IBM Makes the Case for Power Systems SSDs
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Thank the explosion in the use of digital cameras and send a condolences card to Polaroid, the maker of instant cameras. One of the most useful technologies to come along in years for servers is flash-based solid state disk drives, or SSDs. While SRAM and DRAM versions of SSDs have been around for ages, they were so awfully expensive that only the most serious workloads could ever have them and they never even came close to going mainstream. But now SSDs are going mainstream, and they are going to change the way servers are configured. READ MORE >

Server Sales Breakdown Bigtime in the First Quarter
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

If the server business had a flat tire in the in the fourth quarter of 2008, when the economic meltdown was in full blaze, then two tires went flat and the muffler bracket broke, leaving metal scraping down the highway, with sparks a-flying and making a terrible racket, in the first quarter of this year. It's a tough market right now, which makes it a buyer's market to a certain degree. But companies are nonetheless hesitant to spend budgets. READ MORE >

COBOL at 50: Same Age as Barbie, But More Like Rodney
by Alex Woodie

Last Thursday, May 28, was COBOL's 50th birthday. If you didn't gather around your data processing device to celebrate this technological milestone, don't feel too bad about it. Chances are, few of your IT business associates celebrated COBOL's birthday, either. But backers of COBOL, such as Micro Focus, are a little miffed that the language doesn't get more respect. After all, the vendor points out, you don't see Barbie, who also turns 50 this year, being relied upon to run billions of dollars worth of transactions every day, do you? READ MORE >

Why Are Systems Programmers Always To Blame?
by Doug Mewmaw

We've all been there. It's first thing Monday morning and the phone is ringing off the hook. The CIO is calling, and everyone is freaking. Even though your system's team didn't submit one single change over the weekend, there's a problem and you, the systems administrator, are being blamed. You know it's not your fault, and wish you had a way to prove what the heck is going on. Sound familiar? READ MORE >