• 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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• Without Further Ado: Power10 Entry Server Pricing

  September 26, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We have been through the new Power10 entry servers from just about every angle imaginable, which has been our great pleasure. And now, we come to the moment we have all been waiting for: What is the bang for the buck of a Power10 machine? As is usually the case when you ask any question, the answer is: It depends.

  To try to figure this out, we put together pricing information for all of the different variations of processors for the Power8, Power9, and now Power10 entry servers with one of two processors. And when we say all of …

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• A Smorgasbord Of Power Systems Stuff

  September 19, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It is usually pretty quiet on the IT front in the wake of the American Labor Day holiday, especially with a lot of European countries also having bank holidays around that time and many schools just starting back up again. Here in 2022, it is no different, although IBM did uncharacteristically launch the full subscription entry Power S1014 server aimed at IBM i customers on September 6.

  In any event, in the weeks surrounding the holiday, Big Blue did a bunch of stuff relating to the Power Systems platform and we want to tell you about it so you stay …

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• The Scoop On The Full Subscription Power S1014 With IBM i

  September 12, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Even before the Power10 entry and midrange servers were announced by Big Blue on July 12, we did a thought experiment at the end of June about a rumored hardware-software-maintenance bundle on the single-socket Power S1014 server aimed at IBM i customers with a single monthly subscription price. And for fun, that thought experiment compared the monthly cost of a high-end iPhone smartphone with cell service and a data plan – somewhere between $75 and $80 – to what we expected such a full subscription-based, on premises Power S1014 would cost. We figured it would be around $50 per IBM …

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• IBM’s Competitive Analysis For The Power10 Midrange Machine

  August 29, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  For as long as there has been a Power architecture, way back in 1995 with the advent of the custom “Cobra Muskie” PowerPC AS chips, the rule of thumb for performance is that the Power core did twice the work of an Intel core designed for server workloads. This was true in 1993, when Intel jumped in the server racket with gusto, and it is true 31 years later as the entry and midrange Power10 machines in the same performance class as the top-end X86 iron from Intel and AMD are starting to ramp.

  This performance gap on cores is …

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• IBM’s Competitive Analysis For Power10 Entry Machines

  August 22, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Long gone are the days when IBM, and indeed most other server vendors, clamored to run TPC-C, SAP SD, and SPEC JVM transaction processing benchmark tests on their new machines to prove they had the performance and they had the bang for the buck to compete in the broader market.

  To be fair, many of those tests had their flaws, allowing a certain amount of gaming of the benchmarks (as happened with the TPC-C and SPEC JVM tests) or not having official pricing attached to them (as happened with the SPEC JVM and SAP SD tests). Still, those benchmarks, as …

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• A Slew Of Add-On Services For Power10 Systems

  August 17, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Back in February, we told you about a new set of services called Power Expert Care that offered enhanced services above and beyond Software Maintenance (SWMA) for the operating system and systems software stack and the hardware maintenance that comes with support contracts. In recent weeks, IBM has rolled out more services under the Power Expert Care umbrella.

  In announcement letter 122-006, the based Power Expert Care services are extended to the Power10 entry servers – the Power S1014, the Power S1022s, the Power S1022, the Power L1022, the Power S1024, and the Power L1024 – and in announcement …

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• Power10 Midrange Machine: The Power E1050

  August 15, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  This is fifth part of our in-depth coverage of the entry and midrange Power10 machines that were announced on July 12. This week, we end the hardware deep dives with a look at the Power E1050 midrange machine. This is one of the best and most capable servers that Big Blue has ever designed, and it is a damned shame that it does not run the IBM i operating system.

  But, as we have pointed out before, it can any time IBM is convinced by enough of you that it should. The lack of IBM i support is a marketing …

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• Power10 Entry Machines: The Power S1024 And Power L1024

  August 8, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  This is fourth part of our in-depth coverage of the entry and midrange Power10 machines that were announced on July 12 and that started shipping a few weeks later. This week, we go over the last of the machines that can run the IBM i operating system, the Power S1024 and its quasi-Linux-only companion, the Power L1024.

  We already went through the Power S1014, the Power S1022s, and the Power S1022 and its quasi-Linux-only variant, the Power L1022. And next week, we will take a look at the midrange Power E1050 – which does not support the IBM i operating …

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