• IBM Tweaks Power Systems Hardware Here And There

  April 26, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  First of all, our apologies for taking so long to get to the hardware roundup from the April 13 Power Systems announcements, which brought us new Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.3 and IBM i 7.4. There were a few changes to the hardware lineup as well, and let’s go through them now.

  As you can see from announcement letter 121-013, IBM has done a refresh on the 2.5-inch flash drives used in the Power9-based server line. According to Douglas Gibbs, offering manager for peripherals at the Cognitive Systems division that is responsible for the Power Systems lineup, this …

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• Sundry Power Systems Cloud Announcements

  April 26, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  April is generally a busy time for the Power Systems team, and not just for IBM i, but also for AIX and sometimes for Linux, too. In the spirit of Power Systems family unity, and in recognition of the fact that more than a few IBM i shops also have AIX and/or Linux in their shops, we wanted to tell you about some tweaks that Big Blue has made to the other platforms in the Power Systems family.

  In announcement letter 221-099, IBM is making some tweaks to the Power Systems Enterprise Cloud Edition stack of software. The components …

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• Crazy Idea Number 615: Variable Priced Power Systems Partitions

  April 5, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  When you stare down the blank page as much as I have in my career, you learn to not be afraid of that blank page. If you look at it long enough – usually for only a few minutes – ideas flip into existence like quantum particles spinning their curlicues. Most of them are silly, some are utterly useless, but eventually you get one that is worth following to see where it might go.

  So it is with an idea that popped into my head, which was a daydream about IBM creating variable priced partitions on the Power Systems machines. …

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• Skytap To Expand IBM i Cloud Offering

  March 31, 2021 Alex Woodie

  The Power Systems S922 is the go-to server for many cloud providers, including Skytap, which sells access to and manages IBM i, AIX, and Linux environments in Microsoft Azure and IBM Cloud. But as its cloud business grows, Skytap is finding that some of its customers are getting close to hitting their heads on the S922’s processing ceiling, which has precipitated a need for bigger boxes.

  Skytap is currently scoping out the available Power Systems server lineup in anticipation of rolling out a second, larger Power offering, says Skytap Vice President Dan Jones.

  “One of the key hurdles we want …

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• Some More Power Systems Stuff Swept Into The Dustbin

  March 29, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  With the Power10 machines starting to come out later this year, the Power9 machines in the field for three years or so depending on the make and model, and the Power8 machines looking long in the tooth (but still technically and economically viable), you have to expect that Big Blue will wind down the sale of more and more older features.

  In announcement letter 923-035, IBM has done just that. Nothing too big, but we think you need to be made aware of it just the same. And as you might expect, IBM also put a plug into the …

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• We Want IBM i On The Future Power E1050

  March 8, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We spend a lot of time at The Four Hundred thinking about the entry and midrange part of the Power Systems line and the many tens of thousands of customers who make use of these machines as their mission critical, back end, system of record platforms. But with the only Power10 machines coming out this year expected to be at the high end – call them the four-socket Power E1050 and the 16-socket Power E1080, if IBM iterates its currently used naming scheme – we have little choice but to start thinking of the big iron now and worry about …

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• Doing The Texas Two Step From Power9 To Power10

  March 1, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  You won’t find an official IBM customer announcement letter on this deal, but we caught wind of it back in late January and we have confirmed with Big Blue that it is indeed offering customers a two-step upgrade track from Power8 and earlier iron to Power10 iron with a middle step on a Power9 machine until the Power10 machines are available starting later this year and into early next year.

  As we reported back on February 1, IBM has indeed been working on something called the “Two-Step Upgrade Program” for customers, which had a name change shift to “IBM Power …

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• IBM i 7.1 Extended Out To 2024 And Up To The IBM Cloud

  March 1, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In case you have not figured it out, Big Blue has finally figured out that IBM i 7.1 is a wall that a lot of customers can’t get over. Which is something we have been saying for a long time. And to IBM’s credit, it is doing something about it. A bunch of things, as it turns out, and as part of the February 23 announcements last week, IBM did a few more things that will increase the long-term viability of this release.

  IBM i 7.1 went off regular support back on April 30, 2018, which was almost three years …

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• Taking The Pulse Of The Used Server And Storage Market

  February 3, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Those of us who buy certified pre-owned vehicles know a secret that some of our peers in the datacenter also know about buying certified pre-owned servers and storage: You can get a lot better bang for the buck by staying one generation behind, and not really sacrifice much in the way of performance and features.

  And in the case of IT, unlike the situations with families buying vehicles, some customers have to stay two generations or more behind because of the limitations of their application software. And so they absolutely need to stay back on vintage iron. Even then, there …

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• Sometimes Folks Only Learn The Hard Way About Keeping Software Current

  February 1, 2021 Rob McNelly

  School’s been out for me for a very long time, but I still enjoy learning. I gain a sense of satisfaction whenever I learn something new. Specific to technology, exposure to new concepts helps me understand how things work together. I cannot count the number of times where I watched over someone’s shoulder, or watched someone on a shared screen, to learn about a new tool or technique, or a different way to set up my desktop or environment.

  Watching and listening to people is my preferred way to learn, but other forms of education – reading IBM Redbooks and …

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