TFH Volume: 28 Issue: 80 Archives

Goosing Big Iron Power Systems With Power9 Migrations

December 3, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

The Power9-based servers from IBM’s Cognitive Systems division have been rolling out over the course of the past year, and the big iron has been in the field only since the late summer but has perhaps had the largest impact on the revenue and profit stream for the Power Systems line, excepting maybe the installation of the “Summit” and “Sierra” supercomputers for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

As has been the case since the AS/400 line debuted in 1988 and even with the combination of the System/36 (low-end and midrange) and System/38 …
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What Is The State Of Your IBM i Modernization?

December 3, 2018 Amanda Blackburn

(Sponsored Content) Each IBM i shop has its own history with the platform, and its own approach to dealing with change. Some run the server like it’s still 1988, while others have invested time and money to modernize their systems and applications. Understanding the state of modernization across the IBM i community as a whole can help us discover where each of us sits on this IBM i journey and help us prepare our organizations for new challenges and opportunities.

The IBM i server turned 30 this year, which was the cause of much celebration at industry events around the …
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Guru: Right-Size Your PHP

December 3, 2018 Alan Seiden

In my experience doing performance audits, I often point out that while PHP for IBM i comes perfectly configured for small applications, it must often be tuned to handle large workloads. When applications must accommodate hundreds or thousands of users, or use AJAX technology, two easy changes should be considered for PHP and Apache configurations.

1. PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN Setting In fastcgi.conf

On IBM i, Zend Server installs a configuration file called fastcgi.conf. Among other settings, it includes PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN, which determines how many PHP jobs run when its Apache server is started. The file — /www/zendphp7/conf/fastcgi.conf (Zend Server 9 or higher) or …
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Mad Dog 21/21: The Fake, The Take, But In The End Jake

December 3, 2018 Hesh Wiener

IBM, at times, looks like a pair of fraternal twins. One is based on long-established activities with roots in two proprietary system architectures: mainframe and Power. This part of IBM also includes the large legacy services segments. The other twin embodies IBM’s hopes and dreams — it is what the company calls strategic imperatives — it includes most software, artificial intelligence technologies such as Watson, cloud computing, and more. This year, the strategic twin became as big as the legacy twin, and, with the Red Hat acquisition, it is expected to become permanently larger.

Properly managed and effectively marketed, …
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Some Insight Into The IBM i On Power Systems Base

December 3, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

IBM is pretty secretive about its systems business, but is really no worse than its peers in this regard. Big Blue wants to get enough information out there to keep customers comfortable about the future, keep Wall Street happy about its revenues and prospects for the immediate future (meaning one to three quarters out), and keep its competitors from getting too much insight into how it is doing in the systems racket.

Every now and then, we get some insight into how the Power Systems business is doing, and as part of a discussion we had recently about upgrade and …
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Goosing Big Iron Power Systems With Power9 Migrations

What Is The State Of Your IBM i Modernization?

Guru: Right-Size Your PHP

1. PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN Setting In fastcgi.conf

Mad Dog 21/21: The Fake, The Take, But In The End Jake

Some Insight Into The IBM i On Power Systems Base

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