Planet i

This one suggested by Dan Shirey.

Read the original at IBM i for everyone!.

This one is courtesy of David Gibbs.

Read the original at IBM i for everyone!.

Yesterday, someone picked up and posted a quote from something I wrote several months ago about the pending demise of the IBM i operating system for the IBM Power Systems series of machines.  Folks just don't get it.

Lets be very clear about this.  IBM i is today an operating system (one of three) that run on IBM's Power Systems line of computers.  It is no longer a machine, it is no longer a brand with its own General Manager, marketing, development, engineering, or support staff!  It is an operating system runs along side AIX and LINUX on the machines.  Note that unlike LINUX, IBM i runs only on IBM Power Systems.

RPG is a programming language that runs exclusively on IBM i on IBM Power Systems machines.  It once ran on IBM Mainframes (S370) but hasn't been supported their in over 10 years. Let us also remember what the letters R P and G mean:  "Report Program Generator".

RPG was never intended to be a language but in fact was a report generator for early IBM accounting machines then the S3, S32, S36, and S38 machines. Over the years it evolved into a respectable language, but far too late to be a significant player in the global IT Industry.

Today, RPG runs on one machine and is at best a niche language.  RPG programmers tend to be in their late 50's or 60's.  Few young people are learning the language and it will soon die of "old age and attrition". 

All of this is just background on the industry itself.  A viable IBM Power Systems machine capable of running the IBM i operating system costs about $30,000.  This makes this a very expensive machine.

There are still a number of vendors who sell software that runs on the IBM i operating system and represent core ERP type software with a heavy concentration in the Retail, Manufacturing, and Distribution industries.

All of this is just background noise that hides the real issue.  Companies using an IBM i based machine to run their business are not staying competitive and will soon be eaten alive by their competitors. 

Today the future is Cloud computing and Software as a Service.  Today the idea of owning and running your own machines at your own place of business is a dubious decision at best. There are dozens of reputable hosting companies with incredible capacity, storage, and Internet bandwidth available at prices as low as $19.95 per month.  You can buy enormous systems with full replication and redundancy along with contractually guaranteed 100% availability (something that IBM nor anyone else can do with IBM i).   NOTE: that even with very expensive high availability and replication software products it is NOT POSSIBLE to provide 24 x 7 x 365 uninterrupted operations on an IBM i based platform.

Today, it is extremely questionable if a company should have a traditional IT staff at all. It is more cost effective to outsource programming, operations, support, and facilities management.  Why hire a programmer when you can rent one (a hundred times better educated and more highly skilled than you could hire) at a fraction of the price for the length of time you need them?

Companies need to reinvent IT.  You need people who can:

• Manage vendor relationships and insure that vendors provide what you contract for. 
• Define business requirements and evaluate existing solutions ranging from open source to Software as a Service, or a need to contract out development to off-shore developers (least best option).
• People who can define and lead initiatives to integrate applications from many 3rd party vendors -- the day of a single vendor is no longer feasible or desirable.

Some people say that the IBM i can run modern software such as PHP and the LAMP stack with MYSQL and should continue to be the machine of choice.  Why?  Why would you want a web server on site as a self-hosted machine with all of the internet security problems, technically advanced support issues of a complex Internet based environment, along with high availability, etc.? 

Then add to the mix that IBM i was designed to primarily support 5250 green screen terminals and has tons of overhead embedded in the operating system to do so.  Quite frankly IBM i (OS/400) was great at running hundreds to thousands of dumb terminals, but is horribly inefficient at running modern Internet based servers and software. 

Look at IBM's own Java benchmarks.  AIX and LINUX always beat IBM i!  True they don't have all the bells and whistles, that IBM i has, but you don't need all that anymore.

Think about how absurd it is to position MySQL on top of DB2 and all of its inherent overhead.  Talk about a clunker?  The version of DB2 running on IBM i is unique and distinct from other versions sold by IBM.  You must isolate the database with no jobs running against it before you can make changes to database tables.  Try adding a field to a table!  You can't do it unless you can block all access and let DB2 have exclusive access to the database!  You can't even handle this in a multi-machine environment making the change on one machine then propagating changes to another.  IBM i assumes that everyone goes home at 5pm and that you can run batch and maintenance all night long.

Today folks there is no night!  Today most companies have operations 24 x 7!  Even incredibly small companies inter operate in an international environment and must have their systems available 24 x 7.

Sorry folks but its time for a new world.  One without expensive computers in the backroom of your building.  Or programmers in your IT department.

Read the original at Bob Cancilla on IBM i.

Usually, I try to write about education in September. I missed that point so now it’s time to make up some ground and look back at 2010 and forward to 2011…

The title of this piece is probably one of my favorite bumper stickers. I have a soft spot for people learning a new technology. I for one know it is not easy as I had to battle my own complacency and really dig in to Linux based solutions this year. I still have a way to go but gaining ground! As a young veteran in the IT industry I found it hard to prioritize and focus. there is no forgiveness in the number of distractions we must contend with today. I have the unbelievable privilege of working with some of the smartest people on the planet and their patience has been a blessing. But this experience makes me realize every day the value proposition of PHP in the IBM i space and would not trade this job for the world!

2010 was a wonderful year. I have been VERY privileged and honored to present several PHP sessions at user groups across the country and even in Europe! But I also had the chance to present a bunch of sessions at both COMMON events, too. I’m going to take a brief look at where we all went in 2010 and try to prognosticate on where 2011 is headed.

The year started off well with the beta announcement of Zend Server for IBM i followed by the GA release in April and a West coast tour of user groups including PMSA, Cascade and Power SURG. Spring gave way to the annual COMMON Meeting and Expo in Orlando, a WAM East Coast tour (after a snow delay) and the traditional trek to the WMCPA conference. With the summer trip to MITEC and Irvine for the OCEAN conference under my belt I got caught up on LPAR’s and updates as I prepared for the fall events in San Antonio for COMMON, Omni and a trip to Ireland & England. I made some wonderful new friends at the Manchester event for Penton and at IBM’s South Bank in London. The highlight of the trip, however, was meeting the UK arm of the Zend Sales team who work in an office space leased inside the Guinness Brewery. What a hoot! Last week I saw the fine folks in St. Louis and talked PHP all day with hardly anyone running out of the room!

In my spare time I have tried to keep up with my family and the most aggressive schedule imaginable. My wife is the most awesome quarterback keeping us all moving the ball forward and I would be lost without her! But also I managed to teach a couple of classes in PHP at Moraine Valley Community College and for SystemiNetwork. Two things I plan to carry forward in 2011.
But then there is 2011.

What could be in the plans for Zend? Well, we have not completely baked it yet but there are some AWESOME product announcements coming. Kent Mitchell out Director of product Management gave a preview of Zend Server 6 at ZendCon with features like application activation that turns your PHP cluster into an iTunes like environment. But clusters are not available for IBM i, you say? Well how about an alternate PHP toolkit that gives full access to the OS with 100% Open Source code? In the words of the immortal Mark Shearer, Watch this space!

Events for 2011 you can certainly bank on are COMMON in Minneapolis in the Spring and St. Petersburg in the fall. I have just been accepted for a full day pre-conference workshop on PHP for the Spring COMMON and look forward to about 5-6 sessions too. I am cutting back on sessions as we are seeing real traction from community members like Alan Seiden, Brian May and Jeff Olen. These guys are not only PHP literate; they are in the trenches doing PHP every day! I challenge everyone to get out to some event or do some offline training or even consider presenting a session at your local user group. Pick something interesting, something fun. Challenge yourself. I don’t think you will be disappointed! Watch out for other in the community to offer ways to learn PHP on IBM i. The folks at iDevCloud are on the job and rocking out some really great opportunities.

2010 saw the birth and rebirth of iManifest. Jen Halverson has done an AWESOME job of helping “herd the cats” and her passion is immeasurable. I am glad she decided to join our team and offer HUGE assistance to a very necessary agenda.

We will continue to see product announcements and fixes and updates and more. PHP is not going away and neither am I! But some of my roles in the community will change as I need to focus on other things. More on that later.

I want to offer a hearty “thank you” to all of the folks who have welcomed me to their user groups. The IBM i community is a VERY special crowd and many of you have made me feel very much at home whether I travel near or far. It truly is a privilege meeting and speaking to the folks who love the IBM i as much as I do. And I look forward to meeting even more new friends in 2011.

In the spirit of the Holiday’s, I offer you all one wish:

Peace.

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