• Facing The Challenges Of Upgrading Old Systems With The Cloud

  September 18, 2023 Jason Hardy

  If you are one of the many IBM i shops that has always created its own applications and that has a long history of investing in the AS/400, iSeries, System i, and IBM i platforms over the past three and a half decades at reasonably regular intervals to keep the hardware and the systems software current, you have it relatively easy and we definitely want to talk to you about your move to the cloud and how we might help.

  But if you are one of the many OS/400 and IBM i shops that have, for myriad reasons, gotten stuck …

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• IBM Power: Hosted On-Premises Or In The Cloud?

  May 22, 2023 Jason Hardy

  According to TechTarget’s The History of Cloud Computing Explained, “The term cloud came into widespread use in 2006 when Amazon launched AWS with the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service.” Since that time, there have been endless debates as to whether it is better to host IT infrastructure on-premises or in the cloud. From my perspective, the answer is a definite “it depends.”

  How do you figure out what’s best for you? Check out the three questions you need to ask as you evaluate on-premises versus in the cloud, my three questions you need to ask as you determine if …

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• Disaster Recovery: From OS/400 V5R3 To IBM i 7.4 In 36 Hours

  March 27, 2023 Jason Hardy

  Earlier this year, I wrote an article entitled The IBM Power Trap: Three Mistakes That Leave You Stuck that described how a series of decisions related to how you manage your applications and IBM Power can leave you stuck. A few people reached out to me with questions so I thought it might be appropriate to share a real-life story about one of our customers, we will call them Glass Corp International (GCI), that got caught in this trap and had to be rescued.

  With their busiest weekend of the year just days away, GCI, an Ohio-based company, had all …

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• The IBM Power Trap: Three Mistakes That Leave You Stuck

  January 30, 2023 Jason Hardy

  IBM Power has long been known as a stable, reliable hardware platform and as a result companies have leveraged it to run their most critical business applications. For many, it has become so ingrained in their business that they would never choose to migrate away from it.

  But for some, IBM Power has become a trap from which they can’t escape. This is not a malicious trap that suddenly jumps up and grabs you but rather a trap that is triggered by a series of decisions made over time with each compounded by the previous. So, what are these decisions …

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• Doing Disaster Recovery Planning Right For Your IBM Power Iron

  October 19, 2022 Jason Hardy

  As I was writing this article, I saw this in my LinkedIn news feed, according to Axios.com: “billion-dollar weather disasters now happen once every 18 days.” My perception was that the United States was getting more frequent significant weather events and it turns out that data from the National Weather Service backs that up.

  Now add in hardware/software failures, cyber security events and local disasters (fire, water damage, power outages) and it makes sense that disaster recovery is one of the top challenges facing CIOs today. If this is a topic you are contemplating, here are a few questions to …

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• IBM Power: How Strong Is Your Backup Game?

  June 8, 2022 Jason Hardy

  Your business runs on IT and chances are if your systems are down, your business is down. Have you contemplated the most common reasons for data loss and whether your strategy can protect you in the event of natural disaster, hardware failure, fire, ransomware, human error or theft? Depending on the reason for your outage, you may experience data loss and need to leverage your backups to recover. Are you confident in your backup and recovery strategy?

  One of the simplest tests you can do to assess your backup strategy is to see how you stack up against the 3-2-1 …

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• Power10: A Simple And Smooth Migration To The Cloud

  May 3, 2022 Jason Hardy

  Is it because you like the big upfront capital expense and the depreciating asset? Is it because installing PTFs and doing OS upgrades gives your IT team something to do during slow times? Or maybe it’s because the thought of migration and downtime is just completely overwhelming to you? While I don’t have an answer to the first two reasons above, I’m here to tell you that a migration does not have to be difficult, and downtime can be practically nonexistent.

  I recently spent some time with an IBM reseller, and he walked me through the steps of migrating to …

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• IBM Power In The Cloud: More Than A Hardware Lift And Shift

  April 4, 2022 Jason Hardy

  In my role, I speak with several companies each week about the prospect of migrating from their on-premise IBM Power server to our IBM Power Cloud. A common thread that runs through these conversations is a focus on the cost of purchasing and maintaining an on-premise server versus the monthly recurring fee of our cloud based service. Many prospects see this move as a simple lift and shift to cloud infrastructure rather than a modernization strategy.

  And while this may be partially true, as most customers are not modernizing their application when migrating, they are overlooking the modernization benefits that …

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• Solving The Power9 Dilemma

  February 7, 2022 Jason Hardy

  Purchase hardware, depreciate hardware, and repeat.

  After four years on the market, the Power9 processor is in the process of being replaced by the Power10 chip. Whether you are an early adopter of CPUs or a laggard, the challenge for many companies is the timing of the refresh. As leases on the Power9 machines are expiring, companies are struggling with how to bridge the gap between the end of their current Power9 system lease and the release of the Power10 systems. Their typical options include lease renewals, lease buyouts, or purchasing a new Power9 server, but some companies just want …

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• Here’s What You Should Do About The IBM i Skills Shortage

  February 24, 2021 Jason Hardy

  A shrinking IBM i talent pool has been a major concern for years.

  Back in 2015, dwindling access to IBM i professionals was blamed by IBM’s own top brass on revenue shortfalls. A system that had been around for nearly three decades, it was only a matter of time until the veterans left for greener pastures. The problem was, and continues to be, that fewer young professionals have been eager to master the same set of skills.

  According to the latest data, not only is the IBM talent shortage getting worse by the year – it’s aggravating a set of …

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