Free printers, free educational grants, and reduced server prices are highlights of the week.
COMMON this week issued a statement saying that the new IBM POWER7 machines indicate IBM's continuing commitment to "ongoing investment and enhancement" to its Power Systems line of business and reiterated the user group's belief that the new systems will strengthen the COMMON community.
"The new POWER7 machines show IBM's commitment to its IBM i and AIX customers' needs and requirements," said Pete Massiello, COMMON president. "These new machines offer affordability and outstanding performance, energy efficiency, and reliability for IBM i, AIX, and Linux applications," he said. "The low-end 7XX models, along with the 795, complete the product line that was announced in February," he said.
"As the largest user group serving the Power Systems community, I'm sure that attendees to our 2011 Annual Meeting and Exposition in Minneapolis next May will be able to get a first-hand view of these new systems," said Massiello.
Among the new systems are four new lower-priced models—the IBM Power 710, 720, 730, and 740 Express models. Also introduced were the IBM i Edition Express for Blade Center S that integrates IBM i and Windows blades in the same chassis. The new IBM i Solution Editions for midsized businesses feature integrated ERP software or upgrades from the major ERP vendors. The largest system that IBM introduced—the IBM Power 795, is a massive 256-core system with 1024 threads and is four times faster than previous generations of IBM Power series systems and five to seven times faster than any rival offering, according to IBM.
New Power Systems customers are focusing more on Windows, Linux, or UNIX solutions than IBM i, but IBM is finding a ready market among companies that want to consolidate their existing IBM i and UNIX applications onto a single server. The more economical solution has users migrating from competing UNIX solutions onto one consolidated IBM Power Systems server. See the note below on the relative cost of POWER7 servers compared to the POWER6 servers they replace.
Also, the major ERP vendors have teamed with IBM to offer substantial discounts to users purchasing the IBM i Solution Editions with integrated ERP software. Check with your IBM Business Partner for details.
Change Management Suite with Open Systems Plug-in
While start-from-scratch development may be limited today on the IBM i platform, longtime IBM i customers continue to upgrade and update their systems with new hardware and additional software. One new kid on the block is Synergivity Software, distributors of an easy-to-use but feature-rich change management suite. Based in Peterborough, New Hampshire, Synergivity is the North American distributor for Switzerland-based Midrange Dynamics, a company founded 12 years ago by ex-pat Michael Morgan.
I spoke with Marketing Director Mary Langen this week, and she was eager to share her excitement over the positive feedback being expressed by the U.S. firms at which she currently is running trials of Midrange Dynamics' change management software. The company's flagship product, MDCMS for IBM i, comprises project management, analysis, source and object management, distribution and installation management, and auditing. The software has been actively sold in Europe for years and has solutions deployed with 85 customers. Financial institutions reportedly are among its most frequent adopters.
Relatively unknown in North America, Midrange Dynamics and MDCMS can help customers streamline their lifecycle development, according to Langen. MDCMS now offers a new open systems plug-in, MDOpen, that provides functions useful in managing application changes on IBM i and in multiplatform development environments including UNIX (AIX), Linux, and .NET. For developers in team environments using open-source tools such as Subversion or CVS—even .NET developers—MDOpen provides an intuitive interface and good functionality at the workspace level, Langen says. Users can learn more about the new change management suite at www.midrangedynamics.com or www.synergivity.com.
SiD Offers Expanded Grant Program
On the IBM i training front, System i Developer, organizers of the RPG & DB2 Summit, have announced they will provide training grants totaling 15 days of education to six deserving IBM i developers to attend this fall's RPG & DB2 Summit or the related Headstart Seminars. The SiD conference will be held October 11-14 in Minneapolis.
The grants are being called Education for Developers in Transition (EDiT), and System i Developer started the grant program last spring when its founders realized there were a large number of unemployed developers challenged by having to keep their skills current. The group had provided grants on an individual basis prior to last spring, but never on this scale.
"Last spring, we tried to include as many people as possible, expecting that most applicants would live within driving distance and have virtually no travel expenses," said Susan Gantner, a partner at System i Developer. "But the i community surprised and impressed us with their willingness to invest in travel in order to update their skills. Unfortunately, some couldn't justify the cost of travel for a single half-day seminar. So, for this conference, we decided to repackage the benefits to expand the amount of education covered by each grant and increase our total commitment from 11 days of education to 15. This fall, there will be three full scholarships instead of two, and each full scholarship will also include a day of Headstart Seminars. Plus, the seminar grants will double to cover two half-day seminars instead of one," Gantner said.
I spoke with one of last spring's grant recipients, Allison Taylor, shortly after she landed a new job that she attributed to the training she received at SiD. She couldn't have been more enthusiastic about the System i Developer conference and particularly the grant she received that helped her launch a new career. Taylor cashed in her frequent-flier miles to get to the conference and took money out of savings for the hotel to take advantage of the opportunity.
"I don't believe the folks from System i Developer fully realized [that] what they were doing could make that kind of impact," said Taylor. "I know they thought maybe they could help some people out, but I don't think they realized that for someone that is going to go…for someone that hasn't been working…if they could get their own [online] account and start brushing up on the new technology, they can have something that they can show when they interview:" At the suggestion of Jon Paris, System i Developer partner, Taylor honed her new skills on a public AS/400 hosted at http://Rzkh.de. RZKH is a European consulting company that offers a public IBM System i. Taylor said that for about $35 a month, she had access to the system and could work on projects to practice her newly acquired skills. There are some new cloud offerings in the works along these lines that we will discuss next issue, but meanwhile, see Aaron Bartell's article on the IBM Virtual Loaner Program at Test Drive IBM i For Free.
During her employment interview, Taylor was asked very specific questions by the interviewer, who happened to be a senior developer. At one point, after she correctly answered a question about how she might know if she in fact had a record after performing a file change, the interviewer said, "Thank God! Someone that knows current stuff using the built-in functions! I've been getting a lot of people who have been checking indicators."
"Continuing education and participation in the [RPG & DB2] Summit was a key factor in landing this great job," Taylor told SiD organizers. "We are implementing a new system that uses the best of existing tools combined with new technologies, so they were looking for someone who would not be intimidated by that. They want someone who actively continues to learn new things," Taylor said.
Meanwhile, SiD organizers are optimistic about attendance at this year's Summit and also the prospects for the recovering economy. Paid registration to this fall's Summit was up almost 40 percent at the end of early registration compared to the same period for the March 2010 summit.
"If registration continues at this pace, the Summit will be back to pre-recession attendance levels this fall," said Gantner. "That suggests to us that companies are beginning to invest again." Applicants for the EDiT grants should note that Wednesday, September 15, is the deadline for grant applications, and grant recipients will be responsible for their own travel and hotel expenses. Grant details, including qualification criteria and how to apply, can be found at www.systemideveloper.com/EDiT.html
Anyone Need a Free Printer?
Last but not least in the category of freebies for the i community, which we try to bring you with regularity in MC TNT Tips 'n Techniques, is a promotion sponsored by ACOM Solutions. The company is offering a free MICR-enhanced Xerox Phaser 3250N laser-check printer valued at $895 with the purchase of EZPay Manager payment solution for IBM i and MS Windows.
"The Phaser 3250N MICR printer represents an excellent combination of speed and versatility for ACOM's key market—midsize businesses that need to modernize and streamline their check payments for greater security, economy, efficiency, and control," said James R. Scott, ACOM vice president of sales and marketing. "Moreover, our enhancement of this excellent Xerox printer allows it to be used either for check production or for general office printing, simply by changing out the toner cartridge and flipping a switch," he said. The network-enabled Phaser 3250N prints checks at 30 pages per minute at 600 dpi resolution. Note that the offer from ACOM is good only through September 30.
It's a Wrap
That wraps up this week's new or free offerings for IBM i users. One note to readers, however, on the new POWER7 servers from IBM referred to in the COMMON announcement above and in an earlier story from IBM, many—especially the Express models—are actually far less expensive (in some cases by half) than the equivalent POWER6 servers they replace and offer way more processing power. See your IBM Business Partner for details and system quotes.
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