When IBM announced the new eserver Advantage initiative on October 3, it defined the following clear-cut roles for its newly renamed product lines.:

• The AS/400 product line was renamed iSeries, and it will be targeted at B2B commerce for small to medium businesses.

• The RS/6000 product line was renamed pSeries, and it will be targeted at major Internet content providers, such as eBay.

• The Netfinity product line was renamed xSeries, and it will be targeted as an alternative for customers in the same solution areas as the iSeries product line.

In addition, IBM is also specifying that—with the eserver initiative—it is looking to take advantage of the technological strength that comes with sharing technology among its different server groups.

Of course, the iSeries 400 will be no stranger to these parts, particularly in the Microsoft arena. Long before eserver ever came along, the AS/400 had been performing a variety of interesting integration tricks with the Microsoft Windows operating system. The first Microsoft integration technique occurred after IBM introduced the FSIOP several years ago. Over the course of its life, the FSIOP was itself renamed twice and—before the October eserver Advantage initiative—it was most recently known as the Integrated Netfinity Server for AS/400 (INS). Like the rest of the Netfinity product line, the INS also received a name change on October 3, and its new name will be the Integrated xSeries Server for iSeries (IXS).

If you’re not familiar with the INS, it is an Intel-based uni-processor solution for Microsoft Windows servers that is packaged on an AS/400 expansion card. In lieu of using a standalone PC hard drive, the Windows server software is installed into OS/400 DASD and the Windows operating system is run on the INS’ dedicated Intel processor. In addition, the Windows-INS server can be controlled through OS/400 commands or by using new functionality in the AS/400 Operations Navigator (OpsNav) product that comes

with Client Access Express for Windows (Express client). The idea is that you can consolidate up to 16 INS-based Windows NT/2000 servers within a single AS/400.

The INS is interesting because 20 percent of all new AS/400s are now shipping with an INS installed. And, that number may grow because—as opposed to older INS cards, where the processor speed topped out at 333 MHz—the newer INS-INX card contains a more powerful 700 MHz Pentium III processor. This takes the internal INS one step up the food chain in that it can now run more complex Windows-based applications in addition to the file- and print-serving roles it has traditionally been used for. However, you should also note that the INS-INX still only contains a uniprocessor CPU, so it may not be suitable for applications that require a high degree of symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) capability.

IBM’s answer to providing a scaleable INS-like product will be to release a new external 4-way INS—probably called the external xSeries Server for iSeries—sometime in 2001, with the Netfinity 6000R slated to be the first xSeries server that has this capability.

First announced as a statement of direction in February 1999, the external unit will be a standalone xSeries server that—like its internal cousin—can also use OS/400 DASD and peripherals and can also be controlled through OS/400 or OpsNav. The external product, however, will contain multiprocessor CPUs so that you can run SMP applications, and it will be connected to the AS/400 through a high-speed link. Being a standalone server, it will also be more scaleable than the internal product, which, again, allows customers to run more complex Windows-based applications in the B2B marketplace that IBM is targeting for the iSeries servers.

Now the key here is that IBM will be taking this Windows-AS/400 integration technique even farther as it turns towards xSeries Windows-iSeries integration. According to IBM, it is working with several suppliers to provide cross-server products that exploit iSeries and xSeries integration, including products from vendors such as Ariba (www.ariba.com), Siebel (www.siebel.com), Logility (www.logility.com), Yojna (www.yojna.com), Citrix (www.citrix.com), and J.D. Edwards (www.jdedwards.com). IBM is also covering the INS under the Netfinity ServerProven program, which allows software vendors to validate that their applications work on the INS. By providing application validation, ServerProven is designed to accelerate the time it takes to get an application into production on a number of Netfinity platforms, including the INS. The intent of these products and initiatives is to exploit the tight integration of the OS/400 INS solution—where OS/400 and Microsoft Windows are run side by side—which should result in more competitive applications for both the iSeries and xSeries machines. In addition, this exploitation may also allow IBM to more effectively compete for midmarket customers against companies such as Compaq.

As I’ve written in the past, the lines between the different IBM eservers are continually blurring, possibly to the point where, in a few years, it will be difficult to understand where the midrange platform ends and the Intel-based platform begins. And, as IBM continues to tightly integrate the newly rechristened iSeries 400 with its xSeries platforms, the focus will shift away from hardware toward integrated applications that attempt to take advantage of the best both platforms have to offer.