As part of the rollout of slightly faster processors for the entry Power8 processors and the fleshing out of the high-end of the Power Systems line a month ago, IBM rolled out a bunch of new peripheral features and a new set of peripheral expansion units that will allow for Power8 shops both high and low to expand the amount of PCI-Express 3.0 peripherals that companies can attach to their systems than is currently possible on these machines.

Such I/O and storage expansion is important, given the ever-increasing amount of compute and memory that is being put into ever-smaller system

Sorry to be so late making my comment about your very good article concerning the Power E850 and IBM i. I agree with most of what you said in the article. I have had a couple of exciting conversations about the Power E850 with Mark Olson, who is an old friend from my Rochester days. The E850 brings back memories of when I worked for Rochester as the interface with Software Group and we were always two years behind on support for all the WebSphere products. It was all about the optics of being behind, not about the immediate need

Modernization means different things to different people. For some in the IBM i space, being modern means adopting a model-view-controller architecture or having a Web user interface, while for others it may mean having a “mobile first” development strategy or using SQL in the database. For the folks at OpenLegacy, modernization means exposing existing business processes using the emerging lingua franca of network-powered computing: The API.

While OpenLegacy is, ostensibly, a provider of open source legacy modernization tools for IBM i and z/OS shops (it’s right there in the name), the path to modernization that it prescribes is by

Corporate citizenship benefits the community. It helps create and maintain a healthy ecosystem for companies that are invested in the IBM i platform and the dedicated, career-oriented people with jobs that are tied to the system. Not everyone has to contribute to the community, but those that do improve the environment for everyone. Maxava, the New Zealand high availability and disaster recovery software vendor, is a shining example of a company actively supporting IBM i sustainability.

This will be the fifth consecutive year Maxava has supported the IBM midrange community by offering grants to help fund user group activities

SQL/Pro 5.0 is the latest in a long line of hard-working IBM midrange computing utilities produced and perfected by ProData Computer Services. Data access, data integration, and the DB2 relational database are ProData’s specialty. The key to the IBM i platform is its database and how developers create applications that ride on top of it. And when it comes to programmer productivity, the Omaha-based tech company gets it. Any database-related development work is going to involve SQL.

Years ago, when IBM i was known as OS/400, SQL was an unwelcomed stranger. It’s funny how things have changed for those