2012 - Looking Forward

Generally I write about the latest technical updates to the i operating system as well as about existing features, and I plan to continue this throughout the coming year. I've got a long list of technical topics to write about this year, but wanted to start 2012 off with a non-technical blog.

I pondered what to write about since it's the start of a new year - I thought perhaps that a blog about looking forward, changing, challenging ourselves would be appropriate.

2011 was a great year for IBM Power Systems as well as IBM i – Steve Will wrote about this at the end of last year in his Four Quarters of Growth for IBM i update. 

With excellent momentum coming from 2011, it's up to us in the i community to continue that momentum, to keep moving things forward. IBM has done a terrific job of delivering fantastic hardware with the POWER7 system lineup, and IBM i continues to be enhanced on an ongoing basis. Certainly IBM could do better at documentation and letting the world know about the great things that have been delivered, but various blogs and industry articles help fill in that space.

Forging ahead is good for our technical vitality. It's in our own best interest to keep current on the features of the latest software releases and updates that are made available through technology refreshes and PTFs. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy, holding back from change because maintaining the status quo is easy.

So I challenge my readers with three things:

1. Do something this year to keep current with the latest technology.
   
   If you are on 5.4 or earlier, make an effort to get on 6.1 or better yet 7.1. If you are 6.1 or 7.1, keep updated on the new features that are available. Learning about the latest features is great, but you might also discover things that can make your job easier.
   
   Make an effort to attend local user group meetings or one of the large conferences that are available. Listen in on one of the many webcasts that are offered. Read industry newsletters, articles, and blogs. There are many options available for learning about what's new (for you).
   
   
2. Participate!
   
   As a reader of my blogs, please send comments either publicly or privately. (I try to reply to every comment or email I receive, although my reply may take time). If you have topics you would like to see written about, please let me know.
   
   If you'd like to be a guest blogger on a topic, please contact me. I'm always looking for new topics and there are many areas that are beyond my expertise.
   
   
3. Promote i in a positive manner. We all know that i is a great OS – let's be positive about our contributions this year and extend the momentum that started in 2011 to be even stronger in 2012.

Finally, in closing, I just want to make a simple observation – if i were to suddenly disappear tomorrow, the world as we know it would change significantly. So much of the world's business runs on i, hidden away where it silently toils, day after day. Think about it....

 

 

 

 

COMMON 2011 Annual Meeting

The COMMON 2011 Annual Meeting was underway yesterday. It's always exciting to be part of the conference – both behind the scenes and as a speaker.

My day started off with a breakfast meeting for the members of the education team. Behind the scenes, I'm the IBM liaison to COMMON for the conference agenda-planning work. The education team consists of subject matter experts (SMEs) from many technical areas within and outside IBM. The education team works throughout the year planning the Spring Annual Meeting and the Fall Conference.

COMMON relies on volunteers for many roles, of which the education team is one. COMMON has many volunteer opportunities if you’d like to get involved in helping with the conference.

The opening session was very well attended and was one of the best opening sessions I can remember. Tom Rosamilia, general manager of Power and z Systems gave an update on Power systems. You probably had already heard that IBM sold of out Power7 720 and 740 models in the fourth quarter of last year.  ou probably also know that it’s IBM i that drives the sales of the low-end Power systems models.

Eric Brown, who worked on Watson, gave a presentation that went into more detail in the development of the natural language-processing software and explained the challenges of developing software to understand natural language. It was a very interesting presentation; everyone I talked to after the session found it fascinating.

If you weren’t able to attend COMMON, the opening session was streamed live, and remains available from the COMMON website.

After the opening session was the expo and then the “Ask the Experts” events. These were pretty typical events compared to other years. However, one thing stands out--I had several people tell me how much they enjoy reading this blog and the content it covers, and someone even said, “Hey, you're that blogging lady!”  Feedback is always appreciated, as is input.  As COMMON attendees are getting plenty of education this week, if there are topics that you’d like to see me write about, you can comment to this blog or send me an email.


Twitter: #ibmi @DawnMayiCan #COMMONUG, #ibmiuser

Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professional Association Conference

I had the opportunity to attend the WMCPA technical conference last week. I’d never attended this conference before and I was very impressed. It was a small conference; the staff that hosted the event was very friendly as were all the attendees that I met. It was wonderful to see IBM i students from Gateway Technical College assist and attend the conference as well. These conferences are great ways to connect with others that enjoy working with IBM i and hear how they use the system.

Tuesday evening had a session with a panel to discuss the “State of our i” followed by time for questions. I was impressed with the positive perspectives  the panelists had regarding i and its future; there’s a lot of optimism for the coming year with POWER7 and 7.1. Indeed, POWER7 and the 7.1 release are a great combination. 

Wednesday's keynote address was given by Dr. Frank Soltis and it was interesting as well and entertaining.  Frank is clearly a fan of the “i” toys made by Apple and their integrated nature as he talked about these “i” toys a bit. Frank poked a bit of fun at IBM for not attempting to license “iOS” for IBM i, while Apple was able to do so for their operating system. Frank's main message was, however, the future of  processors – hybrid processors with additional special-purpose processors, and how more function is moving from software into the hardware.

Thursday's keynote address was given by IBM i's Chief Architect, Steve Will. I've heard Steve's presentation on “Why i” and the “7.1 Overview” before – and in his “IBM i, Today, Tomorrow and Beyond” presentation, he took the best of those, added some new material, and had a great presentation that covered what may be the future for many (IBM i 6.1 and 7.1), while giving a glimpse at what the future is for IBM. Steve's point was clear – IBM i has great technology for today and it will be there in the future.

I always enjoy the opportunity to talk with our clients and partners. The passion for the platform is strong, although marketing and skills continue to the main issues that are raised. Regarding the skills issue, I was quite impressed with the cooperation between the WMCPA organization and the students that attend Gateway Technical College, taking IBM i courses. And while the broader IBM may not actively market i they way many would like, those of us passionate about the system are trying to do little things to promote it – the blogs and tweets are one way we can try to share information to a larger community.

There are still many shops on the 5.4 release, but more and more are on 6.1 or 7.1. In fact, the 6.1 versus 7.1 question was talked about quite a bit last week. The general consensus is to upgrade directly to 7.1; the release is stable, has additional new function, and will be supported longer than 6.1. If you're on 5.4, it's a no-brainer to go directly to 7.1.

This was the first of several conferences this spring. In April, I'll be attending the New England Users Group Conference, and of course, there is COMMON in May.

Fall Conference Update

I'm giving several presentations at the Fall COMMON Conference in San Antonio this week. The fall conference this year is a bit different from the fall events that COMMON had the past couple years in that it's sort of a “mini” COMMON conference – a small expo and educational sessions over three days. The attendance at the conference is good and the attendance at my sessions has also been good; the questions/discussions/feedback I've gotten so far has been positive. Seating at breakfast and lunch today was somewhat crowded because of the good attendance, but that's a good problem to have. One of the other things I’ve observed is the many conference badges with green stickers denoting first-time attendees – it's wonderful to see those!

One of the things I always do at the beginning of my presentations is ask the audience what operating system release they’re using. My non-scientific results seem to show more and more of you are now on the 6.1 release, although many are still on 5.4.  Only a handful seems to be moving to 7.1 so far. If you are one of those shops still on 5.4, you have the question to consider – should you move to 6.1 or 7.1 for your next upgrade? 7.1 is most definitely worthy of serious consideration and would get you on the latest supported release of IBM i.

It's exciting when we've had so many new product announcements like we have had this year with POWER7 and the 7.1 release. It's important to provide education about the latest and greatest offerings.  But one thing I've learned is it’s also important to offer education on some of the other features that have been available for a long time. IBM i is so rich in its capabilities, no matter what the topic, I have discovered there’s a need for education. That's one of the nice things about the education COMMON offers; it has a good mix--focusing on what's new, but also providing education on key topics that, while not new, are of significant interest to users.  And it's because of this educational need that I write this blog – although, like this week, I sometimes vary off the technical path to provide thoughts on other topics.

Being active with the COMMON conferences has been a great way to meet and work with many of you in the IBM i community. I always appreciate the passion our users have for our products, and I especially look forward to comments about what you like, as well as input about what you think we can do better! Many times I'll talk with someone who’s having some problems and usually I haven't heard about the specific problem being discussed; in such cases, I'll generally recommend you work the issues through the Rochester, Minn. Support Center. They’re a great resource to use when you do have issues that need to be resolved.

There are a few other things going on this fall that I'll briefly mention:

The Large Users Group (LUG) is meeting in Rochester, Minn. this week. The LUG meeting generally consists of educational information between IBM and the LUG.

Coming in up just a couple weeks is the Power Systems Technical University. This conference has a very broad offering of educational sessions for Power Systems in general, along with technical information related to the operating environments that run on the Power hardware.

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit Vienna, Austria for “Rochester Day.” Ian Jarman and I attended and covered information relating to the latest in POWER7, IBM i 7.1, Systems Management Tools and High Availability Updates. It was a real treat to visit Vienna as I’d never been there before and I was very impressed with the city. It looks like there will be some additional events coming up in November for COMMON Europe as well, and in a future blog I hope to share more about them.