With the advent of the Power Systems from IBM, the traditional iSeries (AS/400) and pSeries (AIX) have now merged into a single hardware platform presence. The AS/400 – iSeries – i5/OS (whatever you want to call it) is now 25 years old and that’s a long time running in the technology world. Experts over the years have always promised the demise of the iSeries with whatever new flavor is on the market. This post a couple of years ago by the Info-Tech research group dispelled several myths surrounding the potential demise of the iSeries: Is IBM i a dying platform, or still going strong?
All of these are true and growing stronger with each passing release and technology update. The “green screen” is still in existence but IBM and business partner ISVs have been expanding the delivery methods that include:
- WebSphere
- Tomcat
- Apache web server
- Lotus suite
- DB2/i Web Query
- iSeries Navigator for the web
- Development tools including JAVA, C/C++, PHP, etc.
- ERP software advancements; SAP, Oracle/PeopleSoft/JDEdwards, etc.
Several items on this list have been with the iSeries for many years, yet many people have never knew about those capabilities. With the latest technology release, IBM has upgraded and improved many web-development areas – JAVA, ARE (application runtime expert), free-form RPG coding, plus several hardware feature improvements including:
- Smaller form factor for SSD drives. Both 387 and 775Gb drives.
- New 1.2Tb 10k RPM SAS drive
- Higher level of cache on SAS Raid adapters
- Continued SQL improvements for DB2/i.
The future of technology is the ever-changing presentation of information to the consumers – iPhone, Droids, tablets, etc – by way of the ability to process data, analyze it, turn it into information, and then present it to consumers in whatever “omni-channel” they choose. IBM and iSeries will continue to flourish and grow with more integration, more big data processing, maximum u-time, and one of the highest TCO in the market place.
TxMQ can help support your hardware needs. Look to us as a full-service solutions provider, from Power System and iSeries sales to support. Call Miles Roty, 716-636-0070 (228) or email [email protected] for more information.
