System iNetwork

July 2008

July 28, 2008 9:39 AM

When a 47 Percent Decline Isn't Exactly Accurate

Although IBM had a fantastic Q2 2008, the 47 percent decline in System i revenue was a bit of a shocker, if only because IBM still broke it out for individual reporting. Didn't IBM converge the System i and p divisions about this time last year? Still, the actual hardware unification went down much more recently--announced in April at COMMON in Nashville, which also happens to be in the second quarter (so time is still flying). In any event, I spoke briefly with Ross Mauri, general manager of IBM Power Systems, for a quick update on the System i, IBM i, and Power Systems world.

Mauri revealed a few interesting nuggets, the biggest of which had to do with Q2 2008: The System i and IBM i second quarter was particularly busy for IBM, in which IBM announced the Power Systems lineup at COMMON and then went around the world for five weeks to talk to 10,000 customers in 20 countries at launch events, not to mention delivering new training for IBM's Business Partners.

"We were very tired when we were done with that five-week road show," Mauri joked.

In addition to spreading the message, IBM has been working on getting the actual newly converged line of hardware out, too. The point is, the second quarter saw a huge transition for our world at IBM, which trickled down. I'm sure quite a few customers took a pause to evaluate IBM's new 6.1 and hardware pricing messages and packages. For example, just considering a BladeCenter running a new POWER6-based blade is enough to burn up weeks, if not months, of evaluation time.

Still, what gives with "down 47 percent" and IBM i on Power Systems?

"From a legacy i point of view, we had an OK quarter. We had double-digit growth in Asia-Pacific, in particular China, Southeast Asia, and India. We saw some worldwide double-digit growth in some key industry segments--in banking, travel and transportation, and industrial products," Mauri said.

"The way legacy i is reported, that's simply all the old products, the POWER5 and POWER5+ products that were in market before our April announcement. So from a reporting point of view it was down but from an overall i client base point of view, we have some significant and attractive products and we're seeing good uptake on them, including the new Blade option--the JS12 sitting in a BladeCenter S or H--and we're seeing good growth in the mid market around our very successful Vertical Industry Program, which is driving customer solutions with local ISVs and local Business Partners," he added.

More important, Mauri acknowledged that there are some issues about IBM reporting POWER5/5+ System i revenue in massive "declines" . . . because that message doesn't exactly reflect what's going on with IBM's new i-focused sales. New IBM i-based Power Systems are getting reported under System p, which grew 29 percent for the quarter. So what gives with IBM lumping it all together? How long will that continue? Indefinitely, it seems.

"We'll continue externally reporting that way . . . that's how we can track straight to ledger and all those types of things," Mauri said, noting that he'll personally have to find new ways to communicate with the various communities and client bases that are part of the converged brand.

"I'll have to find other indicators that will show success in Unix, in Linux, and success in i so that we'll have some type of relative measure to watch--but it'll be different than in the past," he said. "I'm working on that right now."

Your Indicators

So if future IBM financial reports aren't going to paint a clear picture of what's happening in the IBM i-focused world, what kinds of indicators might Mauri share with us?

Posted by cmaxcer on July 28, 2008 at 9:39 AM | Comments (6)

July 19, 2008 7:31 PM

New Utility Helps Modernize System i Databases

Resolution Software, a relative newcomer to the IBM i and System i database world, has released a new, free diagnostic tool that can help organizations modernize older DDS-based databases to SQL DDL. Xcase Database Modernization Diagnostic for DB2 on IBM i basically performs an impact analysis of your database in minutes, Resolution says, and analyzes the potential for modernization based on an IBM-recommended process for upgrading your database structure so that you won't adversely affect your existing applications.

IBM advises companies to modernize DDS-generated databases to the industry-standard SQL DDL as part of the Better Architecture phase of the IBM i Developer Roadmap, and the company published a Redbook, "Modernizing iSeries Application Data Access," that provides the strategy and process.

Although you can update your database manually, as detailed in the Redbook, by following IBM's proven methodology, Resolution Software created a tool--Xcase for System i--that follows the Redbook methodology with an automated process.

The free diagnostic utility can be used with Xcase for System i, or it can be used on its own to provide a jumping off point for a manual database update.

Stepping Back

So how did Resolution Software get into the System i world, anyway? The company is based in Israel and has been providing database design and modeling services for more than 15 years--just not so much with the AS/400, iSeries, or System i. With the company's cornerstone solution, Xcase, Resolution helps companies design and keep their databases running in tip-top shape. The System i, however, represented not only a new set of widely deployed customers but also an interesting challenge as well. Many System i-based organizations don't even have a dedicated database administrator (DBA), and the integrated database has been a solid performer for years on end. So where does the IBM i database really need assistance?

"System i has probably the best database in the world, and on the other side of the machine, there's the green screen, and they [System i customers] don't seem to be very well equipped to manage their databases," explains Elie Muyal, CEO of Resolution Software.

"System i has been around for so many years, and the database technology has evolved considerably from the days of the System/38 using DDS to moving to DDL with SQL, which is now a worldwide standard. But what we've found is that many shops are still using the old system with DDS because of the robustness of the System i," Muyal says.

The Foundation

According to a quick survey on SystemiNetwork.com earlier this year, a little more than 20 percent of respondents said they had already modernized their databases to take advantage of SQL DDL, and another six percent or so reported they were in the process--so there's a lot of room for improvement.

The key behind SQL DDL vs. DDS is that all new database development efforts are focused squarely--and have been for years--on the more modern industry standard format.

"If you plan to grow your business and you want to be robust and continue to modernize, it requires more than just putting on a pretty face--you also have to have a solid foundation [for application development]," explains Dan Cruikshank, an IBMer who has helped numerous companies modernize their databases.

"Without a solid foundation, at best you'll be a little shaky, and at worst you could see things just collapse," he adds. "You simply can't be putting more and more application-based stuff on top of a no-longer growing database. You've got to move to something that's being enhanced and will help bring you to the future."

Although Cruikshank has a strong background with performance (both application and database tuning) he tells customers that performance isn't the reason they should be converting. "You should have much better business reasons for wanting to modernize your database, new features and functions you should be using," he notes. "Maybe you've got a project coming down the road where you've got to change the sizes of fields, you've got to add another column to a table--now is the time to put a stake in the ground and say, 'As part of this project we're going to reverse engineer, we're going to use SQL DDL to generate our new database.' Just follow the strategy, and it'll remove some of the pain," he recommends.

Back to the Xcase Utility

The Xcase diagnostic utility analyzes databases up to a rate of approximately 1,000 files per hour (remotely attached clients running the tool can take longer). It reverse engineers the database into a graphical model and generates a comprehensive Diagnostic Report with three sections: Executive Summary, Technical Summary, and Technical Details. The sections provide data for determining the scope and duration of a given database modernization project for both manual and automated conversions, as well as detail to help expedite the file preparation phase, Resolution says.

The company reports that one large retailer ran the diagnostic utility against a database containing more than 2,000 files. The report named 189 files with missing or invalid source code, which saved the retailer "a huge amount of analysis time." It also learned it would need to generate more than 375,000 lines of code during the conversion. "They were planning to modernize this database manually," Muyal says, "but they discovered that they could save months of programming time by automating the conversion process using Xcase."

Where to Find It
Although the Xcase Database Modernization Diagnostic utility is an integrated component of Xcase for System i, Resolution is offering it free on its own. The base url is www.XcaseforSystemi.com. To download the diagnostic utility, go to http://www.XcaseforSystemi.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=79.

Posted by cmaxcer on July 19, 2008 at 7:31 PM | Comments (28)

July 14, 2008 8:33 AM

Green Is for the Grinch, or Do System i Shops Even Need to Be Green?

In the x86-based Windows world, server proliferation has been burning medium and larger companies. As data centers have been overrun with new servers for new workloads, the sheer numbers of servers have been sucking up more power than data centers can handle, jacking up utility bills, and generally wasting energy as they sit around blowing fans over under-utilized processors that still manage to crank out enough heat to fry eggs faster than hot summer asphalt in Phoenix, Arizona.

With not enough power, not enough room, and overtaxed air conditioning equipment, IT shops suddenly have clear fiscal imperatives for server consolidation and virtualization initiatives -- never mind the ease-of-management and best-practice incentives. Consequently, Intel and AMD have been working hard to create new processors that suck significantly less power, and when taken as a whole over data centers, the reduced energy consumption has resulted in some excellent cost savings. Besides, buying new hardware and virtualizing servers can be a heckuva lot cheaper than building a new data center.

These kinds of efforts have somehow managed to become the new "green" in IT -- and oh, everybody seems to want to be part of it. IBM launched Project Big Green, a $1 billion investment to dramatically increase the efficiency of IBM products. Other leading companies have been going green, too, so rather than belabor the point, let's get to it:

I'm not convinced that most System i-centered organizations are particularly concerned about being green.

By System i-centered, I mean small- and medium-size enterprises whose primary business computing server is one-to-several System i boxes (although some early adopters could certainly be running a Power System with IBM i). These organizations most certainly have a handful of Windows or Linux servers which could benefit from virtualization and consolidation efforts, but the act of doing so wouldn't necessarily result in an important green paycheck for the business.

For some of these companies, I'm wondering if being green might be something like trading in a car that's already paid for in order to buy a shiny new hybrid that gets a little better gas mileage . . . how many years must pass before the cost of acquisition starts making sense?

But maybe that's not even the point with being green. Maybe it's more about being a good citizen of the world. Still, how many System i-centered organizations are being green for the good of the world -- or even for their budgets?

Is "green" an issue for your organization? Are you already buying and looking at solutions in which "greenness" is a factor?

Posted by cmaxcer on July 14, 2008 at 8:33 AM | Comments (11)