System i - Tip of the Week

It’s not so much a tip as it is a little insight that might over time be a tip.

The System i world is being change and right before your eyes. Without any of you out there knowing it. The System i and the System p are getting closer and closer to each other, the lines are blurring and while you were sleeping IBM let Sun in the door and now is thinking about pushing the Solaris OS out on Intel blades and such, the same blade systems we all want for out Power6 CPUs and our i5/OS. What is a decent System i guy to do?

I think the writing on the wall is very clear and I have been a big subscriber to this practice for a long time, if you have made your life’s work the System i as an Admin then you have done yourself a huge disservice. While I will agree any day that the System i is by far the superior platform for most large workloads, it would behoove you to learn a little UNIX, nay a good bit of UNIX or Linux. It’s one way to survive and not seem like your stuck just running the System i.

Back in 2001,2002, & 2003 I jumped into Linux & UNIX with both feet. I was living in Atlanta and started attending after hours classes at Kennesaw State University to get a UNIX/Linux Administrator Certification from KSU. It was a good bit of hard work but in the end I had a very good understanding of UNIX and was able to administer a UNIX server much like a System i. I know had a firm knowledge of dozens of platforms all using the same central theme, UNIX.

This bit of knowledge has made me a better Admin over the years and propelled my career a bit, well I should say a lot. Companies don’t look at me as a one trick pony like some System i Admins. Not that being a really great System i Admin is a negative, but just think what you can do with a little bit of very detailed Windows knowledge and a firm grasp of UNIX. You can in fact work pretty much anywhere and contribute to most any project in any company.

OJT is also a very important part of the equation. While getting the certificate was one thing, putting it all to good use is a whole new blog post. So find a new direction, and new OS and spend a little time getting to know UNIX or Linux. Solaris is now free for the taking along with FreeBSD, any Linux and many other enterprise classed OSes. Might I recommend a little Ubuntu.

Laern a little UNIX and come to COMMON where I will be preseting Linux on System i tracked classes. I look forward to see you all there and will keep posting more about the System i and Linux over the next few months leading up to COMMON.