps most important, a given amount of processing capacity is in a lower software tier than in the prior iSeries generation.
Speaking of that, the number of software tiers has been significantly cut down, and machines have been shifted into lower software tiers. A machine has a single tier now, and tiering is not incremented upward based on interactive capacity as it has been in the past. Software tier P60 has been entirely removed, and the top-end iSeries Model 890 is now in the P50 tier.
From the few pricing comparisons business partners have seen, it looks like Green Streak pricing has been permanently implemented on the new iSeries line. Once I have prices for the new iSeries and its hardware and software components list, I will build a pricing and upgrade guide to see if this is the case and to help you with your own analysis and budgets.

New Servers, New Packaging: A Closer Look

Even though the iSeries line has been simplified with the launch of the new machines, it's still complicated. Most people want to know what the iron looks like first. The OS/400 software packaging, outlined briefly above, is probably as important, since software makes up such a big portion of server cost these days, but without specific pricing on the different software options, it is hard to make any quantitative judgements on how good it is. All we can do is tell you how IBM will package it, and update you on costs once that information becomes available.

There are basically five different kinds of iSeries machines in the new line--Models 800, 810, 825, 870, and 890. Let's talk about the Model 890 first, since it is easiest. The new Model 890 is essentially the same "Regatta-H" iron that has been shipping since last summer, which comes in two flavors: one offering a base 16-way server expandable to 24 processors, and another 24-way expandable to 32 processors using Capacity Upgrade on Demand. The Model 890 uses IBM's 1.3 GHz Power4 dual-core processors, and offers from 8 GB to 256 GB of main memory and support for up to 32 logical partitions supporting OS/400 and Linux. The difference with this year's Model 890 is that it supports the Standard and Enterprise Editions of the OS/400 stack; has twice the maximum disk capacity, with 144 TB supported; supports 60 Integrated xSeries Adapter (IxA) cards (up from 32); and is in the P50 software tier regardless of how much interactive capacity is activated (all or none). The number of Integrated xSeries Servers (IxS) supported on the Model 890 stands at 48, with a total of 128 LAN cards, 480 communications lines, and 672 PCI-X slots supported. Server processing power ranges from 20,000 CPWs on the 16-way to 37,400 CPWs on the 32-way. The base list price of the revamped Model 890 with 16 processors and 8 GB of main memory is $1,065,000 configured with the Standard Edition of OS/400, according to IBM sources.

From there, we step down to the Model 870, a close cousin of the pSeries Model 670. Incidentally, IBM just about killed that pSeries 670 machine with the launch of the pSeries 650, an eight-way box that uses the new Power4+ chip running at 1.2 GHz and 1.45 GHz, in November 2002. There's nothing wrong with using the Power4 670/870 chassis in the iSeries line, but if you are wondering why IBM didn't create an eight-way iSeries 850 using the new Power4+ chips, the reason is that it is sold out of pSeries 650s and it wants to sell as many Unix versions of the machine as it can before it supports it in the iSeries line. It wouldn't be strange to see an iSeries 850 late this year or early next year. At any rate, what we do have is the iSeries 870, which offers from 8 to 16 of IBM's 1.3 GHz Power4 processors, from 8 GB to 128 GB of main memory, and up to 144 TB of disk capacity. It supports 60 IxA cards, 48 IxS servers, 128 LAN cards, and 480 communications lines. This machine is in the P40 software tier, and server processing capacity ranges from 11,500 CPWs for an eight-way to 20,000 CPWs for a 16-way. Base pricing for the iSeries Model 870 with 8 processors and 8 GB of memory is $550,000 with OS/400 Standard Edition.

The only P30 class machine in the new iSeries line is the Model 825, which offers from three to six of IBM's 1.1 GHz Power4 processors in a single system image. This machine is conceptually halfway between the four-way pSeries 630 and the eight-way pSeries 650 in the Unix side of the Power server line. Main memory spans from 3 GB to 48 GB on the box, which supports up to 58 TB of disk capacity. The Model 825, like the Model 870 and 890 machines, offers both permanent and temporary Capacity Upgrade on Demand processor upgrades. It supports 12 IxA cards, 36 IxS cards, 96 LAN cards, and 320 communications lines. The processing capacity of the machine spans from 3,600 CPWs to 6,600 CPWs. Running OS/400 Standard Edition, the Model 825 with three processors and 3 GB of memory has a base price of $125,000, according to IBM sources.

The Model 810 iSeries servers, like the Model 800, are aimed at small and midsized businesses, not the bigger midrange and enterprise shops, at which the Models 825, 870, and 890 are targeted. There are three basic flavors of the Model 810, each with an OS/400 Standard or Enterprise Edition variant. They all support 13 IxS cards, seven IxA cards, 36 LAN cards, and 192 communications lines, with main memory ranging from 512 MB to 16 GB. A uniprocessor machine in the P10 software tier based on a 540 MHz S-Star processor with 2 MB of L2 cache is rated at 1,020 CPWs, and has a base list price of $22,000 running OS/400 Standard Edition. A more powerful machine also in the P10 tier is based on a 750 MHz S-Star processor equipped with 4 MB of L2 cache; it is rated at 1,470 CPWs. A two-way version of the Model 810 in the P20 software tier also uses this faster 750 MHz S-Star processor and is rated at 2,700 CPWs.

The entry machine in the new iSeries line--and one that utterly puts to rest the speculation that IBM would abandon the entry point in the iSeries line to Windows and Linux servers--is the iSeries Model 800. It is available in two different hardware configurations that have three different packagings. The Value Edition of the Model 800 uses a 540 MHz S-Star processor with no L2 cache that has been geared down to have 25 CPWs of fixed 5250 OLTP capacity and 300 CPWs of generic server capacity. This so-called "fighter model," which is in the P05 software tier, will be priced at $9,995 and includes a single disk drive, 256 MB of memory, a DVD drive, no tape backup device, and the base OS/ software stack (minus WebSphere Express). The Standard Edition of this Model 800 machine has a 540 MHz S-Star processor, 2 MB of L2 cache, and is rated at 950 CPWs of raw server capacity and 25 CPWs of fixed 5250 OLTP capacity. This Standard Edition Model 800 will be in the P10 software tier and a base machine has two disks, 512 MB of memory, a tape drive, and WebSphere Express bundled in for a price that is expected to be in the range of $19,000. IBM warns that the price on this Model 800 Standard Edition is discounted relative to the components, and that buying a Value Edition machine and upgrading to the Standard Edition will cost more than $9,000. So it is best to choose the right model from the start. The Model 800 Advanced Edition is the same hardware and in the same P10 software tier, but the fixed 5250 OLTP is boosted to 50 CPWs (raw server power remains at 950 CPWs), and the price is expected to rise to around $39,000. Both the Standard and Advanced Editions of the Model 800 also include a license to WebSphere Express. The Model 800 supports up to 8 GB of main memory, three IxA cards, 4 IxS cards, 12 LAN cards, and 60 communications lines.

There are also iSeries for Domino variants of some of these new iSeries machines--what we used to call "Bumblebee" Dedicated Servers for Domino in the past. We will tell you all about these in detail as soon as we can, since some information is still missing about them. They deserve some in-depth attention of their own.

Click here to see a table of salient characteristics of the new iSeries machines, including the Domino for iSeries boxes.