• New Option for 24/7 IBM i Monitoring

  September 19, 2018 Alex Woodie

  It’s important to keep one’s eyes on IBM i server metrics in order to nip problems in the bud. But hiring a night-shift operator can be expensive, and moving your applications to a private cloud might not be feasible. A third option was presented last week by Data Storage Corporation in the form of IBM Power Monitor 24, a new service that promises to provide continuous 24/7 monitoring of client’s IBM i servers.

  Like all cloud service providers, Data Storage Corporation invests in systems monitoring and management. After all, if you’re running critical IBM i servers on behalf of clients, …

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• IBM Tweaks Power Iron, Pulls Software, Adds Proactive Support

  September 17, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Big Blue announced the “ZZ“ Power9 entry systems back in February, the “Boston” entry machines in May, and the midrange “Zeppelin” and high-end “Fleetwood” machines in August, which is the full product line. But IBM is still nipping and tucking the product line as customers react to it and want slightly different things than what initially came out with the systems.

  In announcement letter 118-079, IBM made a few tweaks that will be interesting to IBM i shops. First of all, the mainstream Power S924 system, a 4U rack or tower system with two Power9 processors, …

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• Weak Internal Security Causes Weak External Security

  September 10, 2018 Dan Burger

  Editor’s Note: Our dear friend and colleague, Dan Burger, passed away in August. We grieve. The last story that Dan worked on was about long-time security expert, Pat Botz, joining HelpSystems, the conglomerate that focuses on systems management, monitoring, security, high availability clustering, and performance management for the IBM i platform, along with a bunch of tools for complementary AIX and Linux platforms.

  Botz goes way back in the computer industry. He wrote the Basic compiler and CAD tools for Control Data supercomputers and then lead the development of CAD tools for its AIX workstation line three decades ago. He …

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• IBM Showcases New Crop of ‘Fresh Faces’

  September 10, 2018 Alex Woodie

  For a computer platform to remain vital, it must have a constant stream of new arrivals. This is just as true for IBM i, which has struggled to retain relevance in an increasingly homogeneous IT world, as it is for every other platform. But give kudos to IBM and its latest batch of “fresh faces” that highlight the fact that millennials are finding their way to IBM i and Power.

  While nobody is claiming that younger folks are knocking down the door to get onto IBM i, there nevertheless appears to be a solid group of individuals from the less-than-40 …

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• HelpSystems Nabs MPG for Performance Management

  August 27, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Midrange Performance Group, the Boulder, Colorado-based provider of capacity and performance management software for IBM i, is the latest software vendor to call it quits and join up with HelpSystems. It was HelpSystems first acquisition of the year and 20th since 2006.

  For decades, Midrange Performance Group, (MPG) has been one of the most trusted names when it comes to capacity planning and performance management for IBM i and the midrange servers that preceded it. If you want to know how your workload would run on a new Power Systems server from IBM, then you could find out using …

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• IBM Adds Mainstream Flash Drives To Power Systems

  August 22, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We tend to be focused on compute in the IT industry, and the CPUs get a lot of the glory. But the fastest CPU in the world doesn’t amount to anything without peripherals to keep it fed. That is why, of course, that the main frame was called that, after all. There were plenty of other frames surrounding it, making it into a system.

  This holds as true for the Power Systems machines as much as any other machine, and whether or not they are running IBM i, too. The good news is that IBM does a fairly good …

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• IBM Readies Big Iron With “Cumulus” Power9 Chips

  July 30, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The Power Systems lineup has been updated top to bottom on single-socket and dual-socket machinery based on the “Nimbus” variants of the Power9 chip, which sport up to 24 cores per die and have up to four threads per core. These Nimbus chips are used in all kinds of machines, including those that can run IBM i, either alongside AIX or Linux using the PowerVM hypervisor or in what is made to look like a bare metal IBM i setup but which is really a PowerVM machine with one partition. (Shhhhh.) The Nimbus processors are also deployed in …

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• IBM Tweaks Memory And I/O For Entry Power9 Iron

  July 16, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The summer is usually pretty quiet in IBM i Land, and this one is no exception. But things do still happen, and it is our job – and we like our job – to keep you informed of things when they do.

  On July 10, while IT Jungle was away on summer break, Big Blue did some tweaks and changes for various elements of the entry Power9 machines that started rolling out this year. These are all little things, but as usual, the little things can add up.

  In announcement letter 118-058, IBM has interestingly announced a new 8 …

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• A Platform Of A Certain Age And Respectability

  June 20, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Outliving your enemies is one of the best kinds of revenge, if you happen to have any enemies. But the people of Rochester, Minnesota, did not really have many enemies, although they did build a system that has outlived its many rivals and that continues to co-exist alongside newer platforms that are, quite frankly, still difficult and expensive to use.

  That the AS/400 is celebrating its 30th birthday this week, and the IBM i platform running on Power Systems is still around and still a viable business, is nothing short of remarkable. We know this because we just remarked upon …

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• As Systems And Storage Go Virtual, Networks Must Follow

  June 18, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We spend a lot of time getting down in to the nitty gritty of the Power Systems iron and its IBM i platform, with occasional forays into AIX or Linux where it is important. But sometimes, we take a high-level view of a phenomenon going on in the IT sector or in business in general and we give you some thoughts about how something might affect the IBM i ecosystem.

  This is one of those essays, and we think there is something important going on, and quite frankly, we are not sure how it will affect IBM i. And that …

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