• Stacking Up IBM i On Entry Power10 Iron Against Windows Servers

  April 3, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Because of the dearth of commercial benchmarks that are run on IBM’s Power Systems machines these days, it is hard to make direct comparisons between machines based on Big Blue’s Power10 processor and the Windows Server and Linux platforms – generally an X86 system based on a processor from Intel or AMD. But it is not impossible to do.

  And it is an important exercise not because you are thinking of moving off the platform, which of course you are not contemplating, but because by doing this math you can show that it is not really much cheaper to buy …

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• Blazing The Trail For VTL In The Cloud

  March 29, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Making the decision to move IBM i applications to the cloud is a relatively easy endeavor. But covering all of the bases, particularly when it comes to disaster recovery and business continuity, takes some thought because even though the cloud is an ideal place to do HA and DR, not every cloud does it right. And doing it right often means using a mix of technologies and service providers.

  IT managers are thinking of moving their IBM i workloads to the cloud for good reasons. They do the math, they weigh the risks and rewards. They take into account all …

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• IBM Tweaks Some Power Systems Prices Down, Others Up

  March 27, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Back in September and November of last year, with inflation running a bit crazy, IBM raised prices on selected Power Systems hardware and software with the price changes taking effect on January 1 this year. We went into the details back then, of course, but we are being proactive in looking for any price hikes that might come out of Big Blue relating to its Power Systems machines, systems software, and related storage and networking. And, as it turns out, there have been some more pricing actions that you need to be aware of.

  As we have pointed out …

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• Superior Support: One Of The Reasons You Pay The Power Systems Premium

  March 27, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  When you are advocating for the Power Systems platform, and the IBM i operating system on top of it, within your organization, you need every bit of evidence you can find that demonstrates the return on investment for that premium price.

  Which is why we are pointing out an IDC MarketScape study that Big Blue just posted as a reprint on its download site covering worldwide support services for the global leaders in enterprise IT. You know, companies like IBM as well as Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco Systems, Dell Technologies, Lenovo, Pure Storage, NetApp, Hitachi Vantara, Oracle, Juniper Networks, and …

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• When You Need Us, We Are Ready To Do Grunt Work

  March 22, 2023 Andrew Johnson David Fahrenkrug

  There are two secrets to success for any cloud or any service provider. First, get the best people, ones that understand people, business, and technology. Second, automate everything that can be automated because that is the only way the business will be able to scale and not collapse under the weight of the expense of – and difficulty in – hiring the next batch of people to grow the business.

  A third thing might be hire people who can constantly automate themselves out of a job, but who also find new and valuable jobs to do.

  To be a managed …

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• You Ought To Be Committed

  March 13, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  There is a phrase that we learn as teenagers, concomitant with the kinds of peer pressure that close friends can bring to bear early in our lives to nudge us, that applies in an inverse way to a portion of the IBM i customer base, or probably more precisely, to the upper management at a portion of the company that thinks – erroneously – that getting off the IBM i platform is somehow going to magically fix their particular IT problems.

  All talk and no action.

  Don’t get us wrong. We are not trying to get people to move off …

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• The IBM i OS Base Is Older Than We Think, But Moving Ahead

  March 6, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hardware upgrades are costly in terms of money and while it is always exciting to get a new system with that “new computer smell” – and you know what we are talking about – at least IBM i operating system and systems software upgrades don’t carry such a high price – provided you are on Software Maintenance and you do proper testing on your software before you make a jump to a new release.

  The other great thing about IBM i systems software is that any given release not only runs on the current new Power Systems hardware at the …

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• The Power Systems Base Is A Little Less Rusty

  February 27, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Another three years, and another upgrade cycle that can bring about the modernizing of the Power Systems iron that supports the IBM i customer base. Or, more precisely, another four distinct upgrade cycles that customers are on as they move off legacy iron to something more current than what they have.

  What we mean by this is that some customers are stuck on older releases because they are cheapskates by necessity or they have applications that can only run on older releases like OS/400 V5R3, i5/OS 5.4, or IBM i 6.1. Others are stuck on IBM i 7.1. Or IBM …

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• A Hodge Podge Of Power Systems Stuff

  February 20, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Sometimes Valentine’s Day falls on a Tuesday and ends up being a kind of lightweight Power Systems announcement day. That happened last week as IBM’s top brass in the Power Systems division discussed the priorities for the Power Systems line in 2023, which we covered in the top story in last Wednesday’s issue, and the subscription-based pricing for IBM i on all Power9 and Power10 machines, which we covered in this week’s top story.

  There is always some other stuff that IBM does on Power Systems announcement day, and February 14, 2023, is no exception.

  Announcement letter 120-017 has …

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• IBM’s Power Systems Battle Plan To Take On 2023

  February 15, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Human beings treat every year as if they are distinct, and that means businesses have to do the same. Strategies evolve over time and deal with discontinuities like recessions, but tactics are ever-changing as companies cope with the conditions on the ground, not the view from the headquarters. And thus, the Power Systems segment within IBM’s Systems division within its Infrastructure group is no different, but this year is a bit different as the top brass in Power Systems are actually giving us some insight into the battle plan for the year.

  Ken King, general manager of the Power Systems …

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