Timothy Prickett Morgan
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Getting Out Of The Catch-22 Of Application Transformation
August 3, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
If starting up a business is hard, maintaining that business can be even more difficult. Conditions and tastes change over time, and applications that drive the business can feel the strain.
Upper management and IT organizations might have the skills to keep business applications going and make modest changes here and there, or perhaps add a new product line or two. But they usually do not have the time or people to do anything too radical, such as modernizing and transforming those applications to work in completely new ways. This is where bringing in a product and services partner comes …
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How IBM Stacks Power Cloud Up Against AWS And Azure
August 3, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
We have our own habits when it comes to thinking about bang for the buck, and it is refreshing sometimes to just think about how other companies think about it.
As part of the July 14 announcements now almost three weeks ago, IBM not only rolled out new entry Power9 machines with higher I/O bandwidth as well as utility style pricing for on-premises gear to lower capital expenditures. IBM also did a direct comparison of the Power Systems Virtual Server running on the IBM Cloud for a memory-heavy instance and then compared that to fat memory slices running on Amazon …
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If You Can’t Get To The Tape, It Doesn’t Matter If It Is Dead Or Not
August 3, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
The coronavirus pandemic has made most IT shops seriously re-evaluate a number of the technologies they have to maintain, operate, backup, and protect their mission-critical applications and their data. And the companies that have IBM i systems as their main platforms are no more insulated from these issues than those who picked other platforms – although it is safe to say that they have very good tools to help with all of the above, and in many cases, these tools are arguably better than – or identical to – what is available for Windows Server, Linux, or other platforms.
Over …
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Power Systems Slump Is Not As Bad As It Looks
July 27, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
Even for companies selling hand sanitizer, face masks, toilet paper, and shotguns, it is still a weird time to be in business just like it is for the rest of us. The Cognitive Systems division within IBM’s Systems group – what most people still call the Power Systems division – is no different.
Big Blue is certainly facing some strong headwinds as it has to get through more than another year before the Power10 rollout begins, and the Power9 machines have really been in the field two and a half years already if you count the launch of the Power …
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Some Insight Into Utility Pricing On Entry Power Iron
July 27, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
Two weeks ago, IBM announced a revamped lineup of entry Power9 systems, including a new single-core variant of the Power S922 server aimed at IBM i shops, and last week, we compared the performance and bang for the buck of this machine to other single-core systems for IBM i applications. This week, we complete the set by talking about that flexible, utility pricing that Big Blue started offering on big Power9 back in May and that is now available on dual-socket Power9 iron. The single-socket Power S914, as far as we know, is not eligible for this type of …
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Four Things That IBM i Shops Get Wrong About HA, DR, And Data
July 22, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
It’s always a little hard to generalize, but IBM i shops tend to be conservative, thoughtful, and thorough when it comes to running IT. But no IT organization is perfect, and there are still issues when it comes to disaster recovery (DR) and high availability (HA).
We think this is more often a reflection of the situation than it is of the people running IBM i systems. And to get a sense of the HA and DR missteps that people are making, we had a chat with Lilac Schoenbeck, Vice President of go-to-market strategy in the Power Systems division at …
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The Battle Of The Single-Core IBM i Machines
July 20, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
Last week, IBM announced a revamped lineup of entry Power9 systems, including a new single-core variant of the Power S922 server aimed at IBM i shops that will replace the long-running Power S812 and the Power S914 for IBM i customers with modest compute performance and storage requirements. The announcement of the single-core Power S922 comes just as the stay of execution for the Power S812 will be running out on August 31.
In the issue last week, we told you that we didn’t have a lot of the details on the pricing of the new single-core Power …
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IBM Revamps Entry Power Servers With Expanded I/O, Utility Pricing
July 14, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
Believe it or not, but it has been two and a half years since the first Power9 server shipped and it has been more than two years since the entry Power Systems machines – that would be the Power S914, the Power S922, and the Power S924 machines, code-named “ZZ” after the country-rock-blues band from Houston – were first announced. And today, these machines are getting an I/O makeover.
And specially for IBM i shops, IBM is rolling out a single-core version of the Power S922 that will offer better bang for the buck as well as lower acquisition cost …
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Thoroughly Modern: Why You Need An IT Strategy And Roadmap
July 14, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
What makes a modernization project successful? Is it the right software and tools? Having the right people on the job? Completing the project on time and on budget? Some might argue that all of the above contribute to the overall success of these initiatives. But the experts at Fresche will tell you that building a comprehensive strategy and roadmap is the most important part. It’s the secret sauce that ensures that the project provides business value and that requirements are mapped out before you start. After all, failing to plan is planning to fail.
Businesses today are facing increasing pressure …
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The Path Truly Opens To Alternate Power CPUs, But Is It Enough?
July 14, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
If you have a few tens of millions of dollars to spare and you want to set up a foundry partnership with either Globalfoundries for 14 nanometer chip making technologies or with Samsung for 7 nanometer technologies and then create your own Power processor, things just got a little bit easier. Big Blue has open sourced one of its Power cores through the OpenPower foundation and now anybody and everybody can grab it and design a new central processing unit around that core.
Don’t get too excited, but get a little excited. Let me explain.
We still believe in the …
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