2011 Blog in Review

It’s that time of year when people all over the Internet are writing “year in review” articles. So I asked myself, “If I write one, how will I make it valuable? And how do I make it topical?” I know! I’ll build a blog article that will make a good bookmark or favorite for people’s browsers!

Over the course of 2011, I have written some things readers won’t need to see again. But I have also written some posts we should all have access to for the future. So here we go – with the “You and i” version of a clip show.

Telling the IBM i Story: Why i? & Designed for Business video. I know, this was just last week, but I can assure you I get asked for this information more than anything else. (Almost.)

DB2 for IBM i – Automation and Integration: DB2 on i has so many advantages when compared to our competition, it’s hard to do it justice in one blog entry, but if you want the overview, take a look here.

Happy Customers and New Resources for IBM i: The excellent “Total Cost of Acquisition” chart from the ITG study, plus the link to, and the URL for, the “Power of i” web page.

Spring Announcements and IBM i in developerWorks: This blog is good reference for a couple of reasons. Perhaps the most important is the description of what you can find in developerWorks (dW). In some sense, the “developer” part of the dW name is misleading – it’s not just for developers! Given our strategy of delivering new function twice a year and documenting that new function first in dW, anyone who wants to learn about new IBM i content needs to keep an eye on dW.

Focus Areas in 2011-2013 for IBM i: If you hear me talk about IBM i, you will almost certainly hear me talk about the content I cover here. Everyone seems interested to know what we’re working on. I get asked about this very frequently, too.

Redbooks and More – Latest IBM i Information: The 7.1 Redbooks publication was updated with TR2 & TR3 information. The PowerHA Redbooks publication was rewritten.

Links IBM i Users Need: OK, this might be the single thing I get asked about more often than anything else: “Where can I find more information on such-and-such?” The links contained here are very, very helpful. Links to the ITG Study, the Matrix of Storage supported by IBM i, the new Redbooks, and of course IBM i information in developerWorks.

This is not to say that my blogs about JDE Enterprise One Express, finding ISV supported releases, and PostgreSQL and other open source on IBM i were not important. They just might not be as useful on an ongoing basis.

As we move into 2012, I already have several blog topics planned: the first and second quarter will have some key announcements you’ll hear about here. Until then, I hope you all get to take some time to be with family and friends. That’s certainly my plan.

I’ll see you next year.

(And a special thanks to the “IBM i for Everyone” website for the customized logo, which came from Dan Shirey, through Trevor Perry, one of our Power Champions, if I’m not greatly mistaken. It has served very well for 2011, so I thought I’d recognize it before it’s too late!)

 

 

Twitter: #ibmi @Steve_Will_IBMi 

 

Redbooks and More - Latest IBM i information

The IBM team has been busy producing and/or extensively revising a number of books and papers that contain valuable information about IBM i and its related products.

As I have told almost every audience since last fall, our Technology Refresh strategy involves delivering new capabilities between releases, and this means we need to find methods of getting information about those new capabilities into the hands of our customers. One of those methods is the IBM i portion of the developerWorks site, which I have talked about before. Another method is the well-respected set of Redbooks publications, and lesser-known, but just as valuable Redpapers and Webdocs.

To produce these documents, IBMers from around the world become authors. Usually, these authors are people who work very directly with customers in their “day jobs” but they set aside several weeks to focus on learning how to use the new capabilities we’ve announced. They talk directly with the developers and architects of these functions, and then they sit down to bring the advancements into the real world, explaining in their writing how to take advantage of them. In fact, the final three items on the list – the Webdocs – are programming examples that show how to do specific functions we expect will be helpful to many clients. 

Without further ado, here is the list of recently created or updated IBM i information.

1.  IBM i 7.1 Technical Overview Including Technology Refresh Updates -November 2011   (Redbook)

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/sg247858.html?Open

2.  PowerHA SystemMirror for IBM i Cookbook   (Redbook)

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/sg247994.html?Open

3. Creating IBM i Client Partitions Using Virtual Partition Manager (Redpaper)  

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/redp4806.html?Open

4. Uncovering Application Runtime Expert - IBM i 7.1 (Redpaper)

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/redp4805.html?Open

5.  New Watch for Event Function for IBM i 7.1: How to Take Advantage of QSYSMSG Message Queue (Webdoc)

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0839.html?Open

6. Retrieve the Network Configuration of the System Manager Attached to Your Server From an IBM i Command Line (Webdoc)

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0840.html?Open

7. How to Determine the Amount of Memory Used By the System Firmware From the IBM i Command Line (Webdoc)

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0841.html?Open

 

The IBM i 7.1 Redbook contains information on the new capabilities we’ve added with Technology Refreshes 1, 2 and 3. For example, it has a discussion of “Suspend/Resume” – the ability to put an IBM i partition to sleep and wake it up again later, which was provided in TR2. The ability to use Virtual Partition Manager to create up to four IBM i partitions, available with TR3 is also covered briefly, but the Redpaper on doing that function contains the specific “how to” information.

 

The PowerHA Redbook: this book replaces an older version, and is in direct reaction to the success of the product and the needs of new PowerHA users. The first version of the Redbook was heavily focused on the concepts, but lacked the kind of “step by step” information many clients wanted from a Redbook.   This time, the team focused its work specifically on helping PowerHA users get up to speed quickly.  I think they did a good job.

Until next time, I hope you have set aside some time to read a good book. Or two.

 

 

Twitter: #ibmi #powerha @Steve_Will_IBMi