TFH Volume: 30 Issue: 28 Archives

Having Second Thoughts About New Power Systems Iron?

May 4, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Back in the day, when midrange computers cost somewhat more than they do today (without adjusting for inflation, mind you) and the amount of processing, memory, storage, and networking capacity of the boxes was absolutely miniscule compared to what we can buy today (but sufficient to the task), customers looking to add more AS/400 or iSeries capacity to their datacenter didn’t have to shop around a current N generation or N-1 generation machine, but they could also look into the secondhand market for used N-1, N-2, and even N-3 generation machines and try to buy capacity on the …
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Sharing Tape Libraries Across Partitions Without VIOS

May 4, 2020 Alex Woodie

IBM i shops have a love-hate relationship when it comes to the Virtual I/O Server, or VIOS. With the latest IBM i Technology Refresh, IBM is giving the anti-VIOS group a feature they have been requesting: the capability to easily share a tape library among multiple logical partitions, or LPARs without involving VIOS, SANs, or multiple adapters.

IBM is calling the new feature “IBM i Virtualization for Tape Libraries,” and it’s based on RFE (request for enhancement) number 127631. While the words “tape libraries” and “virtualization” are in there, this is not a virtual tape library (VTL) solution. That already …
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Big Blue Makes Moves To Mainstream Db2 Mirror

May 4, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

When IBM brought out its active-active Db2 for i database clustering extensions, called Db2 Mirror appropriately enough, almost exactly a year ago to improve the resiliency of databases and therefore the applications that run atop them on the IBM i platform, we had a few asks. As part of the April Technology Refresh announcements for IBM i 7.3 and 7.4, some of those asks are answered and it looks like another one might be in the works.

The two most important things that we asked for are related, and it is all about making Db2 Mirror available and affordable for …
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As I See It: When The Second Shoe Dropped

May 4, 2020 Victor Rozek

I got tested today. Four ordinary words infused with extraordinary dread. They’ve now become part of a new language of fear, along with “cough,” “fever,” and “difficulty breathing.” A persistent sore throat and a slight fever that flared briefly a few days later, was enough to concern my doctor. She told me to come in the same day I called to complain about my throat and did a drive-by swabbing. When I arrived, she was waiting by the curb, helmeted, gloved, and gowned, like something out of Andromeda Strain. Another masked doctor stood behind her at a safe distance counting …
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Sundry Systems Software And CoD Power Systems Announcements

May 4, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

There is a steady drumbeat of new stuff that always comes out of IBM for the Power Systems hardware platform, and sometimes it is Big Blue banging on the big kettle drum and sometimes it is using the brushes on the little snare drum.

Now that IBM owns Red Hat, we can expect for IBM to be making a certain amount of noise every time a piece of Red Hat technology becomes available on Power and demonstrates that both Red Hat and IBM – which have two distinct cultures as well as announcement streams – are committed to the idea …
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Having Second Thoughts About New Power Systems Iron?

Sharing Tape Libraries Across Partitions Without VIOS

Big Blue Makes Moves To Mainstream Db2 Mirror

As I See It: When The Second Shoe Dropped

Sundry Systems Software And CoD Power Systems Announcements

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