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.

• 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.
  

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.

Like a cross between The Onion and Search400, Mid-Deranged is a satirical humor site about the IBM midrange. So it’s imperative that you not take it seriously when the site proclaims that IBM has announced it is buying Nintendo and merging Power Systems with the Wii to create the IBMii.

It’s also important that you realize it’s a joke when the site announces IBM’s new environmentally friendly program for the i, called Recycle/400.

“For a minimal fee IBM will take your old AS/400 and convert it to a useful product,” the post says. And then it lists 29 ways an AS/400 can be reused. Some of my favorites: rabbit cage, tanning booth, and highway crash barrier.

Yes, you will want to check this site out. It will bring a few chuckles into your System i world. And it doesn’t hesitate to take pot shots at IBM and System i competitors. The most recent post declares that Sun is suing the island of Java for trademark infringement, while an earlier one “reports” that a guest keynote speaker at the Common conference was Bill Gates, who gave a speech entitled “Software Quality through Perception, not Reality.” Ouch.

Over a year after IBM’s new Enterprise Generation Language (EGL) was launched, and following IBM’s own iSeries EGL tutorial publication, the EGL Cafe has opened. The site launch occurred after IBM’s Rational Software Developer Conference (RSDC) last week in Orlando, Fla.

New to the blogosphere (but not to i), Joe Pluta has launched his own EGL and i blog on the site. Pluta’s June 11, 2008, entry expounds the potential of EGL to help i developers everywhere:

By combining a procedural syntax with the concept of hiding complexity, EGL does what i developers have been asking for: it gives them a clean, consistent way to write web applications where they can concentrate on the business logic rather than the plumbing. In many ways, EGL is the spiritual successor to the 5250. While it far surpasses the 5250 in rich user experience, in many ways it’s as easy, if not easier, to use than the old green screen SDA. Combine that with a carefully crafted and deceptively simple CALL Interface, and EGL does for the web what display files did for the green screen.

And it’s clear that Pluta has been on board the EGL bandwagon for some time. In April 2008 he published a lengthy article explaining the niche the new programming language fills: Developing EGL Applications for the System i. In his EGL and i blog, Pluta explained that he intends to help i users learn how to work with this new language while taking advantage of their years of business logic experience.

… i shops already have business logic — logic that they’ve spent years (even decades!) developing — and the best initial use of EGL in those shops is exposing that logic, either directly as browser-based web applications or — moving to the true SOA approach — as web services that can be consumed by other internal and external clients. Then, they can combine that newly enabled business logic with all the rich application features of EGL to create new integrated applications they never dreamed of.

And my goal will be to explain how to do that quickly and productively.

If you’re saying, “Hold on a second? What’s EGL again?” You might find the video interview with EGL language architect Tim Wilson helpful.

But, if you’ve been paying attention to this new language, let us know. Leave your comments about your feelings, insights, or opinions about EGL. If you have experience using EGL on i, consider submittng a Tip!

Kind of an old post, but I missed it and so I need to link to it here. It comes from Aaron Bartell and includes the following joke:

The boy Microsoft programmer is smoking and leaving smoke rings into the air.

The girl AS/400 programmer gets irritated with the smoke and says to her lover co-worker: “Can’t you see the warning written on the cigarettes packet, smoking is injurious to health!”

The boy replies back: “Darling, I am a Microsoft programmer. We don’t worry about warnings, we only worry about errors.”

In the go-ahead-and-smile category, the iDevelop blog came up with a bunch more acronyms beyond YiP (Young i Professionals) and now RiP (Retired i Professionals) to describe various factions of the i community. Here are a couple:

MiPs-–Modern i Professionals-–those who like to stay up with technology and the latest in capabilities of the i. These might be contrasted with the next group. …

LiPs-–Luddite i Professionals-–those who resist new capabilities and technology. “It’s been good enough for me and/or my users since 1988. …”

A couple readers posted in the comments with their suggestions. The best back-and-forth started with Aaron Bartell, who suggested FRiP, Fence Riding i Professionals, defined as “personnel in a company who can’t make a technology direction decision if their life depended on it.” Another commenter responded to that by saying “isn’t a ‘FRiP’ the same as a ‘CIO’?”

Any others? The only one I could come up with was NiPs: Name-consumed i Professionals (NCiPs, maybe?) They are the ones obsessed with whether the platform should be called AS/400, iSeries, System i, or now IBM i or Power Systems. And I grant that sometimes their obsession is warranted. I would also guess that there are plenty of DKWTCTPiISs, which stands for Don’t Know What To Call The Platform i IBM Salesperson.

This is really funny. I’m sure you’re all following it already, but there is something of a flame war going on regarding what to call a particular midrange server that IBM sells. You all know what I’m talking about — is it the AS/400, iSeries, or System i?

It all started when Trevor Perry, a System i consultant (I wouldn’t dare call him an AS/400 or iSeries consultant), decided to go on a “self-appointed campaign” to promote the use of the System i name. He came across many Web sites that still use AS/400 and iSeries to refer to the platform, and so he commented on their sites. We were one of them — read the comments from this post comparing an AS/400 to a cluster of Dell servers. Trevor’s alter ego is Angus, as in Angus the IT chap. His comment, in part:

What you are talking about is an i5 - a System i branded server. We need to get the word out that the server is modern, and the most powerful system on the planet. No one will believe an AS/400 can do any of those things - since it is so OLD.

Please use the correct names for the server (i5), the OS (i5/OS) and the brand (System i).

Perry also tried to comment on another site, the iSeries Cobol Blog. The author there, who remains anonymous because he doesn’t want his employer to know he’s writing the blog, wasn’t too keen on Perry’s comment, and so he refused to post it and blocked Perry from commenting further on the site. That ban has since been lifted, but in the meantime some back-and-forth posts went live on each of their blogs. Here’s a rundown:

• Trevor explains that he got banned from iSeries Cobol.
• iSeries Cobol dude explains why he banned Trevor.
• iSeries Cobol dude talks about the name of the platform.
• Trevor announces he’s been unblocked from the site.

Behind all of this is the debate about the name of the server platform, which rears its ugly head at every single COMMON conference. Mark Shearer and other executives get up in front of the audience to answer questions about the platform, and people complain about the name change.

Here’s a quick history. The platform was AS/400 until 2000, when it changed to iSeries, which then changed to System i in 2006. Got it? Good. Now Perry thinks an important part of moving the server platform toward the future is making sure we refer to the brand by its current name, the System i. I think he makes a solid point there.

But as I’m sure he knows, there are plenty of people out there who bought servers when the platform was called iSeries and AS/400, and so that’s what they call it.

Although calling the platform by its most recent name is good practice, I don’t believe that is the main way for the System i to thrive. There needs to be less focus on the name change and more on what the gosh darn platform needs to do, like attracting recent college grads and offering more flexible cost options for the hardware and software. The thing is, it seems like IBM is trying to do that. It has introduced VoIP to System i and now offers user-based System i servers and System i boxes integrated with third-party software. Whether those moves bring in more customers has yet to be seen, but I think the next couple years will definitely be an important indicator of the health of System i.

Hello …

My name is Kenneth Graap and I will be sharing my thoughts on System i Backup/Recovery, Security and general System Administration.

This is my first attempt at “blogging”… It should be interesting!

Kenneth