Planet i

If what I have been telling you doesn't resonate regarding the decline and fall of IBM's IBM i based Power Systems, the entire Power Systems market is in dire trouble.  IBM just announced its 3rd Quarter Earnings and reported "Revenues from Power Systems decreased 13 percent compared with the 2009 period." While all other business segments reported increases in revenue. 

IT Jungle is reporting that Microsoft is making huge strides into the IBM Midrange Market.  My favorite was a study conducted by IT Jungle using Google Trends to measure the number of times that terminology has been mentioned on the Internet.  If you have any doubt in the decline of IBM's mid-market presence read this article: "IBM i Traffic Piddling Compared to iSeries".  If you don't do anything look at the graph at Google Trends (click here) 


Also look in the decline of WebSphere and SOA.

The bottom line is IBM's technology focus is driving it out of the midrange market.  IBM is losing ground to Oracle with its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, HP, and most of all to Microsoft who now have extremely viable low cost offerings for companies in search of mid-range systems.  


Microsoft is no longer the unreliable system of the 1980's.  It is a robust stable environment that can provide companies with viable systems beginning at prices as low as $2000 and growing to meet needs.  It is also ideal for geographically distributed systems and can provide 24 x 7 uninterrupted high availability.  

Good buy old iSeries, System i, AS/400, IBM i or whatever you are called, rest in peace.

Read the original at Bob Cancilla on IBM i.

Last week was a long one but exciting! First, flying out to San Antonio for the first annual COMMON fall conference and expo and then to the LUG in Rochester, MN.

COMMON was a very nice event where many new and veteran speakers joined together to welcome over 250 people to the Crowne Plaza hotel in San Antonio, TX. The facilities, expo and content seemed to fit just right.

The Zend booth saw a lot of traffic from current and future customers. Many people looking for alternatives to the current cadre of productivity tools and web solutions. PHP sessions were well attended, too. COMMON welcomed a new PHP speaker in Alan Seiden to share his perspective and he was well received. I hope to see Alan on stage at the Spring event for a “Best New Speaker” award. I have also heard that Alan had a good time himself! I think we’ll be seeing more of Alan! Looks like Alan made a new friend, too!



The location was a winner as many people found the time to run out to the Alamo and the Riverwalk to see some of the local culture and shopping. I decided to hide in my room and catch up on email but still managed to have a beer with an old friend who was kind enough to pick me up at the airport. (Thanks Paul!) There seemed to be a shortage of Shiner Bock in the bar, but each morning a new case or three was carried in. The hotel staff was great in assisting any last minute request.

Thanks to some fancy footwork by the folks behind the scenes at COMMON (thanks Ian!) I was able to squeeze all of my sessions into the first day and a half so I could join my CEO, Andi Gutmans at the LUG. For those who may not be aware, LUG stands for the Large User Group. This is an independent entity made up of organizations that represent some of IBM i’s largest installations. Usually only IBM speakers are welcome and they can be a very honest bunch. It is very rare that the LUG would welcome a vendor like Zend, let alone a lowly solutions consultant like me. But they must have liked what I had to say because they invited me back a couple of hours later for a demo of an install of Zend Server on IBM i. On top of a couple of great sessions I was asked to attend the LUG HUG which is an evening event where the LUG members get together for pizza and gather around tables like a Birds-of-a-Feather session. Met some more great people and had a great time.

I truly feel blessed to be able to speak to groups like these in my travels. Seeing the IBM i faithful exploring new options on our beloved platform is the best tonic for an aging soul. Working with customers who decide to stay on the platform or consolidate workload back on the platform is huge. But don’t tell my boss how much I like these events, he still thinks its work!

Read the original at Mike's IBM i PHP blog and more....

I keep seeing articles touting high availability and the IBM i OS!  Lets get something straight here.  An IBM i cannot run 24 x 7, nor does it have the ability to participate in a cloud like environment and have a second machine assume its workload if it goes off-line. 

LakeView, Vision, and other high availability vendors can replicate data to a remote machine, but failover to the remote machine with synchronization has a best case of 45 MINUTES.  This is an eternity in today's world.  It is not possible today and never has been possible to keep two or more IBM i based machines in synch.

You must take you IBM i based machine off-line to apply many APAR's or PTF's and many require that you IPL the machine.

You cannot use SQL's ALTER TABLE command to change a database table unless SQL has exclusive access to the database.  This means you must shut down you interactive and any other systems (like web or web service based access) before making a change to a database.

Most companies must shut down their web applications, interactive applications when running nightly batch update programs.  This is not a machine issue but bad programming by most AS/400, iSeries, and IBM i vendors and in-house programmers.

Bottom line is that it is simply not possible for an IBM Power System running IBM i to provide the high availability demanded by today's business applications.  In a global universe when can you take your machines off-line? 

Read the original at Bob Cancilla on IBM i.