Blogroll

I-nsider blog defunct, but Cancilla. Is. Alive.

It seemed like Bob Cancilla had disappeared.

If you remember, Cancilla was a former IBM Rational executive who, in addition to moving to an application modernization consulting company in Reno called Oxford International, also started a blog on the System i called I-nsider. He said some very blunt things in the blog, including opining that IBM will drop the System i platform in the next five to seven years.

That blog is now defunct, as is Cancilla’s Twitter account associated with it. But Bob isn’t gone. He has resurfaced. No longer working with Oxford, Cancilla is now working as an independent consultant, and is now writing on two different blogs. The first, called Computer Systems Today, will be strictly on application modernization. The second, called Cancilla on i, is pretty much the same as the old I-nsider blog. It’s not entirely clear why Cancilla moved his opinion on System i to another blog, but on the previous one it did mention that Cancilla was an employee of Oxford, which he no longer is. Maybe it was a condition of his leaving that he take that one down.

Here’s some of what Cancilla had to say on the Midrange listserv:

Please note my business today is pure consulting not constrained by any products. My goal is to provide the best path for my clients that I believe to be correct. Some of you may disagree with my opinions on the future of iSeries. I caution you to look very carefully at what is going on within IBM along with the goals and objectives of the IBM’rs who tell you that the future of IBM i is rosy. I will not quote numbers as that would be totally inappropriate, but be assured that the numbers seem to be rapidly decreasing.

Some of you quoted some major companies that are using iSeries. Many of those are leaving the platform under mandate from their corporate IT organizations. Again I will not name names as I got that information while at IBM so that would be inappropriate, but some of the largest and best known iSeries shops are leaving the platform.

The System i roundup for 2008

The iDevelop blog, part of the IBM Systems Magazine, has a good 2008 roundup of the System i platform. A lot happened with System i — er, IBM i — this year, and not all of it was related to the merger of i and p, although of course that was the biggest news.

The blog starts with its hat tips to those who have left us, including Al Barsa, Tom Jarosh, and Dick Bains, and then tips its hat to the father (grandfather?) of System i, Frank Soltis, who left us in a different way.

It then goes on to explain the merger of System i and p, the inevitable name change that came with it (and the hand wringing around it),  reworked IBM software tools and the rise of PHP on System i.

Amazon: Those that work with System i have dementia

Thanks to the automatic recommendation program at Amazon, those who buy the “Starter Kit for the IBM iSeries and AS/400″ are offered the chance to buy another recommended (and presumably related) tome: “Reducing Stress-related Behaviours In Persons With Dementia.” See here:

Paul Lamere, a Sun Microsystems engineer, pointed out this iSeries-dementia connection first on his blog, so a hat tip goes to him.

At first it might seem strange that Amazon would do this. But if you look closely, you’ll notice that the name of one of the authors of the iSeries book is the same as the illustrator of the dementia book. Sorry, but Amazon is not saying System i folks have dementia. But it’s still funny anyway.

Ross Mauri tackles System i questions in chat

Ross Mauri, the general manager of IBM Power Systems, held forth at a fireside chat at iSociety earlier this week. The full transcript of the chat is worth reading. Hat tip to David Vasta for the heads-up.

Here are a few excerpts of the transcript. On early feedback of System i blades:

so far we have a small number of customers using i blades, but we are getting good feedback from key early users, both in Bladecenter S and H chassis. For example BC-H … Websphere on i on multiple blades appears to be a popular choice, for BC-S … we see customers are mixing i blades and x86 blades to build a combined infrastructure. We just completed our first round of worldwide education on blades with business partners. We expect that to pay off in 2009. We are also investing in additional blade support virtual tape and new disk options … so we will hit some key customer requirements for blades in the first half of 2009

On virtual System i partitions:

feedback from customers says that the virtual i partitions support is one of the most exciting new capabilities. Virtual partitions enables you to run multiple images of IBM i without dedicated hardware, so it’s great for people who are testing apps

And finally, the potential role of the IBM i operating system in cloud computing:

we already have many partners offering IBM i based applications as a service - those partners are everything from small ISVs .. to the largest … ie Oracle, JDE. the large ISVS especially like this because it allows them to reach down into small and medium businesses for the future as we move to cloud computing … IBM i will be participant

Under the radar: Audax buys Bytware

Last week the private equity group Audax purchased antivirus specialist Bytware, Inc. The Audax Group owns Help/Systems and also recently purchased PowerTech.

Chris Maxcer shares his opinion on the consolidation of i vendors, and the private equity ownership model in his recent blog post.

If you believe that competition brings innovation, then the Bytware, PowerTech, Help/Systems trifecta means you’ve got “competing” security solutions all owned by the same company, which means there isn’t any real competition between those three companies. You can’t fake competition.

However, Maxcer doesn’t touch on the possibilities of open source solutions adding to the competitive marketplace of the i market. As the YiPs recently shared, interest in open source options for i is growing.

Nicolaas Vlok, CEO of Vision Solutions shared his opinion about the acquisition of PowerTech by Help/Systems in a recent interview:

“I think it’s a pretty good business decision,” shared Vlok. “I still believe from a software perspective that it’s a market worth investing in and expanding with specifically infrastructure-related software. In the i marketplace, most people looking in the 3-5 years can see an expanded opportunity with i and p.”

Maxcer pointed out that Vision is also a private-equity-owned company, but posits that this hasn’t necessarily negatively affected the innovation in the Power and i world.

Private equity company Thoma Cressey Bravo owns Vision and brokered the deals that led to the acquisition of iTera and Lakeview Technology. Is the System i industry any worse off with a consolidated power player–Vision–instead of three solution providers trading punches and customer contracts? In fact, a larger, more stable company may be better for customers than when one of three might bite the dust entirely.

What do you think? Is open source the answer for innovation woes? What are your concerns?

New System i blog: Young i Perspectives

Young i Perspectives is a new blog from Young i Professionals (YiPs), a group of younger System i programmers. I expect a lot of good posts from them, especially on using open source on the i platform.

The whole website is hosted on System i, so that’s a start. The blog and site are currently in their infancy, as the posters have just made their introductions. Brian May, Adam Shirley, Justin Porter and Aaron Bartell look like they’ll be the main posters. The YiPs group is fairly new itself, having only been started earlier this year at the Nashville Common show.

As a point of information, the site is being redone and the new version will go up some time tonight, according to May.

IT Jungle paring down its newsletters

I wouldn’t normally write about other IT publications, but IT Jungle is such a huge player in the world of news for IBM i, System i, iSeries, AS/400, and so on, that this bears mentioning. Timothy Prickett Morgan, who runs the site, wrote recently that IT Jungle would no longer publish its Linux, Windows and Unix newsletters, and the mainframe newsletter is on hold.

The good news is that IT Jungle will continue to publish its System i-focused newsletters, which includes “The Four Hundred,” “Four Hundred Stuff,” “Four Hundred Guru,” and “Four Hundred Monitor.” In addition, Morgan has taken another job as systems editor for The Register, another IT news publication. We wish him the best in all his endeavors.

Only 23% moving to new System i hardware? Not quite.

Mark Hall, a columnist over at Computerworld, had a recent column about the System i, or the IBM i, or whatever you want to call it. It was called “Bye bye i.” As Hall puts it, “(n)ow the company offers you a single, pathetic vowel, the i. The IBM i. “

In the column, Hall pointed to a recent Common user group story to make his point:

Even supporters are hesitant to stay with i. A survey last month of Common members, the largest user group for i technology, showed a mere 23% planned to move to the latest i hardware.

Too bad Hall didn’t read that survey he linked to closely enough. Here’s an excerpt from the press release from Common highlighting the survey results:

The survey included reactions to the recent IBM Power Systems announcements. Forty-three percent of customers said they plan to upgrade to IBM i 6.1 in 2008, with 23% of respondents planning to upgrade to new POWER6 processor-based systems and 6% planning to implement with IBM BladeCenter.

First of all, the “latest i hardware” also now includes BladeCenter, so the hardware figure should be 29%. Secondly, actually 43% plan to upgrade to the newest version of IBM i, the operating system. And finally, these numbers are referring to 2008, not the indefinite future. What about those System i shops that just bought new hardware a year ago (or six years ago) who don’t feel the need to upgrade their System i hardware because, well, their System i hardware is performing just fine right now, thank you very much.

That percentage also doesn’t take into account those survey responders who have already upgraded to new Power6-based systems. Remember, they came out earlier this year, and before Common released its survey results. Though Common should have made more clear whether any respondents already upgraded, it didn’t.

So no, the 23% figure shouldn’t be held up as proof that IBM i is dying, despite Hall’s claims.

System i links for 7-10-08

• Context is Key: This nugget from midrange.com (it’s been a while, David!) talks about always remembering the “why.” If a program needs to be fixed, take a step back and ask why, and what it will accomplish.
• Monitoring message queues for Save While Active checkpoints: A systems management tip from the Vision Solutions blog.
• Why /Copy prototypes?: Jon Paris and Susan Gantner at the online IBM Systems Magazine make their case for the importance of /Copy.
• Mid-Deranged.com down?: I recently wrote of a new site, mid-deranged.com, that took a satirical look at everything in tech world, with an emphasis on the System i. Now a visit to the website brings the following message: “Sorry, but this website is no longer active.” Oh no. And it was actually enjoyable to read. Whoever was running the site, please pay your hosting bill.
• The Power Systems 550 M50 Versus Its Predecessors: TPM’s take on the 550. Always thorough (aka long), always opinionated, and always well worth the read.
  

A testimonial on installing a System i blade

Lukas Beeler has a thorough post about his experience with installing System i onto an IBM JS12 blade.

As he stresses, this is not an instruction manual. It is rather Beeler’s personal journey in doing the installation. The bottom line?

The whole setup took me roughly 24 hours (i started a day ago at 16:00). Of course, the system wasn’t always busy because i didn’t give him any work, but it’s worth to note that setting up a JS12 blade takes considerably longer than setting up a model 515 or M15.

The JS12 blade is one of two blades that IBM is currently offering the System i on — the other is the JS22. The JS12 is a single-socket server with one dual-core Power processor, up to 64 GB of RAM, and support for AIX, Linux or IBM i (version 6.1 and up).

One of the most time-consuming processes, Beeler wrote, was initialization of a single 147GB hard drive that took almost five hours. Aside from just leaving a bad taste in his mouth from waiting around so long, he said it could have ramifications for disaster recovery down the road. Initialization of three other disks essentially took overnight because the process got stuck at 99% and Beeler needed to get some sleep.

Beeler comes upon a revelation near the end, realizing that running the System i OS on the blade isn’t going to be like the good ol’ days:

While the installation happened, i used an additional session to explore the system. The disks where shown to the system as virtual disks, similar to SAN attached disks. But one of the more interesting parts was looking at the Hardware Service Manager in SST/DST - it was completely empty, and didn’t contain any hardware. For me, this was a moment that was quite indicative of the whole experience - i on Blade is not “AS/400 in Blade Form”. It’s a completely new environment that you’ll need to learn to deal with. You got another layer of indirection (VIOS) with it’s own platform (AIX), plus you have the blade management in itself.

Beeler is next going to install an ERP app to see how the blade handles it.