IBM Updates Online IBM i Resources

March 18, 2014 Alex Woodie

If you find yourself perusing IBM‘s website looking for information about the IBM i operating system and Power Systems server, don’t be surprised if things look a little different than you remember them. That’s because IBM recently rolled out several updates to several online IBM i resources, including a new IBM Knowledge Center, a refresh to the IBM i 7.1 Redbook, and a new look and feel for the IBM i section of the developerWorks site.

IBM Redbooks are a great source of in-depth, technical information about IBM products. If you have a question about how to do something with the IBM i product, your answer is quite likely in a Redbook somewhere.

In mid-February, IBM published a draft of the next version of the IBM i 7.1 Redbook. In his blog, IBM i chief architect Steve Will alerted the community to the fact that this will be the last update to the Redbook before IBM i 7.2 is delivered. We can probably expect the new release by late April or early May, before the next COMMON show.

IBM plans to make the updated Redbook available on March 31. You can read a draft of the document at www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedpieceAbstracts/sg247858.html?Open.

IBM will often release new products in alpha or beta stages through its developerWorks website. It’s not only a good source of information about early-stage products in IBM’s labs, but for accessing general articles and tutorials on IBM i topics. There are links to Redbooks, white papers, technical presentations, wikis, and case studies. You’ll also find a link to the new IBM i Knowledge Center.

The old Information Center website was a great resource for general information about a range of IBM i topics (and i5/OS and OS/400 topics before them). But it was one of 800 different Information Centers within IBM, according to Will. IBM set out to unify all of those Information Centers with the new IBM Knowledge Center. You can access the IBM i page of the Knowledge Center at www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_ibm_i/welcome.

At first glance, the website appears to have a newer look to it, compared to the old Information Center website. On the left side, under the “close” button is your table of contents, where you can explore entries for different IBM i topics, such as networking, database, and storage solutions. The search bar parked at the top of the screen takes up a bit of space, But there’s a nifty “Collections” feature that allows you to store your frequently access content more easily.

Getting to the IBM i section of the Knowledge Center can be tricky if you don’t come in from the link above. From the main Knowledge Center screen, you need to scroll down past the Smarter Cities, SPSS, and Sterling Commerce entries and click on “System Software,” and then click “IBM i” to get there. This may not be immediately intuitive.

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Do the Math When Looking at IBM i Hosting for Cost Savings

COVID-19 has accelerated certain business trends that were already gaining strength prior to the start of the pandemic. E-commerce, telehealth, and video conferencing are some of the most obvious examples. One example that may not be as obvious to the general public but has a profound impact on business is the shift in strategy of IBM i infrastructure from traditional, on-premises environments to some form of remote configuration. These remote configurations and all of their variations are broadly referred to in the community as IBM i hosting.

“Hosting” in this context can mean different things to different people, and in general, hosting refers to one of two scenarios. In the first scenario, hosting can refer to a client owned machine that is housed in a co-location facility (commonly called a co-lo for short) where the data center provides traditional system administrator services, relieving the client of administrative and operational responsibilities. In the second scenario, hosting can refer to an MSP owned machine in which partition resources are provided to the client in an on-demand capacity. This scenario allows the client to completely outsource all aspects of Power Systems hardware and the IBM i operating system and database.

The scenario that is best for each business depends on a number of factors and is largely up for debate. In most cases, pursuing hosting purely as a cost saving strategy is a dead end. Furthermore, when you consider all of the costs associated with maintaining and IBM i environment, it is typically not a cost-effective option for the small to midsize market. The most cost-effective approach for these organizations is often a combination of a client owned and maintained system (either on-prem or in a co-lo) with cloud backup and disaster-recovery-as-a-service. Only in some cases of larger enterprise companies can a hosting strategy start to become a potentially cost-effective option.

However, cost savings is just one part of the story. As IBM i expertise becomes scarce and IT resources run tight, the only option for some firms may be to pursue hosting in some capacity. Whatever the driving force for pursing hosting may be, the key point is that it is not just simply an option for running your workload in a different location. There are many details to consider and it is to the best interest of the client to work with an experienced MSP in weighing the benefits and drawbacks of each option. As COVID-19 rolls on, time will tell if IBM i hosting strategies will follow the other strong business trends of the pandemic.

When we say do the math in the title above, it literally means that you need to do the math for your particular scenario. It is not about us doing the math for you, making a case for either staying on premises or for moving to the cloud. There is not one answer, but just different levels of cost to be reckoned which yield different answers. Most IBM i shops have fairly static workloads, at least measured against the larger mix of stuff on the public clouds of the world. How do you measure the value of controlling your own IT fate? That will only be fully recognized at the moment when it is sorely missed the most.

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