Smarter Computing: the IBM i Cloud Video

During the first half of this year, IBM has released two videos that help explain how IBM i fits in the Smarter Computing message within IBM’s overall Smarter Planet strategy. I talked about the first video in “Designed for Data – IBM i Video” and the second was introduced by Alison Butterill in her guest blog titled “Smarter Computing and Workload Optimized Infrastructure for IBM i.” Today, I introduce the final video in the three-video series.

Why three? Well, as you have likely noticed over the past four years, IBM has been talking about the Smarter Planet strategy. Supporting this strategy, the focus of our part of IBM has been to enable Smarter Computing, and the three aspects of Smarter Computing are:

• Designed for Data
• Optimized Systems
• Managed in the Cloud

With the release of Live Partition Mobility for IBM i, in 7.1 TR4, IBM i is now an operating system that is fully capable of PowerVM-based cloud hosting. PowerVM is its underlying virtualization layer, and HMC and Systems Director components manage the cloud instances. This, then, is the perfect time for you to see the final video in the series. Here is the URL – bit.ly/IBMiCloud and here is the video:

Once again, I am proud to be part of this video. As I mentioned in some LinkedIn discussions after the prior videos were released, these videos are intended to be conversation starters. They position a technology you already know about – IBM i – within the overall strategy of Smarter Computing. They can also be valuable to show someone who has heard about IBM’s Smarter Planet message, but who hasn’t heard about how IBM i fits into that strategy.  Much like the “Why IBM i?” presentation I talked about last week, the video allows us as IBM and you as IBM i professionals to have material we can all use to explain the value and vitality of the platform.

This past two months or so have been very busy for many of us within the IBM i community, as we’ve had several conferences, advisory councils and customer briefings. It seems I am giving my “IBM i Trends & Directions “ presentation two or three times a week. One key section of that presentation talks about Smarter Planet and explains how IBM i has been supporting that strategy for some time, and it’s only now becoming clearer to the world at large. These videos may not tell the whole story – no single series of short videos could – but they help us start the conversation. They help us encourage people to learn about IBM i, or to learn more about this server that has always been designed for data, that takes the expertise of the IBM i development team and optimizes systems for business use, and that now offers cloud capabilities both in the virtualization which has existed for decades, as well as hypervisor-based virtualization which matches any in the Power Systems family.

We hope you like the videos and find them useful in explaining what value your business gets from the platform: Power Systems + IBM i.

 

 

 

 

Twitter: #ibmi, #PowerVM #powersystems @Steve_Will_IBMi

 

IBM PureSystems and IBM i

Today IBM is announcing IBM PureSystems, and as announcements go, it is a major announcement. It touches all aspects of what IBM offers customers, and all parts of IBM’s business have been involved in creating it, and will continue to be involved in delivering it. In today’s “You and i” I want to give you a very brief overview of IBM PureSystems, from the “i” perspective.

As I mentioned recently, and Alison wrote about last time, the strategic Smarter Planet initiative in IBM has been a driving force behind how we explain IBM technology value for the world today, and in the near future. But Smarter Planet is more than a marketing message – it also provides the framework for designing and creating answers to the questions we know our customers are facing, or will face soon. A key set of technology forming IBM’s answer to those questions has been previewed for the past several months - Expert Integrated Systems. IBM PureSystems is the family of Expert Integrated Systems.

You can find out much more than I have space to describe by visiting the IBM PureSystems website – ibm.com/puresystems – but I thought long-time “i” clients would be interested in a few key aspects on announce day.

Let’s get the biggest question out of the way first: Yes, PureSystems supports IBM i – or IBM i supports PureSystems – however you look at it. You can run IBM i solutions in either of the two PureSystems configurations: a PureFlex system, which is intended to be an infrastructure system in an IT organization, or a PureApplication system, which incorporates ISV solutions into the platform. Now that we know that, let’s get on to other interesting aspects of IBM PureSystems.

You can see the three cornerstone values of PureSystems in the picture above, and those values should sound very, very familiar to the IBM i users among us:

• Integration by Design – Deeply integrating and tuning hardware and software
• Simplified Experience – Reducing the complexity and shortening the amount of time it takes to get value out of your IT
• Built-In Experience – Using the expertise IBM has built up over the years to capture and automate what experts do when deploying a complete IT solution

Those values, of course, are historically the same values IBM i has carried forward from our heritage.

• Integration by Design – The “i” in IBM i stands for integration, after all.
• Simplified Experience –The simplicity of managing our platform has always been a hallmark of IBM i, and it helps drive the world-class Total Cost of Ownership value appreciated by our clients.
• Built-In Experience – From DB2 for i, which automates much of its own “care and feeding,” to using intuitive and automatic means to provide security to protect your data and your system, IBM i has built in experience from our developers and our partners over the years.

With PureSystems, these values are applied to a much larger, more comprehensive portion of the IBM portfolio. As IT shops grow, and become more integral in providing strategic value to their companies, they need their x86-based workloads to work better with their Power technology-based workloads. They need all of those workloads to use virtualization effectively to provide availability and reliability, while using their storage and networking in a optimal ways. PureSystems are designed to address those needs.

Applying traditional IBM i values to enterprise IT requirements as a whole involves every part of IBM, as I mentioned above. In some ways, it’s an evolution of what existed before, but in other ways, it’s quite a change. Take a few minutes and take a look at what has begun today as we take this next big step in the journey into a Smarter Planet.

 

 

 

Twitter: #ibmi, #expertintsystems,#IBMPureSystems @Steve_Will_IBMi

 

Smarter Computing and Workload Optimized Infrastructure for IBM i

Today's guest blogger is well-known speaker and IBM i expert, Alison Butterill, IBM i Product Manager.

 

Steve and I have been talking with many clients recently about the IBM Smarter Computing initiative and why IBM i is such a perfect platform for implementing smarter computing projects. It was as the result of some of those conversations that I asked to write a guest blog for Steve.

Many IBM i customers do not recognize Smarter Computing as something that pertains to i as much as, if not more than, to other computing platforms. Smarter Computing is not the playground of just large customers. Smarter Computing means just that – smarter ways of using technology. There is no specific mandate and our i customers make decisions every day about what makes computing smarter for their company and for their customers.

First of all, there are 3 main themes under the broader umbrella called Smarter Computing. The first, data and analytics, was discussed by Steve in a previous blog.

The second and the focus of my discussion is workload optimized infrastructure or tuned to a task. And the third is cloud and the requirements for implementing both public and private clouds. The video for the second theme was recently released. You can find it at bit.ly/IBMiWorkloadOptimized.

As I said, I want to talk about Workload Optimized Infrastructure, using some description and an example.

What differentiates a system that is “tuned for the task”? There are several technology components that make up optimization. Things like performance, consolidation, integration, virtualization, exploiting capabilities of the hardware are just a few of the features that make a system able to handle a specific workload more effectively.

Many of those optimization technologies are built into IBM i – virtualization, reliability and so on. One client who is using these capabilities is Multivac, a packaging equipment manufacturer, from Germany. They have been on a long journey to update their infrastructure, optimizing it to run their manufacturing business more effectively and more efficiently.

In 2003, Multivac examined their existing technology solutions and determined that they needed improvement. They chose a phased plan of action based on “the desire to reduce costs, by optimizing the IT infrastructure and reducing the total cost of ownership and operation for its business-critical applications”.

The next step was to choose the solution. Consolidating their applications into one ERP package and putting it onto a single IBM i server would significantly reduce overhead, and energy consumption, and staffing thereby saving money. Their Lotus Notes collaboration software has moved to the IBM i environment enhancing availability and reliability for their Notes users. They continue to add technology to their infrastructure including adding a PowerHA solution, using High Availability Solutions Manager and Cross Site Mirroring. They have added a SAN solution, externalizing their drives and an IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC).

Multivac is committed to ongoing reviews of their technology and their computing environment. Smarter computing to Multivac is using their technology and their computing environment to the fullest extent possible.

Exploiting the technology that they had, adding key components to satisfy business requirement such as virtualization and availability is what Smarter Computing means to Multivac. You can go to the IBM i website and read their full story. 

Workload Optimized Infrastructure means many things to many people. What does it mean in your company?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smarter Planet, Smarter Computing and IBM i

By now, I think most of you have seen the “Smarter Planet” advertisements from IBM. This marketing theme has been the overarching message from IBM for a couple of years, and when you see those ads, you get a sense of the kind of world we here at IBM believe is emerging from advances in technology.

Supporting the “Smarter Planet” strategy, IBM has a “Smarter Computing” strategy, with themes and examples showing IBM technology being used to create the Smarter Computing which drives the Smarter Planet.

Last week I pointed you to a new video about IBM i that fits the first of those Smarter Computing themes: Big Data. The video features a few of us talking about data – how the architecture of IBM i, with its integrated DB2, is well positioned to provide easy ways to get more information out of the data you have. IBM i is, after all “Designed for Data.” 

Find this video at http://bit.ly/IBMiBigData.

This week, I thought I would share a story that is featured on one of IBM’s Smarter Planet sites. The site is titled “Midsize businesses are the engines of a Smarter Planet” and the featured video describes Cherry Central, Inc. Cherry Central is a longtime user of our platform, and they work with N2N Global, a software vendor and IBM Business Partner in the food distribution industry. This solution includes everything needed to run a food distribution company, up to and including the “Smarter Planet” goal of using technology for food safety. Here is the video.

Everyone involved in this solution can be very proud of what they are doing.

It is one of many examples that demonstrates that IBM i clients are already using their powerful and cutting-edge technology together with solutions from our partners to build a Smarter Planet.

Over the next few months, IBM will be telling even more stories about IBM i being used to build a Smarter Planet. In fact, our video is being featured in a Smarter Planet blog written by David Pittman. Check it out. And check back here over the next few months to see more of the Smarter Planet and IBM i story.

 

 

 

Twitter: #ibmi, #powersystems, #smarterplanet @Steve_Will_IBMi