• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 22, Number 39

  September 30, 2020 Doug Bidwell

  This week, right off the bat, there are a few things you need to be aware of. First of all, there are microcode patches for a bunch of systems.

  Specifically, they are for MTMs – that is short for machine type/model in the business partner lingo – 9008-22L, 9009-22A, 9009-41A, 9009-42A, and 9223-22H. To save you from having to run around the Internet to figure out what machines they are, that is the Power L922 (a Linux-only machine), the Power S922, the Power S914, the Power S924, and the Power H922 for SAP HANA. You can find out more at …

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• Driving System TCO With IBM Global Asset Recovery Services

  September 9, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  When economic times are uncertain, that means by necessity that IT budgets are also uncertain, and saying that IT is the core of the business and that software is eating the world does nothing to change these hard, cold, capital facts. And that is why in these times people often turn to used, refurbished, certified pre-owned, or even remanufactured IT equipment instead of trying to get the acquisition of a PC, laptop, a smartphone, a switch, a storage array, or a server by the bean counters in the accounting department.

  This is no different than what many of us experience …

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• Power S812 Gets Another Reprieve, And Other Power Systems Stuff

  December 2, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  For whatever reason, Big Blue did not create a cut-down version of the Power9 entry server aimed at the smallest of the small businesses that run themselves on the IBM i platform. Meaning there was no Power S912 or Power S912 Mini replacement for the Power S812 and its specially priced Power S812 Mini. (The former is based on the Power9 chip, while the latter is based on the older Power8 chip, which has a lot less oomph per core.)

  Back in March, IBM extended the life of the Power S812 and its Mini variant until November 29 of this …

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• IBM i Marketing: Not A Thankless Job

  November 25, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  For over one decade of the three that I called New York City my home, I was the president of the board of directors in the co-operative apartment building in which I lived. For many years, I ran a half rack of servers and storage in the kitchenette in our apartment to support IT Jungle’s website and subscription database, and I ran T1 lines up the outside of the building and in through the window. It was unconventional running a business that way, but there was no cloud computing as we know it, and certainly not at the prices you …

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• Server Buying Cools, But It’s Cool – Don’t Panic

  June 10, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  When a market is comprised of hundreds of thousands of customers, things tend to level out and are a lot more predictable than when there are relatively few customers. Before the public clouds took off a decade ago and before the hyperscalers created such large infrastructures to support billions of users running their applications, server buying was a lot smaller and it was also more predictable. Things tended to grow slowly, methodically and they also took time to slow down because not everyone felt an economic decline or a transition to a new system architecture at the same time.

  That …

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• Some Insight Into The IBM i On Power Systems Base

  December 3, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM is pretty secretive about its systems business, but is really no worse than its peers in this regard. Big Blue wants to get enough information out there to keep customers comfortable about the future, keep Wall Street happy about its revenues and prospects for the immediate future (meaning one to three quarters out), and keep its competitors from getting too much insight into how it is doing in the systems racket.

  Every now and then, we get some insight into how the Power Systems business is doing, and as part of a discussion we had recently about upgrade and …

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• IBM’s Systems Group On The Financial Rebound

  January 22, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We like to start with the good news here in 2018, and the good news is that IBM had a very good quarter in its systems business, so we can all start breathing a little easier and Hitachi can put that checkbook away because Big Blue ain’t going to be selling off its System z and Power Systems business any time soon.

  (We are joking there. We think. . . . and hope.)

  In the final quarter of 2017 ended in December, the mainframe saw sales shoot up 71 percent thanks to the System z14 refresh that started in …

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