Timothy Prickett Morgan
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Some Insight Into Utility Pricing On Entry Power Iron
July 27, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
Two weeks ago, IBM announced a revamped lineup of entry Power9 systems, including a new single-core variant of the Power S922 server aimed at IBM i shops, and last week, we compared the performance and bang for the buck of this machine to other single-core systems for IBM i applications. This week, we complete the set by talking about that flexible, utility pricing that Big Blue started offering on big Power9 back in May and that is now available on dual-socket Power9 iron. The single-socket Power S914, as far as we know, is not eligible for this type of …
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Four Things That IBM i Shops Get Wrong About HA, DR, And Data
July 22, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
It’s always a little hard to generalize, but IBM i shops tend to be conservative, thoughtful, and thorough when it comes to running IT. But no IT organization is perfect, and there are still issues when it comes to disaster recovery (DR) and high availability (HA).
We think this is more often a reflection of the situation than it is of the people running IBM i systems. And to get a sense of the HA and DR missteps that people are making, we had a chat with Lilac Schoenbeck, Vice President of go-to-market strategy in the Power Systems division at …
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The Battle Of The Single-Core IBM i Machines
July 20, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
Last week, IBM announced a revamped lineup of entry Power9 systems, including a new single-core variant of the Power S922 server aimed at IBM i shops that will replace the long-running Power S812 and the Power S914 for IBM i customers with modest compute performance and storage requirements. The announcement of the single-core Power S922 comes just as the stay of execution for the Power S812 will be running out on August 31.
In the issue last week, we told you that we didn’t have a lot of the details on the pricing of the new single-core Power …
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IBM Revamps Entry Power Servers With Expanded I/O, Utility Pricing
July 14, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
Believe it or not, but it has been two and a half years since the first Power9 server shipped and it has been more than two years since the entry Power Systems machines – that would be the Power S914, the Power S922, and the Power S924 machines, code-named “ZZ” after the country-rock-blues band from Houston – were first announced. And today, these machines are getting an I/O makeover.
And specially for IBM i shops, IBM is rolling out a single-core version of the Power S922 that will offer better bang for the buck as well as lower acquisition cost …
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Thoroughly Modern: Why You Need An IT Strategy And Roadmap
July 14, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
What makes a modernization project successful? Is it the right software and tools? Having the right people on the job? Completing the project on time and on budget? Some might argue that all of the above contribute to the overall success of these initiatives. But the experts at Fresche will tell you that building a comprehensive strategy and roadmap is the most important part. It’s the secret sauce that ensures that the project provides business value and that requirements are mapped out before you start. After all, failing to plan is planning to fail.
Businesses today are facing increasing pressure …
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The Path Truly Opens To Alternate Power CPUs, But Is It Enough?
July 14, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
If you have a few tens of millions of dollars to spare and you want to set up a foundry partnership with either Globalfoundries for 14 nanometer chip making technologies or with Samsung for 7 nanometer technologies and then create your own Power processor, things just got a little bit easier. Big Blue has open sourced one of its Power cores through the OpenPower foundation and now anybody and everybody can grab it and design a new central processing unit around that core.
Don’t get too excited, but get a little excited. Let me explain.
We still believe in the …
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The Power S812 Gets Yet Another Stay Of Execution
July 6, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
The Power S812 entry server, which is based on the Power8 processor and which has no analog in the Power9-based Power Systems lineup, has received yet another reprieve from being removed from the Big Blue product catalog. It is a wonder why IBM doesn’t just say it will sell this Lazarus machine indefinitely and get it over with, to be honest.
The Power S812, particularly the “Mini” variant that IBM announced on Valentine’s Day in 2017, are the skinniest – in terms of processing and memory capacity – of the Power Systems line that supports the IBM i operating …
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Tapping The Sky For Disaster Recovery
July 6, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
The killer app for IBM i in the cloud, at least for the next several years, is very likely going to be disaster recovery and high availability. Not just because it is so much less expensive to provide these vital infrastructure services on the cloud than it is on premises, but because so many people still need DR and HA but cannot afford it.
The cloud is changing that, and a partnership between Skytap, the upstart provider of IBM i server instances in the cloud, and Maxava, the now established but once upstart provider of HA and DR software …
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You’re Only As Old As The Applications You Feel
June 24, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
You didn’t actually think that we would have forgotten that Sunday, June 21st, was the 32nd birthday of the Application System/400, did you? Of course we didn’t forget.
It was also Father’s Day and the first day of summer, and to be perfectly frank (Soltis), I got a new smoker from my wife and I spent the afternoon learning about the joys of hickory smoked barbeque ribs. It is a gift that just keeps giving, because I made about 40 pounds of meat in various kinds and flavors because I needed to try everything all at once. …
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The Ups And Downs Of The Server Cycle
June 22, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan
If you took a pause for your server upgrade plans in the first quarter as the coronavirus pandemic was starting to take root, you were not alone. But all things considered, the period ended in March was not as bad for server spending as you might have guessed, and we think that the second, third, and fourth quarters are the real test. The first quarter was just the warmup.
Business has been pretty brisk for those who sell server components, and the ODMs and OEMs have been pretty busy, wrestling with their supply chains and trying to meet customer demand …
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