by Timothy Prickett Morgan

IBM made a threat that it would devise ways to disable the Fast400 governor-buster program, formerly marketed by TigerTools and now marketed by Storage Solutions Group. And it has made good on that promise by releasing two HIPER PTFs that disable Fast400 on OS/400 V5R1 and V4R5.

Thanks to all of you readers who sent me emails notifying me that IBM had done this. I was just about to go sorting through the cover letters on the latest PTFs when I got a flurry of emails saying IBM had buried the Fast400 killers in HIPER PTF MF27442 V4R5 and HIPER PTF MF27432 for V5R1. According to the description of these PTFs supplied by IBM, they fix a data integrity problem, but if you read more carefully, as many of you did, it goes on to say in the error description that "modified or patched MI programs [referring to the microcode that exists below OS/400's Machine Interface layer] may modify SLIC internal structures, causing unpredictable results." One of the many readers who sent an email about the PTFs IBM released quipped that the only unpredictable results seen from so-called patched programs would be on IBM's bottom line.

In any event, the cover letter goes on to say the following: "This PTF will help protect your system from altered or patched MI programs and the security and system integrity exposures relating to such programs. This PTF may be a prerequisite for future PTFs. Application of this PTF may disable or render ineffective programs that use system memory addresses not generated by the IBM translator, including programs that circumvent control technology designed to manage interactive capacity to purchased levels. By applying this PTF you acknowledge and agree to the foregoing."

One of the questions we are trying to answer right now is whether these patches to thwart Fast400 will affect other system performance and tuning tools sanctioned by IBM. We'll keep you posted.

Though John Wells, chief operating officer of Storage Solutions Group, has not divulged how he will peddle Fast400 starting this week, I talked to him last week and he seemed pretty confident that his OS/400 gurus could keep one step ahead of IBM and re-enable Fast400 despite IBM's patch.

Chance Taylor, CEO of TigerTools, released a statement to Fast400 customers last week, filling in some of the gaps concerning the Fast400 tool. He did not explain why TigerTools is no longer marketing the product, just like Wells has yet to explain how he managed to get the deal. Here's what Taylor told Fast400 customers:

Over the past few months, thousands of companies have benefited from Fast400. This is an update on TigerTools and Fast400.

1. TigerTools does not have the marketing rights to Fast400 any longer. The Developer Group has sold the rights to another company in Europe. The new company will contact you in a few weeks.

2. IBM has released PTFs to make Fast400 ineffective: MF27432 and MF27442. The Developer Group has expressed confidence in having a fix for Fast400 for these PTFs.

3. If you need technical support, send an Email to support@tigertools.com and it will be forwarded to the Developer Group until the new organization is ready to support the product.

4. Here is a new code that will enable Fast400 to work until March 31, 2002.

CALL FAST400 (D906C8369CA75350 0.1)

5. For the customers that have purchased Fast400, TigerTools will return your money 100% if that is what you want, otherwise, if the Developer Group cannot fix Fast400, you will only be charged for one quarter of subscription pricing and the remainder of the monies will be returned. For those of you that have not been invoiced yet, you will not be invoiced until a fix is available.

6. For the resellers wanting to sell Fast400 to their customer base, the new marketing company has your contact information and will be contacting you shortly.

I hope the above information addresses your concerns and questions. If you have additional questions, please send them to support@tigertools.com

The next volley in this battle between IBM's OS/400 programmers and the secretive programmers behind Fast400 located in Europe will undoubtedly continue next week. We'll keep our eyes out for more anti-patch PTFs.

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by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Red Hat, which is by some measures the dominant distributor of commercial Linux operating systems (particularly in North America), has finally, after hemming and hawing, committed to supporting its eponymous Linux distribution on IBM's non-Intel server product lines--including the iSeries and AS/400 platform.

Red Hat's announcement that it will fully endorse the IBM eServer product line comes more than a year after the company made such promises to IBM, and also comes fast on the heels of a broad agreement between IBM and Linux rival SuSE Linux AG several weeks ago.

In August 2000, Red Hat and IBM announced that the two companies would jointly sell bundled Red Hat operating systems and IBM database and middleware programs. The deal was supposed to be unique, in that it would have both companies promote the combined Linux offerings of the two companies to small, midsize, and enterprise businesses through a jointly funded direct sales force and an indirect channel program. The agreement initially focused on Red Hat operating system and support bundles for IBM's DB2 database, WebSphere Web application server, Lotus Domino messaging programs, and a bundle of these applications called the IBM Small Business Pack for Linux. The deal included a provision for allowing Red Hat to add any IBM application or systems program developed for Linux as part of a bundled offering on Red Hat Linux.

In October 2000, when IBM rolled out the eServer rebranding of its AS/400, RS/6000, Netfinity, and S/390 server lines, creating the eServer brand and the iSeries, pSeries, xSeries, and zSeries subbrands, Red Hat came out strongly again, endorsing the eServer product line and saying that it would support each of IBM's server hardware platforms.

Between then and now, not much has happened aside from supporting Red Hat Linux on the xSeries servers. (IBM preloads commercial Linux distributions from Caldera Systems on the xSeries servers, too. Customers have to either make a special request to have a reseller put Linux systems from Turbolinux or SuSE on the xSeries servers or do it themselves.) In the meantime, Turbolinux and SuSE have come on strong supporting IBM's zSeries and iSeries platforms, and they were the first two commercial Linux distributors to announce distributions for Linux partitions on the iSeries. SuSE is a very popular Linux distribution in Europe and has broad support for European languages. Turbolinux is popular in the Asia/Pacific region and has the broadest support for languages in that area of the globe. Both SuSE and Turbolinux rose with the Linux and dot-com boom and tried to storm the North American market, largely controlled by Red Hat, based in North Carolina. All four Linux distributors have found expanding their software and support businesses difficult and have increasingly relied on partners like IBM to help them push their products and services.

Red Hat last week said it would sell Red Hat 7.2, both the 32-bit and the 64-bit versions of the operating system, on the xSeries platform, and that it would sell Red Hat Linux 7.1 on the iSeries, zSeries, and pSeries platforms. The mainframe version of Red Hat Linux 7.1 is a 64-bit implementation, while the versions for the iSeries and pSeries servers are a 32-bit implementation. (This hardly matters, since most Linux applications are still written for 32-bit processors.) As part of the offering, Red Hat will offer platform-specific CDs and manuals; support through phone, Web, and email; on-site configuration and implementation services; and various upgrade services.

The one thing Red Hat will not be supplying is a price list for its iSeries offering. Customers opting for non-Intel platforms will have to tell Red Hat sales reps what they are up to and then get a quote for the cost of software, tech support, and consulting services they want to acquire. Price lists are similarly not being provided for Red Hat Linux products running on zSeries and pSeries eServer machines, so don't feel too slighted.

Red Hat Linux 7.1 for Intel's 64-bit Itanium processors costs $499 per license, including support for up to eight-way servers and up to 64 GB of main memory. That price includes six months of bug reports and patches for the operating system and 30 days of tech support through the Red Hat Web site. Red Hat is only charging $100 for Red Hat running on Compaq's AlphaServer line, which includes 60 days of the deluxe service level. The base Red Hat Linux 7.2 operating system for Intel-based servers costs $60, with the Professional Edition selling for $180. A special bundle of the Red Hat 6.2 operating system (the old 2.2 kernel) optimized for the Linux version of the Oracle 8i database, including support for eight-way processors and 4 GB of main memory and one year of tech support and maintenance, sells for $2,500.

SuSE, which is selling an edition of its Enterprise Linux 7 for IBM mainframes and sells a PowerPC distribution for workstations and servers using that chip, has apparently inked a deal with IBM that will see SuSE become the preferred Linux distribution in Europe. SuSE will also apparently rebrand IBM database and middleware programs under its own name. DB2 becomes SuSE Linux Database Server and Domino becomes SuSE Linux Groupware. Odds are that Red Hat will, or has already, inked a similar deal for the North American market, and that Turbolinux will do a similar one for Asia.

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