• The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
Menu
  • The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Partners Need To Get Certified–For Power8 And IBM i

    August 25, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

    Business partners who resell Power Systems iron running the IBM i operating system have to jump through a lot of hoops to prove to Big Blue that they know what they are talking about when it comes to selling, installing, and configuring machinery. This is not a new thing to the IBM midrange, but rather the normal course of things since the days of the AS/400 and a natural consequence of selling a product through channel partners instead of a direct sales force. And that is precisely how all of us in the IBM i ecosystem want it to stay.

    But some business partners who have contacted The Four Hundred in recent weeks have this sneaking suspicion that maybe IBM will be focusing most–if not all–of its attention on Linux and AIX with the new Power8 systems and not enough on IBM i. They believe this not because of a marketing message or a sales pitch, but because of a change in the certification process for business partners with the Power8 systems.

    IBM’s PartnerWorld business partner organization sent out notices to Power Systems resellers on August 12 that all authorized business partners would have to meet new recertification requirements for the current Scale-Out Power8 systems as well as what I presume are future and impending bigger NUMA shared memory machines that are referred to as the Enterprise Power8 systems in the letter. This may be something of a surprise to some partners, given that the last required change in certifications was concurrent with Technology Refresh 6 of IBM i 7.1, but given that IBM has a new marketing message with Power8–essentially, compete with X86 iron–this seems reasonable. The partners that I talk to say the certification regimen changes every two to three years, so they are used to this.

    In the past, with the current V2 certifications for Power Systems, as they are called, partners had to take four tests. There was a set of common tests they had to pass, and specifically, there were four tests in the V2 generation. One showed that partners had the sales skills to peddle Power Systems iron in a general sense, and the other showed they had the technical skills to help customers size and configure systems and had familiarity with the feeds and speeds and slots and watts of the machinery. Then, partners had to specialize further, taking two tests to prove they had the sales and technical skills for each of the three operating systems–IBM i, AIX, or Linux–available on Power Systems machines. Those partners focusing on IBM i therefore took four tests, two technical skills tests and two sales skills tests, one each for Power Systems generically and one each for IBM i specifically.

    Those certifications were a seal of approval from IBM and it showed that the partners knew what they were talking about, and in the SMB world, where the relationship is between the companies using the IBM i platform to run their businesses and the partner/reseller providing the gear and often other kinds of support, this was like having a license to sell. It is important, and it is what keeps the quality of the experience between IBM i customers and ultimately IBM itself being not just a good one, but a legendary one. Something Apple craved and created long after IBM had already mastered it in the midrange.

    The current V2 certifications that customers have for Power Systems machines in general (both sales and technical) and for specific platforms (for IBM i, AIX, and Linux, sales and technical for each) and the tests that they take to get those certifications are going to expire on July 31, 2015. You can read the business partner announcement that describes the new tests here at this link.

    Like before, IBM has a more generic sales certification, called Certified Technical Sales Specialist–Power Systems with Power8 V1 and that test for that will be available in March 2015. Then there are two other certifications beyond this. Instead of going deeper by operating system platform as in the past, IBM appears to be going deeper by use case and system type with the Power8 technical sales certifications. IBM has a new test for the Scale-Out Power8 systems that is targeted to be available in October 2014 for customers to take to prove they know their Power8 entry stuff and to get the Certified Technical Sales Specialist–Power Systems with Power8 Scale-out V1 credential. The Enterprise Power8 variant of the credential–called Certified Technical Sales Specialist – Power Systems with Power8 Enterprise V1, naturally enough–will have a test sometime around March 2015. Interestingly, you will have to get the Scale-Out Power8 credential as a prerequisite for the Enterprise Power8 certification.

    Nowhere in these three certifications does IBM’s testing go further and offer deeper certifications by operating system. That doesn’t mean that IBM won’t do this, but so far, what it does mean is that IBM has not done this.

    The word on the street is that the person who used to coordinate the certification efforts for IBM i in the Rochester, Minnesota, labs was laid off three months ago, which has some partners jumpy. Normally, this person would solicit experts in the IBM i field who were well-acquainted with the new hardware and software as the testing regimen was updated to fire off hard questions to each other and these would be used to make the certification tests. As far as my sources know, these experts have not been contacted to generate IBM i 7.2 questions for Power8 systems. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, mind you.

    And I only bring this up because both the partners and I, and no doubt the rest of the IBM i community, want for a specific IBM i certification to continue. I don’t want the IBM i customer and partner to be an after-thought. For whatever reason, IBM did not launch a four-core variant of the Power8 machines with an IBM i P05 software tier when the machines came out–probably because ISVs want customers to pay more for their software licenses as they drive IBM hardware sales. IBM was noncommittal about even putting out such a four-core P05 machine in its internal documents, and I have to believe that complaints from customers and resellers alike not only prompted IBM to change its mind–the machine was held out as a possibility for a launch in the fall of 2014, with no promises–but to move the launch up to June.

    The IBM i base needs that P05 machine, and partners need a specific IBM i certification to prove they know what they are talking about with this platform, which is not like Windows, Linux, Unix, or anything else for that matter. Whether or not IBM has certifications for AIX or Linux is another matter entirely. But given how different they are–and how the partner community is used to thinking this way and the customers are, too, it probably makes sense to keep doing it this way.

    RELATED STORIES

    Power8 Packs More Punch Than Expected

    IBM Readies More Power8 Iron For Launch

    Counting The Cost Of Power8 Systems

    Four-Core Power8 Box For Entry IBM i Shops Ships Early

    Thanks For The Cheaper, Faster Memories

    Threading The Needle Of Power8 Performance

    Lining Up Power7+ Versus Power8 Machines With IBM i

    IBM i Shops Pay The Power8 Hardware Premium

    As The World Turns: Investments In IBM i

    Doing The Two-Step To Get To Power8

    What’s New in IBM i 7.2–At a Glance

    IBM i 7.2 Available May 2

    IBM i Runs On Two Of Five New Power8 Machines

    IBM i TR8, Database Driven

    Big Blue Launches IBM i 7.1 TR8 As 7.2 Looms

    Big Blue Talks About IBM i And PureSystems

    Power8 Launch Rumored To Start At The Low End

    Rumors Say Power8 Systems Debut Sooner Rather Than Later

    Power Systems Coming To The SoftLayer Cloud

    Intel’s Xeon E7 Brings The Fight To IBM’s Power8

    IBM Pushes Performance Up, Energy Down With Power8

    IBM Licenses Power8 Chips To Chinese Startup

    What The System x Selloff Means To IBM i Shops

    Power Systems Sales Power Down In The Fourth Quarter

    New Year’s High Def, Most Def

    All Your IBM i Base Are Belong To Us

    IBM i Installed Base Dominated By Vintage Iron

    Big Blue Gives A Solid Installed Base Number For IBM i

    Reader Feedback On Big Blue Gives A Solid Installed Base Number

    Power8 Offers Big Blue And IBM i A Clean Slate

    Power8 And The Potential Oomph In Midrange And Big Boxes

    IBM Aims NextScale Hyperscale Boxes At Clouds–And Possibly Power8

    Power8 Processor Packs A Twelve-Core Punch–And Then Some

    IBM To Divulge Power8 Processor Secrets At Hot Chips

    IBM Forms OpenPower Consortium, Breathes New Life Into Power



                         Post this story to del.icio.us
                   Post this story to Digg
        Post this story to Slashdot

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Tags:

    Sponsored by
    Raz-Lee Security

    Protect Your IBM i and/or AIX Servers with a Free Virus Scan

    Cyber threats are a reality for every platform, including IBM i and AIX servers. No system is immune, and the best defense is prompt detection and removal of viruses to prevent costly damage. Regulatory standards across industries mandate antivirus protection – ensure your systems are compliant and secure.

    Get My Free Virus Scan

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Tango/04 Lunches Alignia to Simplify Corporate Monitoring Creating A GUID In DB2 For i

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Volume 24, Number 28 -- August 25, 2014
THIS ISSUE SPONSORED BY:

PowerTech
Infinite Corporation
Maxava
COMMON
WorksRight Software

Table of Contents

  • Partners Need To Get Certified–For Power8 And IBM i
  • ‘Game Changer’ Mobile App Rollout Under Way
  • New Approaches Needed For Hyperscale Security Threats
  • As I See It: IT At Play
  • The Coder’s Shortcut To Satisfaction
  • Reader Feedback On OpenVMS Spinout A Possible Prelude To An IBM i Future?
  • CMS/400 Could Switch Hands In $3 Billion Private Equity Deal
  • IBM Gets The U.S. Nod To Sell System x Biz To Lenovo
  • Oracle Bests Rimini Street in Latest Court Battle
  • IT Evolution Chicago Style

Content archive

  • The Four Hundred
  • Four Hundred Stuff
  • Four Hundred Guru

Recent Posts

  • POWERUp 2025 –Your Source For IBM i 7.6 Information
  • Maxava Consulting Services Does More Than HA/DR Project Management – A Lot More
  • Guru: Creating An SQL Stored Procedure That Returns A Result Set
  • As I See It: At Any Cost
  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 19
  • IBM Unveils Manzan, A New Open Source Event Monitor For IBM i
  • Say Goodbye To Downtime: Update Your Database Without Taking Your Business Offline
  • i-Rays Brings Observability To IBM i Performance Problems
  • Another Non-TR “Technology Refresh” Happens With IBM i TR6
  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 18

Subscribe

To get news from IT Jungle sent to your inbox every week, subscribe to our newsletter.

Pages

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Contributors
  • Four Hundred Monitor
  • IBM i PTF Guide
  • Media Kit
  • Subscribe

Search

Copyright © 2025 IT Jungle