Key IBM i Posts from 2012 “You and i”

This has been an excellent year for IBM i, from many points of view. Professionally, it’s been excellent for me as well – and these two facts are definitely related. I’ve been more involved in talking to clients and partners than ever before, the IBM i team has delivered several key enhancements, and I am excited about the plans we have for 2013 and beyond.

As 2012 draws to a close, I want to leave you with a “summary” post that can serve to gather together the most important messages I’ve delivered here through the year. I’ve organized them into themes

 

Key Announcements

Two Technology Refreshes came out in 2012, and those are important, but they are not the only big announcements: 

• IBM i 7.1 TR4 – with Live Partition Mobility
• IBM i 7.1 TR5 – Navigator, Guardium, BRMS Enterprise & more
• V5R4 End of Service coming 9/30/13
• Software Group Announcements around Rational Open Access and Sub-Capacity Virtualization Pricing

 

IBM i and Smarter Planet

A theme of our messages this year was to show how IBM i fits into the larger message from IBM about building a smarter planet.

• Cherry Central – an IBM i client selected as an example of Smarter Planet when the initiative first began.
• IBM i - Designed for Data Video – The first of three pillars for Smarter Computing, and a clear strength of IBM i.
• IBM – Workload Optimized – The second pillar, in which IBM i benefits again from our DB2 implementation, plus our focus on integrating with applications and storage.
• IBM i – Managed with Cloud Technologies – Finally, the Cloud video, which features Live Partition Mobility.

 

Strategic Messages and Customer Resources

I use this blog to more clearly articulate messages we want you to know about IBM i’s strategy and to share material that you might find useful.

• IBM i Information Strategy – Here is an overview that describes the relationship between blogs, the Information Center, developerWorks and so on. This is likely to be a key theme in 2013.
• “Why IBM i?” Presentation refresh and some overview material about the architecture – We make this presentation available for people to use if they find it helpful. We updated it a couple of times this year and will likely publish more “Why i?” content next year. Watch this space.
• IBM i into the 2020s – A recent blog discussing the long life we are planning for IBM i.
• ITG Studies for IBM i Midsize and Enterprise Clients – The most recent post, with very important information about the financial benefits of using IBM i & Power Systems.

 

I’ve also had a couple of customer reference posts, one about Turner Industries and another about Nishii Paint Industry, a customer IBM i won from the competition. I hope to have more of these next year, because I’ve received quite a few positive comments about the value of these examples.

I look forward to continuing this blog into 2013. I know we have many new things to tell you about throughout the year. I also want to share some of the stories of clients using IBM i solutions to enable their businesses to succeed.

But first, vacation! I’ll enjoy some time off around the holidays. I hope you all can, too. See you next year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strategy Updates in IBM i Development

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to work as a member of the development team for IBM i? What would you do to prepare yourself to make decisions about what parts of the operating system need more investment? How would you learn about the changing technologies and then evaluate new ideas against ideas that have already begun to be implemented? Today, I want to help you understand what my team and I will be doing over the next several weeks to do exactly that. Much of what we discuss is IBM Confidential, of course, so I can’t share it in this blog. But I thought I would give you a peek at how we go about preparing for the difficult process of saying “yes” to many good ideas, while have to say “no” – or at least “not yet” to others.

With the summer comes the beginning of our planning cycle for 2013. During our planning process we look at each of the ideas for new development on IBM i and the related products, as well as future deliveries from Power Systems, PowerVM, Systems Director and so on. By the time the plan process is done, we will have decided to continue most of the work we’ve already started, but we will have decided to modify some of it, stop some completely, and begin new projects.

In preparation for “the plan,” our development team takes a look at each technology area and assesses whether there is enough new information for an update to that area’s strategy on IBM i. A series of strategy sessions is held with the technology experts from the labs presenting that new information, along with their recommendations for changes to our plans, to a small group of Business Architects. We listen to each of these presentations with our minds focusing on interactions of various technical elements, trying to weigh the relative priorities of the changes since the prior year.

Let me give you some examples. One of the first presentations we will hear will be from Jenny Dervin, the lead architect on our PowerHA product. She and her team have made some key deliveries since 7.1 – with the support for V7000 and SVC as part of TR3, for example – and they are actively working on some very important new function for the next major release of IBM i and PowerHA. She will be delivering her presentation during the same session as the owner of another technology area, because we see a good possibility for these two technologies to work together on new High Availability function in the near future.

Soon after that presentation, another will take place with the needs of our ISVs as the focal point. The lead developers who work with our largest ISVs will talk to us about requests those ISVs have, as well as anything else they think IBM i could deliver which would help those largest ISVs compete more effectively on IBM i than they do, for example, on x86 platforms. Also presenting at that meeting will be Kent Milligan, who runs our ISV Advisory Council. He will help us examine the feedback we’ve received from that council, which represents a much wider group of ISVs. With those two presentations taking place at the same time, we hope to see commonalities that will make it easier to create a plan that has all of our ISV needs properly prioritized.

One of the most complicated strategy sessions will have a combination of Cloud-related offerings, PowerVM Virtualization, Storage and SAN. These have some natural overlap, and yet there are also some distinct needs within each area. Getting a high-level view of the overall interaction of them all, while still addressing the key directions of each, will be a good technical challenge, but with the team we have in place, I’m sure we will learn a great deal.

These are just a few examples of the topics we will be examining before our planning cycle starts in earnest. In the past, I’ve tweeted some of the topics we were considering, so if you follow @Steve_Will_IBMi on Twitter, you might catch me announcing the topics as they happen. Feel free to follow along. As you go through the next few weeks at your job, you can picture what the team of IBM i architects, designers and developers will be thinking about as we consider the long-term needs of this platform.

 

Twitter: #ibmi, #powersystems #powerha #powervm @Steve_Will_IBMi

 

2015 and IBM i - It’s Closer Than You Think

I’ve talked frequently about the fact that the folks in IBM i development are working in the future. OK, we’re not literally “in the future” but we have to be writing code for releases that won’t be available right away, and we certainly have to be setting our strategy and plans for years to come.

While some of what drives the decisions is clear – competitive and industry trends for example – there are always confidential business directions that influence our plans as well. People in IBM at very high levels set strategies and goals, and much of the time, we don’t get to talk about those goals.

But then, there are exceptions.

  In May of 2010, IBM’s CEO, Sam Palmisano talked to investors, in a public venue, and made one of IBM’s goals clear – earnings of $20/share by 2015. It was widely reported by industry magazines and sites, and has been discussed by bloggers and other folks interested in the IT industry and investing. The same goal has been reiterated lately, and again, widely reported.

 

When your boss makes a statement like that, you can bet that your plans had better help support that goal. There are many, many parts of IBM, each of which is expected to contribute its portion of revenue to meet that goal, and IBM i will continue to do its part by remaining an integrated platform with world-class security and low total cost of ownership and acquisition, while growing in the areas that help our customers advance their businesses and our partners grow their solutions. We’re heavily involved in the development of the next major release, the Technology Refreshes and other deliverables that will come out before then, and architecture and planning work for capabilities beyond that. If you remember my post from May, the direction we have set for IBM i in 2011 through 2013 is coordinated with doing our part.

When our CEO talks to investors, clearly he has a financial message to give. But underlying that message is the method – the roadmap – for reaching the goal. And that roadmap is based on understanding where the world is going to have needs in 2015 – it’s a reason for the “Smarter Planet” message. So IBM will spend its time and apply its resources, including those of the IBM i team, to meet those needs.

I’ve seen some of what is coming to get us to 2015. It’s pretty cool. Stay tuned.

 

Twitter: #ibmi @Steve_Will_IBMi