• Power Systems Software Gets Its Updates And Tweaks

  November 6, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It would not be a spring or fall IBM i Technology Refresh cycle if there were not some improvements to the auxiliary systems software that is an adjunct to the Power Systems stack. By which we mean the PowerVM server virtualization hypervisor, the PowerVC custom edition of the OpenStack cloud controller, the Hardware Management Console, the Cloud Management Console, and the system firmware for the Power iron itself.

  In announcement letter AD23-0498, you will see that all of these have been updated and you will also see how they are all intertwined with each other, cross-supporting their respective updates. …

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• Understanding The Power Of Power10

  October 25, 2023 Laurie LeBlanc

  The Power10 doesn’t disappoint when it comes to performance, reliability, availability, and security. But that’s not all it provides. With support for hybrid cloud, poised to support AI, and unmatched scalability, the Power10 will help you move into the future.

  We all know one of the best things about IBM Power running IBM i is that it is stable and reliable – so reliable that some companies keep their hardware for 10 years or more. While this could be viewed as a good thing for the business, there are many reasons to upgrade your hardware. Legacy hardware increases your risk …

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• The Plus Things Change, The Plus Things Stay The Same

  October 23, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Like nearly all of you, I have never read the autobiographical romance novels of Jean-Baptise Alphonse Karr, or read back issues of the satirical Le Figaro newspaper that were nearly two centuries old when Karr was editor of that paper, which is today aimed at the upper middle class and which is still one of the papers of record for France.

  But like nearly all of you, I am very familiar with one of the witticisms that came out of Karr’s pen: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” Which translates into American as something akin to: …

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• The Science Of Lifting And Shifting To The Cloud

  October 11, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Companies in Japan have a long and deep history with IBM computing systems, both its mainframe and its midrange platforms. And in some cases, they have moved from one to the other to maintain the IBM style of integrated systems while attaining the benefits of what many customers still consider the more integrated, less expensive, and easier to use platform that Big Blue offers: Namely, the AS/400 launched in 1988 and its progeny up through the current IBM i generation.

  Such is the case with Kosei Securities Co Ltd, which was founded way back in 1961 in Osaka, a …

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• IBM Takes PowerVM And PowerVC Upscale

  August 9, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  There is a tension between integration and generalization that Big Blue has always managed when it comes to its Power Systems and System z platforms. IBM has to support the popular open source system tools and their interfaces if it wants to keep in lockstep with the IT industry, but at the same time it has to tightly integrate that open source software with its existing stacks. Sometimes, it needs to simplify the offerings it has created itself just to make it easier on its sales force and its customers, who do not want to have to keep track of …

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• SAP Raises Costs, Slashes Innovation for On-Prem Software

  August 9, 2023 Alex Woodie

  Companies that run SAP on-prem, including all of its IBM i customers, will be left out in the cold following the German ERP giant’s latest moves, which includes a 5 percent increase in annual on-prem support costs and a pledge from the CEO that all new “innovation” only will be delivered in the cloud.

  SAP, like most enterprise software vendors, has been trying to get its customers to move to cloud versions of its ERP software for some time. Moving customers to cloud subscriptions not only smooths out the revenue stream for companies like SAP compared to the sporadic …

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• Jack Henry Reiterates IBM i Support “For The Foreseeable Future”

  July 31, 2023 Alex Woodie

  Jack Henry & Associates has been tied to the IBM i and its predecessor platforms for its entire life. The company’s flagship RPG-based product for community banks, Silverlake, is the same name IBM used for its AS/400 development project. And while Jack Henry is developing applications in other technologies and other platforms, the IBM i will be supported for the foreseeable future, the company says.

  Like many companies in the IBM i ecosystem today, Jack Henry has a modernization strategy, and that modernization strategy involves several, interrelated components.

  For starters, the company wants to move away from the old style …

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• Power Expert Care Tweaked With Add-On, Fixed Price Services

  July 26, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In the wake of the Kyndryl spinout last year, Big Blue has been tweaking and repackaging the services it offers through what used to be called Lab Services and what is now known as Technology Expert Labs, offered through its Technology Services division.

  The Power Expert Care services, which are designed to offer supplemental support for customers using IBM i, AIX, or Linux on Power Systems, there are two tiers, Advanced and Premium. (You would think there would be a Standard or Basic tier, but there isn’t. Maybe there will be some day. . . . ) This week, IBM …

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• Thoroughly Modern: Remote Managed Services Fill In For Retiring And Overburdened IT Staff

  July 10, 2023 Raymond Hammell

  If you manage an IT department, you’ve likely received that dreaded 2am phone call, or you’ve had to hire someone to replace a retiring IBM i systems administrator. And, if you’re like most IBM i professionals, you probably wish you had more time to focus on strategic activities (or take a vacation!) instead of worrying about day-to-day systems maintenance.

  Managing IBM i environments requires a specific set of skills that can be hard to come by, leaving IT departments struggling to keep up with growing infrastructure, data volumes and business demands. Tedious maintenance and repetitive tasks add to the burden …

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• Power10 Boosts NVM-Express Flash Performance

  June 5, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We are always on the lookout for any performance tests that show the benefits of adding flash storage to Power Systems iron, and we found some recently in an NVM-Express flash drive deep drive given by Douglas Gibb’s the I/O product manager for the Power Systems line at IBM during the POWERUp 2023 conference in Denver.

  The presentation that Gibbs gave went through all of the ins and outs of flash storage on Power Systems, including those that use the NVM-Express protocol over the PCI-Express peripheral bus, which offers a direct link between the operating system and the flash storage …

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