Timothy Prickett Morgan
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IBM Winds Down Power7 Gen 1 Entry Servers
March 4, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreAs soon as the Power 710, 720, 730, and 740 machines were updated with slightly different processors, more memory capacity, and PCI-Express 2.0 peripherals last October, you knew that they were not going to be long for the IBM catalog.
In announcement letter 912-016, IBM said that it would stop selling the original Power 710/730 (machine number 8231-E2B), Power 720 (machine number 8202-E4B), and Power 740 (machine number 8231-E6B) on May 25.
The company has also pulled the plug on the 7402-C08 deskside Hardware Management Console (HMC), which is used to manage PowerVM logical partitions on Power Systems
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Nips And Tucks For IBM Power Systems Trade-In Rebate Deal
February 27, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreThis long-running Power Systems Trade-In deal from IBM has had more modifications than a badly written novel. But the fact that IBM keeps on tweaking the deal shows that it is changing the Power Systems product line enough to warrant the changes, which is a good thing.
The Power Systems Trade-In deal gives customers with earlier generations of AS/400, iSeries, and System i machines, as well as pSeries and System p boxes, a cash-rebate that ranges from a low of $250 on a PS700 blade server to a high of $120,000 on a loaded up Power 795 big bad box.
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looksoftware Hosts
February 27, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read morei Believe Event Ahead of COMMON
If you were thinking of heading out to California a little early to play at Disneyland before the COMMON midrange user group meeting and expo, then application modernization tool maker looksoftware is hosting a special event ahead of COMMON that will probably pique your interest.
The COMMON event is being hosted May 6 through 9 at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, and will presumably feature the top brass from IBM‘s Power Systems division as it always does. (Although with a little more emphasis on AIX as has been happening over the past
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Reader Feedback On: Big Blue Pulls The Plug And As I See It: Overrated
February 27, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreOn Big Blue Pulls The Plug On IBM i Discount Deal:
Mr. Tim:
The withdrawal of the 40 percent off user pricing for IBM i was not a big deal. The original 311-171 announcement clearly said that the intention was to encourage customers to move from older machines, not targeted at net new. They had already announced the ability of installed user based machines to move all their users along with an IBM i license for $5,000. Solution Edition machines provide 70 percent off user pricing (as you pointed out). Remember that you can write your own apps and
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The Application RISC Machine System/500
February 27, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreLet’s have a little fun here. Those of us who have made a living in the market for AS/400 systems and their progeny on down to the current Power Systems-IBM i platforms spend a lot of time looking back at the past and pointing out all of the innovations that IBM cooked up in the System/38 and AS/400 product lines since the dawn of the commercial computing era in the midrange. We spend a lot of time talking about keeping legacies alive, but we don’t spend enough time talking about building a new machine that will be worthy of being
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Why Can’t I Access My Remote System’s AS/400 IFS?
February 22, 2012 Hey, Joe
… Read moreI’m trying to create a QFileSvr.400 link between two of my IBM i machines. I created the link on my local machine just like I’m supposed to. But when I open the link to access AS/400 Integrated File System (AS/400 IFS) objects on my remote machine, it gives me a Not Authorized To Object error. What’s going on here?
–Wil
Background on QFileSvr.400
Before I answer Wil’s question, here’s some background information on the QFileSvr.400 file system. If you’re already familiar with QFileSvr.400, skip ahead to the answers section.
The QFileSvr.400 file system is a unique IBM i machine construct.
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Prompt Control Controls Parsimonious Command Prompting
February 22, 2012 Ted Holt
… Read moreNote: The code accompanying this article is available for download here.
I like everything to be as simple as possible. Call me parsimonious, but I agree with my friend Cletus the Codeslinger, who says, “When something’s complicated, somebody’s trying to get your money.” One way to simplify CL command prompting is to show relevant parameters only. Here’s how that’s done.
By default, prompting a CL command shows all parameters, even though some of them may not be applicable to what the user is trying to accomplish. The Prompt Control Definition (PMTCTL) keyword allows you to prompt for a parameter
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bsearch: Partial Key Searches and More
February 22, 2012 Jon Paris
… Read moreNote: The code accompanying this article is available for download here.
In bsearch: A Better %LOOKUP, I mentioned that bsearch permits us to do a partial key lookup (i.e., a lookup that is based on just a portion of the search field). Since bsearch performs a binary search, it will not necessarily return the first matching element in the array. If we need to handle all matching elements then we have to be able to locate the first match in the array, and then process subsequent matching elements.
Before we jump into the mechanics of how to do
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Jack Henry Says SilverLake Banking System Still Has It
February 20, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreJack Henry & Associates is one of the largest peddlers of applications and services to small and large financial services institutions, and not only are the company’s Windows-based products doing well. So are its IBM i-based applications, known appropriately enough as the SilverLake System, after the internal IBM code-name for the AS/400 while that machine was in development.
Apropos of nothing except a little excitement perhaps, Jack Henry put out a statement saying that in the past eight months, five mid-tier banks–meaning those with assets of between $1 billion and $20 billion–have opted to use the SilverLake System to run
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Arrow And Avnet Ride System Upgrade Waves In Recent Quarter
February 20, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreDespite some issues in the European economy and stalled shipments of disk drives due to the flooding in Thailand, the two biggest master resellers of IT gear–Arrow Electronics and Avnet–turned in improving profits in their most recent quarters. But the revenues were a bit choppy.
In the quarter ended December 31, Arrow’s Enterprise Computing Solutions (ECS) had just under $2 billion in revenues in the quarter, up 5.4 percent, and operating income hit $106.4 million, up a very tidy 19.5 percent. Arrow’s electronic components distribution business only grew 3 percent, to $3.4 billion, and the operating income for