System iNetwork

November 2009

November 30, 2009 9:43 AM

Gartner Says Server Market Stabilizing

While worldwide server shipments for the third quarter of 2009 declined 17.1 percent over the same quarter as last year, with server revenue dropping 15.5 percent, research firm Gartner is seeing signs of light.

"It is important to put the yearly declines into perspective," notes Jeffrey Hewitt, a vice president of research for Gartner. "Looking at the third quarter results from the sequential perspective, they showed an increase of 13.8 percent in shipments and 10.2 percent in revenues when compared to the second quarter of this year. That suggests that the market as a whole is showing signs of stabilization as we move toward the end of 2009."

Worldwide server revenues totaled $10.7 billion for the quarter on worldwide server shipments of 1.2 million units.

IBM held the revenue lead in the worldwide server market for the quarter (see Table 1), staying ahead of HP by 1.5 percent. Of the five major vendors Gartner tracks, Dell was the only company to squeak out less than double-digit declines in revenue year over year. However, Gartner's research shows that four of the top tier vendors experienced sequential revenue growth (except Sun Microsystems, which posted the biggest relative drops in both revenue and shipments).

In server shipments, Gartner reports Hewlett-Packard retained its worldwide server shipment lead, as its market share reached 32.1 percent for the quarter. Dell maintained the No. 2 spot with a 22.8 percent share (see Table 2). IBM came in third with 13.3 percent.

Interestingly, while the global server providers all posted year-on-year shipment declines for the quarter, all of the vendors experienced sequential shipment increases for the period.

IBM's Spin

IBM, of course, looks at Gartner's numbers through blue glasses: IBM continues to take share from HP in x86 servers, noting that HP's play to flip the Compaq installed base has run its course--while crediting IBM's improved sales and channels models, along with its System x product set. IBM gained 2.2 points of revenue share in x86, with nearly 5 percent Blade growth. This was the second quarter of revenue share gains for IBM in the x86 market, IBM says, taking share at HP's expense.

As for Unix, IBM gained 4.2 points of revenue share year over year. No doubt IBM saw at least some benefit from the uncertain winds blowing around the Sun-Oracle acquisition. Last month, IBM announced that 235 customers moved workloads to IBM servers and storage systems from Sun and HP in the third quarter. A total of 84 clients moved to IBM Power Systems from Sun in the third quarter, IBM says, while an additional 44 clients moved to IBM Power from HP.

Gartner, unfortunately, does not break out the IBM i operating system in its public reports.

Posted by cmaxcer on November 30, 2009 at 9:43 AM | Comments (0)

November 24, 2009 8:15 PM

COMMON Hints at Opening Session

COMMON's Opening Session at its 50th anniversary meeting event in May in Orlando is coming together--the user group posted some nuggets that include none other than IBM CEO Sam Palmisano and Rod Adkins, senior vice president of the IBM Systems and Technology Group.

Here's a snip from COMMON's event page:

The Annual Meeting will kickoff on Monday, May 3, 2010 with the Opening Session, which will include a special message to the attendees from Sam Palmisano, IBM's Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer! The Opening Session will also feature a keynote address by Rod Adkins, Senior Vice President, IBM Systems and Technology Group. This is an unprecedented level of support and recognition of COMMON from IBM with representation at our 50th Anniversary Celebration by IBM's two top executives. It will be a kickoff event that you do will not want to miss!

Special Message?

So what's the special message? But more importantly, how is the message going to be delivered? In person? Via a live satellite or Internet-based connection? A recorded video? Or a note left in special goody bags taped to the bottom of each seat?

I put in a PR request to both COMMON and IBM for the answer, but I haven't heard back yet.

My guess?

I'd look for a live feed or a video. Special message seems to imply just that, and if Palmisano was indeed going to be onsite, I'm guessing COMMON would have said so.

Unless it's some sort of secret.

Meanwhile, look for the next version of IBM i to be announced around the event, as well as some tangible solutions that IBM mentioned back in October.

Posted by cmaxcer on November 24, 2009 at 8:15 PM | Comments (5)

November 23, 2009 11:32 AM

Interest in Blades, POWER7, PowerVM Picking Up

I reached out to Stan Staszak, director of infrastructure services for Sirius, which is a large IBM Premier Business Partner who does a lot of IBM i-related sales, for a quick catch-up Q&A. Staszak says Sirius is "seeing a fair amount of system upgrade activity lately, especially due to the fact that we are closing in on the end of the year."

So what about interest in any particular models of Power Systems for iBM i these days?

"Many of our customers are taking a serious look at the Power Blade solutions. It might not be a good fit for everyone, but it can be really attractive from a pricing standpoint," Staszak notes. "I think more companies are starting to adopt some form of blade-based server solutions in their data centers, so customers may be somewhat more receptive to blades now--as opposed to traditional rack or tower based servers."

Any speed bumps for IBM i customers looking at a blade path?

"The obvious challenge to a IBM i on Blade solution is the learning curve. Customers have to become familiar with VIOS and external storage servers--unless they utilize the internal disk on the BladeCenter S chassis," he explains.

So are customers already looking forward to POWER7--or not so much yet?

"Yes, I think customers are really looking forward to the POWER7 and V7R1 announcements next year--I've seen a lot of interest in recent months," Staszak says.

How about storage? Any interesting trends or technology of interest these days?

"I think the recent DS5xxx native attach announcement was interesting. Only time will tell how receptive customers will be to that model (on the IBM i platform). I also like and appreciate the fact that IBM is continuing to invest in internal SAS disk and controllers. IBM i customers don't like to feel that they are forced to adopt some new technology," Staszak explains. "We have seen some IBM i accounts implement external storage, and I'm sure that others will go that route in the future, but it's nice to have a valid internal disk alternative for customers who prefer internal disk."

How about PowerVM . . . any IBM i-focused action?

"Absolutely, the majority of our customers have already employed a virtualized strategy in the form of LPAR's, which necessitates a PowerVM license. Also, PowerVM is required if they choose to implement VIOS in their environment," Staszak says. "I haven't seen any IBM i customers trying Active Memory Sharing yet, but this technology would also require PowerVM," he adds.

Posted by cmaxcer on November 23, 2009 at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)

November 18, 2009 10:01 AM

New Power System Fits For SAP-Focused Manufacturer

I want to point you to a great case study published by IBM about a German manufacturer that underwent a big upgrade and ultimately choose to stick with IBM i--in this case, running on a new Power 570. One of the interesting things about companies running on SAP is that they have several viable hardware/OS/database options, and IBM i on Power remains compelling.

The manufacturer in question is Karl E. Brinkmann GmbH (KEB), which specializes in motion control devices contained in almost all kinds of appliances and machines, from cars, dishwashers and pumps to cranes, lifts and huge wind turbines. The company has an international customer base with regional offices around the world, employs 1,200+ people, and generates €170 million annually.

Here's some interesting snips:

Although KEB had been using IBM servers for many years with very satisfactory results, the radically changed requirements dictated a thorough review of all major vendors' offerings. The analysis included performance, total capacity, scalability and reliability data.

"We determined that staying with IBM Power Systems servers was the best option, as we could guarantee good performance from the SAP applications and valuable in-house know-how could be maintained," says Bernhard Peuser. "Not least, a move to any other system would have meant a much more complicated migration process. IBM has a clear roadmap for its Power Systems platform as well as for the IBM i operating system, and stepping towards POWER6 processor-based systems was completely logical."

KEB implemented its new SAP ERP applications on two IBM Power Systems servers running the IBM i operating system, with a Power 570 server with four POWER6 processors for production, and an i525 server with two POWER5+ processors for backup in the second data centre.

IBM makes a great point--any organization looking at this large of an upgrade has to do some diligence by reviewing all the major vendors' offerings.

To support the worldwide SAP applications, KEB selected IBM DB2. The production database, on the first partition of the System i server, is around 650GB; the test and development database is around 900GB; and the SAP Solution Manager dataset is 150GB. An additional Lotus Domino server database is 450GB.

Bernhard Peuser comments, "It was only logical to go for DB2, as this is integrated within the IBM i operating system. We are very pleased with the ease of administration. There is no need to employ dedicated database administrators, and our IT staff can manage the database as part of their day-to-day business."

No DBAs? Of course not. Again, this is a key cost-analysis point that still gets lost after all these years.

There's also a nugget on the beefed up abilities of POWER6--previously, KEB dedicated three processors to its SAP application workload, but with the new Power System, KEB requires only two, and yet, performance is better.

There's a lot more detail on IBM's site, of course, including a handy .pdf version you can download. Check it out!

Posted by cmaxcer on November 18, 2009 at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

November 16, 2009 11:30 AM

Paris, Gantner Say Bye-bye to COMMON

As if we couldn't see this one coming: long-time RPG and IBM i development experts Jon Paris and Susan Gantner have officially (and publicly) announced they will not be attending the 50th anniversary COMMON conference in Orlando in May--this after attending two decades of consecutive COMMON conferences.

The news came last week on the dynamic duo's blog. Here's a snip:

Had it not been for the need to examine our participation from a financial perspective, we would probably have continued on autopilot, delivering sessions along with our other volunteer duties, as we've done every time a COMMON conference rolled around. Being forced to think about whether we could afford to do that next year also caused us to think about why we were doing it in the first place and whether the time, money and energy we've been donating to COMMON represent the best way for us to help the community.

COMMON members who have been following COMMON's efforts to keep its boat afloat remember a variety of cost-cutting measures COMMON announced at its annual meeting and conference in Reno earlier this year. Among some very smart changes--for instance, utilizing smaller hotels with smarter room blocks and reservation expenses--COMMON also made some controversial cuts. The most notable, of course, brings us back to Paris and Gantner and speaker compensation. The upshot? COMMON will reimburse speaker expenses, et al, at drastically reduced rates. This means that speakers who might have delivered several educational sessions might also have faced steep increases in their cost to attend the COMMON event.

A Twisted Family Tree

OK, this gets a bit messy, so I've hesitated to cover it all that much. Here's some disclosures: Scott Klement, a well-known RPG expert and IBM i developer guru, is also a System iNetwork technical editor. If a System i were a musical instrument, Scott would be a rock star. Like many of our tech editors and advisors, Scott has a day job, of course. We pay Scott, too, but we've got a budget, as well.

In addition to the work Scott does for System iNetwork, he also speaks at various conferences and user group events. He's become a respected speaker. The bottom line? Scott offers up a lot of time and expertise to the IBM i community that is not compensated. He is an amazing resource.

Meanwhile, back in Reno, COMMON's changes to speaker compensation left Scott wondering if he could afford to attend the next COMMON. Because Scott is a super smart guy, the value he gets from attending COMMON doesn't really benefit his day job--Scott teaches far more than he learns. Consequently, his company isn't paying for him to attend COMMON, which makes total business sense. So, Scott has to attend COMMON on his own time, on his own dollar.

What about System iNetwork? Myself and several of my peers attend as members of the press, and we're required to report on the events of COMMON as part of the "free" admittance we enjoy. Usually, at most industry events, reporters can get in free. The point? News, buzz, free PR for the event, etc. Standard stuff. But there's a limit on the number of reporters an organization can send, plus the everyday food, travel, and lodging expenses are not covered by events -- publications, like other businesses, reimburse for that.

Circling back to Scott, last spring after COMMON's announcements he was doing the math, and it just wasn't adding up: time away from home, from work, plus major new expenses . . . wow, he couldn't see attending, either.

And that would have been a tough loss for the IBM i community. You'd think COMMON would be able to identify its rock star members, find a way to market them, and keep them attending.

Now, it looks like System iNetwork will be able to help cover some of Scott's new costs to attend COMMON, so as of right now, things are looking good there.

Continuing to stir the soup, our Group Publisher, Wayne Madden, is now the president of COMMON. He wasn't involved in our efforts to tweak our budget in regard to Scott, I'm just acknowledging his new role with COMMON. And while I'm at it, I should mention that Wayne has taken great care to keep COMMON separate from Penton Media business, and I have no inside track on what the COMMON board is up to.

There are others, of course, that the COMMON decision affects, though maybe not as directly. Aaron Bartell, of the MowYourLawn.com blog, who is also a vocal IBM i developer and speaker, is a high-profile casualty. It seems as if he'll still make the COMMON conference, but he'll be speaking much less than previously, and his day-job company will likely be paying the bills.

Speculation

Now, there's a few reasons that I can think of that would explain COMMON's speaker compensation changes. First, the cost-to-return, when calculated over the entire conference, is a nasty number. If COMMON looked at all the speakers, it's possible that many speakers who were only delivering a session or two, could take the reimbursement hit and still attend. Especially for the 50th anniversary event. But I'm also wondering if this is a way for COMMON to reduce the number of sessions to offer, which could help reduce conference event costs, and possibly beef up attendance for other sessions, making rooms fuller, rather than offering such a large cornucopia of sessions . . . in sometimes empty rooms.

Part of the problem of being a user group is playing nice with everyone. Fair. Rules and all. Conferences that are not industry associations or user groups, this stuff is easy: you offer up contracts, you negotiate, and you find common ground to make presenting and attending worthwhile for everyone. I find blanket rules silly, especially in our modern age in 2009. Perhaps COMMON doesn't have a method for getting Paris and Gantner to Orlando . . . or perhaps the COMMON board does not want to find one. Hard to say. Maybe there's bruised egos and education competition getting in the way.

Either way, here we are, and two icons of the IBM i industry won't be at the 50th anniversary COMMON conference in Orlando.

Posted by cmaxcer on November 16, 2009 at 11:30 AM | Comments (26)

November 9, 2009 10:56 AM

BCD Joins iManifest

Long-time midrange-focused solution provider BCD has joined iManifest United States, lending both its ongoing support and an undisclosed monetary contribution to the cause. BCD has a track record of activity and support in the IBM i space, so I found its heretofore absence to the initiative surprising. I asked Eric Figura, BCD's director of sales and marketing, why now? Had any circumstance changed recently?

"I always knew we were going to do it," he says, noting that it's just a matter of getting everything lined up and together. For instance, BCD is currently working with its business partners in Europe in an effort to get them involved in iManifest EMEA. While BCD solutions are available around the world, it just makes sense to have the business partners who are working more directly with local customers to show support for iManifest EMEA, he notes.

Figura says that BCD sees iManifest as an important way to invest in and promote the IBM i platform -- and to show people that the collective IBM i-focused vendor community is committed to investing in IBM i. One of the things he hopes to see come out of the iManifest initiative is something dear to BCD's heart: promoting the technology that can be leveraged from IBM i. And that's a message BCD has worked to shape and deliver with its own product line.

"Anything that you want to do on this platform, you can do it right here, right now," he says, noting that there's solutions available and that customers don't have to wait for IBM.

Meanwhile, BCD is working to integrate the iManifest logo throughout its web site and onto it marketing materials. And Figura hopes to see the iManifest logo become a de facto standard in the IBM i community -- shown on the web sites, ads, and literature of all its members.

For the latest details and how to participate, check out iManifest United States, iManifest EMEA, or iForum in Japan.

Posted by cmaxcer on November 9, 2009 at 10:56 AM | Comments (9)

November 2, 2009 10:24 AM

Friends in Spain Support iManifest

The publisher of ServerNEWS in Spain, Albert Blanch, sent me a heads-up note -- ServerNEWS is looking to fill the two center pages of its magazine with a graphic "Manifesto" to help promote IBM i, POWER, and the IBM Business Partners and ISVs who support IBM i.

"The ultimate goal is to achieve before the end of the year between 18 and 26 participants to fill the two center pages of the magazine with an ad with their logos, activity and website," Blanch says.

Part of the idea, of course, is that the iManifest message can also be spread to IT leaders who might miss seeing any big print ads in, for example, the Financial Times, which may end up printing the manifest that comes out of iManifest EMEA's efforts.

So, here's a chance for IBM i-focused solution providers to show their commitment to IBM i in Spain. For more, check out http://help400.blogspot.com, which includes a great slide deck that explains the efforts. (Note, for a rough translation of the page, go to http://translate.google.com/ and drop in the url.)

Posted by cmaxcer on November 2, 2009 at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)