System iNetwork

The logical next step is enabling i5/OS to run on all the System p models. The only question being if the hefty, sale killing, per core surcharge for i5/OS that exists on the JS22 blade will stay in place.

We can only hope that core i5/OS is being reworked to include modern features like managed code, ILE reflection, long object names, SQL procedures as a full ILE citizen, and the elimination of bug causing segment addressing/multiple memory models.

-Steve

Town hall agenda (not in any particular order of preference):

1) i5/OS runs anywhere in the IBM world without financial penalties
2) IBM settles on POWER6 (or 7) hardware for z,p,i environments
3) IBM announces development of method to get i5/OS native programs to the web as easily as DDS got to 5250
4) Announces partnership with Apple to run i5/OS applications on iPhone

Can you elaborate what you mean by SQL Procedures as a full ILE citizen?

I hope that IBM remembers the four points that made the original AS/400 successful: 1) Integration, 2) Ease of Use, 3) Third party applications, 4) Reliability.

Present day the i5/OS is not truly integrated. Development tools are pieced together from Rational & Eclipse, Websphere is a UNIX port, DB2 is more and more a bolt on. As for ease of use, just try ordering an i5 any more, who knows what you need . . . not IBM -- they are as confused as we are. I get more calls from Microsoft about supporting my i5 application than IBM, and as far as reliability, I have PC servers that fail far less than our i5.

Yes, I hope IBM gets back to the basics and gets out of the UNIX best in breed component model for the i5.

I think we'll see that pathetic "seen it before" routine "IBM new here, and I'm here to stay" for the Execs -- but they don't stay and two years later we see the same movie with different actors/execs.

It is time for a follow-on product. Its been 20 years since AS/400 was announced on June 21, 1988, so why not do something great, like Converge the i and p lines into one new box with a completely new name and OS (well, new OS in name only)?

I'd think that would be very cool.

I've said it before, IBM needs to rename i5/OS to something that can be sold to business people; and not use some brain-dead Market VP who's turned on by BMW's so much that they name the product line after it.

Here's my predictions, have zero inside info:

IBM will merge the p and i series into a new line of systems. So they'll only be Z and X and the new mystery line.

The box will run a new OS (which will really be CPF, OS/400, i5/OS) that is a hybrid of Linux/AIX and i5/OS.

The benefit is, you order the system or server or whatever marketing decides to call a computer next week, and you get it with the new OS. I'll call it "BLUE" or "OS BLUE".

OS Blue is capable of running traditional CL as well as QShell stuff without th need to enter into a "mode" or "environment".

Also, the integration/completion of PASE with i5/OS's ILE is completed so both Linux/AIX executables and i5/OS program objects can run "natively".

We end up with a single box and OS that can do everything well except desk-top applications (such as MS Office); no longer do we have to wait until somebody ports this or that to i5/OS, it should just be there. And that's a pretty cool concept.

But I could be wrong, again.

There goes Steve again! With so much FUD a guy has to wonder if he's a paid agent of the Enemy!

i5/OS is an ADDED VALUE that brings us all kinds of things that are extras on System p and almost ALL other platforms.

Some of his wish list are good things sometimes, but pretending like AIX is worth as much as i5/OS is like wishing they'd bring the price of a Mack Truck down to that of moto-ped.

"...Can you elaborate what you mean by SQL Procedures as a full ILE citizen?..."

I can call an sql procedure that does not have parameters directly from CL. If the procedure has parms I have to use CALLPRC to call an RPG procedure with the parms, and then call the SQL procedure from the RPG procedure.

An sql procedure result set is unuseable from CL or RPG callers. ( yes, I know, SQL CLI )

Would be great if I could call an sql procedure, get a result set back, then run an sql select from CL that joins to the just returned result set, passing the results of that select onto an RPG procedure as a parameter (or spool it off as an XML document).

Debugging an SQL procedure is cumbersome in terms of stepping thru the code and displaying program variables.

All in all, ILE is terrific, but there is plenty of room for improvement. The Microsoft .NET common language infrastructure (CLI) is the model to follow. CL, RPG and SQL procedures (I don't care about standards) should be able to declare and instantiate Java class objects. The memory model of all the languages need to be the same, the call stacks should adhere to the same conventions.

-Steve

I hope as Americans, we all boycott IBM. As a former IBM employee, I was one of the 100,000 US employees this year that their job was moved overseas. IBM does not care about the country that made them great but only if their stock price goes up 13% a year. Yes, the AS400 is a good, expensive product but let's make our purchases from companies that care about America.

With no prior knowledge (kind of like Bob Cozzi above - just guessing), I'd guess we see POWER6 hardware in the 515 and 525 end of the spectrum (along the lines of what System p announced in January) and more unification of System p and System i hardware - maybe even a whole new name for both and maybe even common adapter feature numbers - mostly picking up System p's numbers, much to System i partners' consternation). IBM has to eventually consolidate the two into one piece of commonly priced and identified hardware with a single unified IBM sales organization. The strength of System i5/OS continues to be its integration, ease of use, applications and network of customers and partners. The strength of POWER6 hardware is its reliability. A common hardware line would make components even more competitively priced for i5/OS customers. All in all a good mix.

If IBM is going to mainstream i5/OS, it may be good to find an easier and catchier name to replace i5/OS -- particularly if IBM is going to target SMB. Every time I read i5/OS, I think of R2-D2 from Star Wars. I doubt many business executives know about R2-D2 despite the huge popularity of the movie (and its sequels). So, one wonders how many business executives can remember the name “i5/OS”.

Lots of great thoughts everyone . . . say, any ideas on the future of i5/OS? If businesses are buying into BladeCenters -- sales of blades have been seeing big gains for all the major hardware manufacturers the last few years -- how do you think i5/OS might fair in a "blade" oriented world?

Making i5/OS more widely available is an excellent idea. Making i5/OS available to the “blade” oriented world is brilliant. Making System i disappear (leaving only i5/OS), however, needs further thoughts and contemplation -- if that is indeed the intention or plan. Undoubtedly, i5/OS is the brain of System i -- just like our brains. Nevertheless, I would not be what I am without my body parts and to a certain extent, my choice of dressing. iPhone is popular and people buy iPhone. iPhone, like any IT device, is driven by an OS (i.e., OS X in this case). Business executives know about iPhone. Most probably do not care about OS X. As we always said in HCI -- to the users, the interface (not the OS) is the system. Similarly, when we buy cars, most of us do not really care much about the details of the engines (other than some engineers, mechanics, and those who are really into automobiles) as long as they are good and reliable. When a car is good, we rarely say that the engine is good. We say the car is good. Business executives buy cars like BMW and Mercedes, not engines. Similarly, most businesses buy computers, not OS. Business executives can understand and visualize computers (blade is like a computer). Few business executives can comprehend something that they cannot see or touch (like an OS). One sells engines to car manufacturers. Similarly, Microsoft mainly sells OS to PC manufacturers. Given that IBM is going to make i5/OS available on other IBM platforms and blades, or even sell i5/OS to other computer manufacturers*, which is an interesting, a challenging, and an admirable strategy, IMHO, IBM should continue to benefit from selling boxes (e.g., System i, System ip, System pi, System Blue, Blue System, System Power, Power System, Power Blue, Blue Power, etc.) or some kind/form of boxes containing i5/OS to businesses (particularly SMBs). Besides, there is more profit in selling a box (with many accessories and goodies) than to simply sell i5/OS.

Mainstreaming i5/OS should open a new dimension and a new market. Mainstreaming i5/OS probably should not obsolete existing products or strategies. When we invented radios, we still keep newspapers. When we have TVs, we still listen to radios and read newspapers. Similarly, Internet did not replace physical stores but it opens a new dimension/channel and it enables new businesses and new ways of doing business.

[* Note From Chris: Not sure where this idea of selling i5/OS to other manufacturers came from . . . I did not intentionally imply that, and from my point of view, I think that direction would be extraordinarily unlikely.]

I look forward with anticipation toward the announcement. It's pretty clear that at some point I5/OS, AIX, and Linux will be simple, separately-ordered feature codes of Power servers and blades, but you never know how quickly IBM will get there. The sooner, the better - I think.

I still go into client computer rooms and see messy server sprawl, so it seems to me that blades have a lot of growth potential, yet.

Regarding the future of i5/OS, that's harder to predict. I personally invest in applications that use the i5/OS native virtual machine and runtime environment, but IBM continues to invest more heavily in J2EE and other cross-platform technologies, so I think the future of i5/OS is more in the hands of ISVs and in-house IT organizations.

"...how do you think i5/OS might fair in a "blade" oriented world? ..."

Need more data to post an informed opinion.

Will the blade per core surcharge for i5/OS stay in place? How many IBM programmers work on the core OS and ILE? Is this number increasing? Is IBM working to improve ILE and remove the 10 char object name limit?

i5/OS can compete against Linux as long as there is an equivalence in price. To compete against Windows, IBM will have to invest in the OS and runtime foundation of i5/OS, just like Microsoft.

As it is, the $15K per core sucharge for i5/OS sends the message that IBM sees the OS as legacy. That there is more money to be made selling to few existing users at high prices vs many new customers at market rates.

-Steve

American Express, unfortunately, is already using BLUE, UPS has BROWN and everyone has GREEN. Guess we might have to settle for a catchy new name for i5/OS that is less colorful. As long as they don't change to i6/OS we'll probably get an improvement!

When System i and System p merge into something beautiful, which will put it between System x and System z, what do you get?

Of course, System y!

Why not?

Naturally, everybody working on this platform is concerned about it's future. And there is more than one good reason for it because it is looking bleaker day by day.

On Steve's Richter comments, I can only agree. I've came across his name in some posts of Midrange/MI400, which showed his high in-depth knowledge of OS/400. Indeed, the OS developers must be feeling more and more the burden of the legacy heritage. Take for example the IFS file system. Every object in the hierarchy tree has to be hardlinked to the traditional QSYS file system library QDOCxxx while everyone sees that the library/file,member structure is becoming gradually a thing of the past. Take for example SQL; every table created changed removed has to be maintained in systemwide tables SYSTABLES and SYSCOLUMNS and column names hardlinked to the short 10bytes system names. I think the i5/OS developers are increasingly frustrated by the 'legacy' limits, although no IBMer will admit it in the open.

On the hardware front, we hear rumours that System i will cease to exist on its own hardware; instead it will only run on a blade architecture as a virtual operating system (under VIOS). Kind of like running old Windows 98 under VMWARE or the former S/36 emulation under OS/400.

And how is System i faring in the corporate landscape? I've heard a story of a colleague of mine who works for a major EU bank. He and his team received instructions to NOT mention i5 or AS/400 to management ever! The name of the hardware should never be mentioned on any paper or communication, in order not to alarm the board members (for using legacy machines).

So what may the future for i5/OS look like? In short, no more dedicated hardware and the OS may run on a blade platform if the customer still insists on using it.

Is this too harsh a prediction? Maybe it is.

Anyway, comments are welcome as usual.