i5/OS 5.4 Archives

The State Of The Power Systems Base 2024: The Operating Systems

February 12, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

What stays in the field longer? The hardware or the software? Well, if you are talking about the IBM i installed base, or indeed that of any legacy systems out there like z/OS or Windows Server, the hardware can often be upgraded easier than the software and so it tends to not stay in the field as long. On average, of course.

In the real world, it all comes down to specifics. And you have to analyze and interpret the trend lines very carefully so as to not jump to the wrong conclusions.

So it is with the decade long …
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The Power Systems Base Is A Little Less Rusty

February 27, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Another three years, and another upgrade cycle that can bring about the modernizing of the Power Systems iron that supports the IBM i customer base. Or, more precisely, another four distinct upgrade cycles that customers are on as they move off legacy iron to something more current than what they have.

What we mean by this is that some customers are stuck on older releases because they are cheapskates by necessity or they have applications that can only run on older releases like OS/400 V5R3, i5/OS 5.4, or IBM i 6.1. Others are stuck on IBM i 7.1. Or IBM …
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Integrated Does Not Have To Mean Included And Invoiced

October 10, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

In this era of “pay for what you eat” cloud computing – maybe they should have called it “buffet computing” after all because there sure as hell is nothing cloudy about the bill when it comes – it seems odd that customers can’t pick a la carte the things they want and they don’t want in a system that nonetheless has all of its myriad components and services integrated.

Let’s start by saying we love that the IBM i system is integrated, with one throat to choke (for the most part) when things go wrong. We are strong believers in …
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IBM i 7.3 Loses Standard Support On September 30, 2023

October 3, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Big Blue just got the IBM i 7.5 operating system and system software stack out the door for Power9 and Power10 machines back in May, and from that moment the clock was ticking on regular support for the IBM i release that came out in April 2016 and that represents the second most popular release on primary machines based on data from the most recent IBM i Marketplace Survey.

Most operating system makers – there are not that many of them left in the datacenter these days – offer standard support for their releases and versions for seven years …
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7.1 Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

April 4, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

We think there is a lot of Power7, Power7+, and Power8 iron out there in the Power Systems running IBM i base, and we think there is a lot of IBM i 6.1 and IBM i 7.1 running on that iron. Our assertion is based on years of anecdotal evidence from the resellers and business partners we talk to, the customers we talk to, and a whole lot of spreadsheet witchcraft that we do based on survey data we see.

The point is not just to come up with this data and then drop it and run, but to face …
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Paving The Road Ahead For A Better Ride

January 4, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

We always sit behind the wheel of the present as we drive to the future with our baggage from the past in the trunk.

It is with this in mind that we contemplate 2021 and the uncertainty of regional, national, and global economies as well as how the coronavirus pandemic will be handled around the world in some pretty tricky political climates. These forces will affect all IBM i customers, of course, and we are not so much interested in describing all of these complex turbulences as they intertwine. What we do want to do is provide a few ideas …
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The State Of The IBM i Installed Base, Part 2

February 17, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

In the first half of our analysis of the IBM i installed base, we looked at the number of machines and the number of logical partitions that respondents of the IBM i Marketplace Survey for the 2020 report gave last fall when they took the poll. We did some math and analysis on this to show that there is a large block of customers with lots of machines and lots of partitions that are just as important to Big Blue as those with big, fat NUMA servers.

In the second half of this series about the state of the IBM …
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The State Of The Power Systems Base 2024: The Operating Systems

The Power Systems Base Is A Little Less Rusty

Integrated Does Not Have To Mean Included And Invoiced

IBM i 7.3 Loses Standard Support On September 30, 2023

7.1 Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

Paving The Road Ahead For A Better Ride

The State Of The IBM i Installed Base, Part 2

Content archive

Recent Posts

Subscribe

Pages

Search