Category Archives: IBM i general

From Jerome Hughes, if you want to find all kinds of images for IBM i for your next presenation, including the round blue “IBM i for business” logo and a whole treaure trove of other IBM i icons, do the … Continue reading →

IT Jungle and other publications are still sifting through some of the IBM i and and Power systems announcements made on April 24th. Tim Prickett Morgan discovered that starting July 10th, IBM will start adding shipping and handling charges to … Continue reading →

On Tuesday, May 15, 2012, I gave a presentation to the Omni User group on Future Directions for the IBM i. I had a blast and the presentation went over very well. Special thanks to Lorraine Morgan, Bill Parks, Jerome … Continue reading →

So where will the new IBM PureSystems be manufactured? According to a story in today’s IT Jungle, an IBM spokesman was quoted as saying the following to Tim Prickett Morgan. “IBM Rochester is the manufacturing starting point for PureSystems. Some of … Continue reading →

Editor’s note (4-6-12): Post modified to remove reference to InfoTech report being released in October 2011. Could not confirm publication date, but it appears to be sometime in 2011. If you’re interested in the current state and future potential of … Continue reading →

Jon Paris and Susan Gantner have an interesting post on the IBM Systems Magazine Web site about the “willful ignorance” many people display about installing SAP on i. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this conversation and it’s a growing awareness in our community that yes, SAP is easier to install, maintain, and run if installed on an IBM i system.

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Every time IBM cancels support for an operating system, it usually offers extended support for customers who can’t move to the new OS by the end of support date. Extended Support is a service extension on IBM support for customers … Continue reading →

A few years ago, IBM started assessing a media charge for customer IBM i operating system upgrades. Where the media used to be free, you now have to be pay for it. The cost I have is $118/per machine but … Continue reading →

As shops prepare to upgrade from i5/OS V5R4 to i 7.1, some people may have questions about AnyNet capability on the i 7.1 operating system. Specifically, is AnyNet still supported in i 7.1 and can you access it in i 7.1?

The answers are no and yes. Here’s what’s happening.

AnyNet is a method IBM uses to run SNA communications traffic over a TCP/IP network. AnyNet has been a staple of IBM communications for a long time but IBM is phasing it out starting with the i 7.1 operating system. IBM had made a statement of direction a few years ago saying that:

“AnyNet support is also available in V5R3 through V6R1, however, IBM plans to withdraw support of AnyNet in the release following V6R1; customers currently using AnyNet should start to move to Enterprise Extender in preparation for this.”

Reading that statement, you would assume IBM is withdrawing AnyNet functionality in version 7.1 and beyond.

That would be a wrong assumption.

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In the IBM i Professionals group in LinkedIn Aaron Bartell has opened a discussion intended to create a list of vendors that offer IBM i OS partitions in the cloud. Or as Aaron puts it:

I was hoping we could start a list of vendors that offer IBM i OS in the cloud as a monthly lease service similar to how Amazon does its EC2 service, or how Hosting.com leases resources (i.e. hardware, OS, database, bandwidth, etc).

This is turning into a good discussion and a fair-sized list of vendors who host IBM i partitions. The discussion is now starting to turn to what happens when the thread ends and where can people go to get a compiled list of all the vendors. When I get information on the final list, I’ll try to let you know.

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I’ve recently started checking out Angus’s blog on IBM i unity , but he has to be one of the more vocal proponents of IBM i unity out there. Very impressive and pro-IBM i (don’t you dare call it an iSeries or, … Continue reading →

It’s been a few days since IBM announced end of support for i5/OS V5R4, which makes it the perfect time to revisit the topic now that it’s had a little while to cool off.

One of my favorite IBM i analysts, Tim Prickett Morgan of IT Jungle, has a more in-depth look at the topic than you might find at other sites, including mine. In his V5R4 withdrawal article, he goes over the following issues you might not have read about last week, including:

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