In a new IT Jungle article, Timothy Prickett Morgan discusses IBM’s Q4 sales strategy for System i. He offers some compelling arguments and analysis of IBM’s moves during 2007 as well as what the company’s short-term roadmap might mean for System i users. Here are some of the highlights I found interesting:

• “IBM is expected to roll out the Power6 processor across the System i and System p lines in 2008, with the System i perhaps getting a revamp with a 615, 625, and 655 box in the late January to late February timeframe.”
• “IBM is going to stop selling OS/400 V5R3 on January 4, 2008. No matter what, customers with AS/400 and iSeries 270s and 7XX machinery have to at the very least buy V5R3 before then because V5R3 is the final release to be supported on these machines.”
• “Upgrades from iSeries Model 810 and 825 servers to user-priced System i 515 and 525 servers or a 550 Enterprise Edition are being withdrawn on December 1.”
• “Upgrades to System i 5XX machines from iSeries 870 and 890 servers are still going to be available until April 8, 2008, and that is presumably because customers with these classes of machines need more planning time to figure out their upgrade path into the 9406-MMA 570 server that is a natural upgrade path for them.”

David Vasta at the System i Addict blog states his disdain for both Microsoft, which he says is “like the Titanic,” and Vision Solutions, which he says has a “horrible reputation for treating employees of newly acquire(d) companies like ‘poop,’” so you can imagine what he thinks of a former Microsoft executive joining Vision’s board of directors, which we reported yesterday:

I don’t know what he can do to improve the over all tarnished standing of a company they gobbles up other small competition just because they can’t beat them….oh now the move all makes sense…

Nice. Check out Vasta’s full post, too.

System i high-availability company Vision Solutions Inc. announced today that Robert J. Herbold — a former Microsoft executive and a member of the board of overseers member at the Hoover Institution, a conservative organization — has joined the Irvine, Calif.-based company’s board of directors. Herbold’s résumé includes nearly 30 years at the Proctor & Gamble Co., serving on the board of directors for organizations like Agilent Technologies and intelligent design proponents Discovery Institute. Still high on the news of recent sales gains, Vision hopes that Herbold’s successful track record will follow him as he steps up to the board-of-directors plate.

The i5virus: A Game of Espionage and System i Security is a game developed by Bytware to get its name out there and perhaps liven up the days of System i administrators.

The mystery game, which started last month, offers contestants a chance to unravel the clues and win prizes such as an iPod and a Nintendo Wii. The story follows a fictional company whose System i server has been hacked into. Players follow clues by visiting different Web sites, watching videos on YouTube, and learning about PHP and i5/OS security. It’s a process that Bytware is hoping will lead you not only to the end of the game but also to its System i security software products.

The game begins with a YouTube video.

Check out the “Odds and Ends” column on IT Jungle looking at different issues in dealing with the Integrated File System (IFS).

In January, IBM introduced the System i VIP, a way for users in particular industries – book publishing or sanitation supply, for example — to get hooked on the midrange server platform.

IBM’s goal was to win partners in the program who would then go out and sell IBM hardware and software, along with the partners’ products, to bolster the System i base. With a release last week, IBM is saying the System i VIP program has been successful thus far.

The only problem with that statement is IBM isn’t saying exactly how successful. In the release, it only says the program has “significantly increased the number of new clients choosing the System i business computing platform.” No numbers. No count of how many new System i users IBM and partners have captured.

Mark Dupaquier, the general manager of IBM’s Business Systems unit, said the program’s success is based on understanding that small and medium businesses “identify themselves in the context of their industry and therefore seek industry-specific expertise.” The Business Systems division, you’ll remember, is the byproduct of IBM splitting up System i. Larger boxes are now sold within the company’s Power Systems division, while smaller System i servers are in the newly created Business Systems division.

Needless to say, the absence of concrete numbers has brought out the skeptics. IBM does do a decent job listing some anecdotal successes in the release, and I’m not sure how Big Blue would be able to count exactly how many new System i clients came on board specifically because of VIP. But some numbers would definitely help.

Automated operations and business intelligence software company Help/Systems announced last week the addition of Linux support to its server operations event management software Robot/CLIENT. Here is what Robot/CLIENT does:

Robot/CLIENT acts as agent software running on non-System i servers, including Windows and UNIX. It checks server operational status, receives job status information, launches processes, monitors server applications and services, and transfers data. With Linux support, users can integrate their Linux servers into their System i procedures.

By using Robot/CLIENT agent software with Robot/SCHEDULE (the job scheduler and batch management software) as their master scheduler, users can schedule jobs on the server and receive a completion status; monitor server status; transfer files between the System i and the server; and much more. Linux servers managed by Robot/CLIENT run efficiently and reliably, expanding the scope of a System i-based enterprise.

Robot/CLIENT for Linux integrates with the other Robot Automated Operations Solution products, including Robot/ALERT for system event notification; Robot/CONSOLE for message, resource, and log management; Robot/SPACE for disk space management; and Robot/NETWORK for complete network management. Now, the System i automated operations team can control Linux systems, too.

Pretty cool stuff for shops running a variety of platforms that need to have their systems work together. Do you use this or other operations management software? Want to share your product reviews or offer tips to the rest of the 400 community about using Robot/CLIENT or like systems management software? You can always send me an email or leave your comments here.

The PowerTech Group Inc. has long banged the drum on System i security, saying that most lapses in the space have to do with people, not the hardware or software.

The System i security software company has done System i security surveys in recent years. One last year looked at data from 177 security assessments on System i, iSeries and AS400 boxes, and found a few things:

• 95% have more than 10 users with root authority, threatening data on the system.
• 77% have more than 20 users whose passwords are the same as their user names.
• 91% don’t control or audit changes made through PC access.

These are lapses you want to avoid. On Wednesday (that’s tomorrow), PowerTech will host a free 30-minute webcast on meeting requirements of auditors who want companies to better manage user access. You need to register with PowerTech to join.

As I said in a previous post, the i5/OS blade isn’t coming until next year. That is still the case, despite some confusion borne by an IBM press release.

I found out about the press release from Chris Maxcer over at the System i Network, who wrote that System i blades were coming on Nov. 30 of this year. Maxcer said he was looking around IBM’s Project Big Green, which eventually led him to another press release about IBM and data center energy efficiency. Near the end of that release is this paragraph:

POWER6 processor-based Blade systems for AIX and Linux on POWER are scheduled to be available on BladeCenter H and BladeCenter HT chassis beginning November 30. A JS22 Express configuration, including 4 GB memory, a 73GB hard disk drive and BladeCenter H chassis is priced at $10,363.

There is that Nov. 30 date. Although there is a footnote tied to the date basically saying, “Don’t hold us to this date,” I was surprised that this date would be thrown out in a press release the same week that an IBM executive in the IBM Power Systems group told me they wouldn’t be out until the first half of next year.

So I followed through to figure out which was correct, and received this email from a third-party IBM PR rep: “The i5/OS won’t be available on the JS22 until the first half of next year; November 30th was a typo. I apologize for the confusion.”

Hey, no problem. As long as we got it right (then or eventually), it’s all good.

There was plenty of talk earlier this year that a server blade running i5/OS might be ready by the end of this year, but in conversations I had this week from IBM’s Power systems group, that’s not going to happen.

Scott Handy, a marketing VP in the group, said i5/OS will be available on the Power6 blade in the first half of next year, presumably around the same time Power6 System i rack servers will be ready as well. He told me that “i5/OS isn’t ready yet.”

There’s another thing. A feature of the Power6 chip is Live Partition Mobility, which allows users to move an entire hard partition from one physical server to another without any downtime. Right now it’s available on AIX and Linux. Obviously it’s not available on i5/OS yet because there isn’t a Power6-based server running i5/OS yet, but Handy wouldn’t commit to me about whether it would be available for i5/OS, only saying that IBM is “working on it.”