Maxed Out
Because the System i can run at redline speed all day long . . .
February 4, 2008
Lock-In Legacy or Lasting Growth: Today's Defining Moment
Today the System i world is poised in a defining moment: IBM is reorganizing, blades represent a radical new way of deploying i5/OS (Where's the "system"?), and IBM's Rational Application Development Tools division has more power than ever over the direction of -- for good and bad -- System i application development. Plus, there's V6R1, which comes with some seriously great features. There's opportunity here both given and stolen by IBM.
First, IBM can only do so much to foster the success of the System i. Whether the company has done enough is a question we can leave for another day. Market pressures and trends have certainly shaped our landscape, sometimes against the will of System i pros who have been fighting back an ever-creeping desert in the face of sandy winds. Sometimes, though, System i pros have been accidentally culpable in the changes.
I want to share an excerpt from an Industry Report I wrote, "Sharks or Margaritas? Exploring the App-Dev Solution Decision", which appeared in last month's issue of System iNEWS magazine:
The Seven Steps to a Lock-in Legacy
The biggest risk lies in the chance of becoming obsolete due to inaction. Here's how dormancy is shaking out in some organizations:
- Line-of-business applications (ERP and homegrown) are run on the System i.
- System i managers/programmers fail to upgrade their skills and/or buy third-party tools to develop GUI-based front ends and new, modern-looking applications — portals, BI, B2B, or even just specific applications, rich client or otherwise, for basic business needs.
- Upper-management officials see a history of green-screen applications and little else coming out of the System i group.
- Upper-management leaders believe that neither the System i nor the "i" development team is capable of operating modern GUI apps well.
- Windows-based applications seem inexpensive enough, and the Windows side of the IT group is ready and willing to expand its level of responsibility . . . or a Windows job is contracted out.
- At some point, the organization becomes split between the System i group and, for example, the .NET group.
- System i professionals support and maintain legacy code while other app-dev professionals build new applications.
In these scenarios, the inaction of programmers and System i managers leads to a legacy lock-in that's hard to break. This is bad for System i enthusiasts, and it's terrible for the System i ecosystem.
The reason I bring this up again is that because i5/OS can now live on an IBM BladeCenter rather than on a System i, this fact may show up in long-time System i-based organizations. When it does, will it be to simply house a workload that will never change or will it be strategic? Will it better enable and empower the System i pro to say, "Hey, we're playing on the same field again with AIX, Linux, and Windows . . . here's what we can do with i5/OS and our applications."
The legendary power of the "integrated system" will likely be subsumed by the BladeCenter model . . . and I wonder how i5/OS and System i-based applications will fare and whether System i pros around the world can seize the day?
Posted by cmaxcer at February 4, 2008 7:17 AM
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