Timothy Prickett Morgan
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IBM To Stop Peddling Power6+ Processors Soon
September 17, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreWith the Power7+ processors and their related Power Systems machinery looming on the horizon sometime before the end of the year, according to IBM‘s top brass, it is no surprise that Big Blue is beginning the process of winding down sales of new Power6+ system boards and related peripherals. These machines are two generations back, and no vendor likes to sell more than one generation back even if they do support any old iron for many, many years in terms of running software and providing tech support.
In announcement letter 912-815, IBM is telling customers to get out
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Can My Power 520 Run IBM i 7.1, And Do It Well?
September 17, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreWe get a lot of questions here at IT Jungle, and we do our best to try to get you answers. With new Power7+ servers coming soon, IBM is getting ready to mothball Power6+ processor cards early next year (as we report on elsewhere in this issue), and i5/OS V5R4 support being ceased on September 30 next year, customers with older Power5 through Power6+ machinery have a lot to think about.
One customer who contacted us recently is willing to ponder the jump from i5/OS V5R4 to IBM i 7.1, but none of the documentation that either he
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Big Power7 Boxes Get Fat Memory Rebates, Too
September 10, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIBM is not just giving system-level discounts to customers who buy Power 740 Express configurations with fairly beefy main memory configurations, as we report elsewhere in this issue. The company is also giving rebates on main memory bought for larger Power 750, 770, 780, and 795 systems.
I would guess that IBM is chopping memory prices on its Power7-based midrange and high-end boxes for two reasons. First, it is charging ridiculously lower prices per gigabyte on the exact same memory modules in some cases used in its PowerLinux Linux-only machines. IBM is doing this to make the Power line more
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IBM Offers Summertime Deal On Power 740 Servers
September 10, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIf you are in need of some new processing capacity and you can’t wait for the forthcoming Power7+ servers to come to market later this year, then Big Blue has a deal on a Power 740 Express server that it wants to make–provided you get the deal done a week before the third quarter financials close so it can ship the box and book the revenue.
I don’t know why the Power 740 Summer Promotion did not come into my inbox with the other announcement letters on July 11, but in announcement letter 312-079 and subsequently modified in announcement letter
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Take The Common Europe Top Concerns 2012 Survey Now
September 10, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreThe annual Top Concerns of IBM i shops survey may be done by COMMON Europe, but it is meant to cover the world and it is one of the things that COMMON Europe does on behalf of the entire community. This is the seventh year that COMMON Europe is doing the survey in an effort to balance your needs against those of the largest IBM i shops that have more or less direct access to IBM‘s Rochester Labs, and you should therefore take some time and take the survey.
It’s for your own good and that of your
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Google’s Nexus 7: A Viable Tablet For IBM i Users
September 10, 2012 Nick Hampson
… Read moreThe mobile revolution is starting to have real impact within the IBM i community. In addition to smartphones gaining access to core applications, we are starting to see tablets being utilized to benefit users by freeing them from their desks. Apple‘s iPad has been the poster-child for tablet computing, but is getting some competition. In particular, the Nexus 7 is considered a serious contender.
The Nexus 7 is Google‘s first venture into the tablet space, and it serves the dual purpose of benchmarking the design for the Android operating system, a variant of Linux controlled by Google that
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Gartner Concurs: Second Quarter Server Sales Stall
September 10, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreAs we explained in last week’s issue of The Four Hundred in going over IDC‘s casing of the global server market in the second quarter, it was no big surprise to anyone that with so many server processor transitions underway and the global economy somewhat skittish that the second quarter would be a little soft in terms of sales. The box counters at Gartner concur, and present a slightly different dicing and slicing of the market.
IDC counts vendor sales shipping out of the factory to large customers who buy directly and to master distributors who in turn peddle
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Performance Choices For Power7+ Servers Could Be Complicated
September 10, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIn last week’s issue of The Four Hundred, I gave you the low-down on the forthcoming Power7+ processors from IBM, which are expected to be launched in new Power Systems machines before the end of the year. This information came from a presentation Big Blue’s chip experts made at the Hot Chips 24 conference, and it was refreshing to see IBM talk about the chips a bit before they came out in systems, giving customers some time to ponder their options.
If you are an IBM i customer, you are going to need the time because the situation
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Admin Alert: Two Useful PC5250 Parameters In IBM i Access For Windows 7.1
September 5, 2012 Joe Hertvik
… Read moreWith IBM i Access for Windows 7.1, IBM offers some valuable parameters for customizing Personal Communications sessions (PC5250) to connect to your IBM i partitions. This week, I’ll look at two of these features–setting a default path for PC5250 configuration files; and storing PC5250 window and font information–that can be useful for IBM i administrators trying to provide better control over their user installs.
For this article, I’ll discuss two valuable PC5250 configuration parameters that are available with IBM i Access for Windows 7.1. These features are configured through the IBM i Access for Windows Properties screen, which is accessed
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Checking IBM i OS and PTF Level Status for Sarbanes-Oxley Documentation
September 5, 2012 Hey, Joe
… Read moreI have to write a quarterly procedure for our Sarbanes-Oxley manual that details how we make sure our IBM i operating system and PTFs are current. Our auditors want us to prove that we are up to date on upgrades and fixes. Any ideas on how we can do that? I’m on i 6.1.1.
–Bill
Here are my thoughts for doing this on a 6.1.1 system. Note: The process I’m describing here can be used to provide operating system and PTF review documentation for any auditing requirements, not just SOX.
Review your PTF and upgrade status at least twice yearly