Solution Editions for IBM i - JD Edwards & Turner Industries Group

Back in the late 1970s, IBM was producing systems the S/36 and S/38 for businesses that needed reliable computing. The success of those IBM systems, and their descendents, was closely tied to solutions produced by Independent Software Vendors.

In recognition of the key role ISV solutions play in our marketplace, and to help customers realize near-term value from purchasing IBM i and those solutions together, Solution Editions were created in 2010. By purchasing a Solution Edition, a customer can get the latest POWER, IBM i and ISV solution at a reduced price, and be assured that the level of stability they expect from the combined platform will provide excellent total cost of ownership. When Solution Editions were created, IBM naturally went to some of our most successful ISVs – first to define the concept, and then to create offerings.

The JD Edwards solution suite has a long history on IBM i. It came into existence at the very time those first midrange systems were introduced, and the partnership has been strong ever since. Yes, the relationship has undergone change – JD Edwards was acquired by PeopleSoft, which was then acquired by Oracle – but the support of the common customers continues, and new capabilities continue to be added for those customers. So it was natural that this would be one of the worldwide Solution Editions.

We have many excellent customer references from joint JD Edwards + IBM i installations, so today I wanted to highlight one of them – Turner Industries Group.

According to its website “Turner Industries has provided a single vendor solution in heavy industrial construction, maintenance, pipe, module and vessel fabrication, equipment, rigging and heavy hauling, and associated specialty services for nearly 50 years.” Yes, like so many IBM i customers, they have a real business to run, and they just need a server and software to help them run it.

Turner Industries had these challenges:

• Support the company’s projected growth
• Deliver increased performance and reliability
• Reduce maintenance costs and hardware footprint
• Facilitate new application development and reporting

Its business partner, CMA Technology Solutions, worked to deliver this solution:

• IBM Power 740 Solution Edition with IBM i and Oracle JD Edwards World
• Solid State Disks
• Capacity Backup
• Rational Development Tools
• IBM DB2 WebQuery

The new solution reduced server footprint by 66 percent, reduced energy consumption and reduced maintenance costs – a clear answer to the challenges the customer listed. But it got much more than that, due to the advanced capabilities in IBM i, the Oracle JD Edwards solution, and the other IBM technologies it purchased.

Turner was able to centralize all backup, upgrades, operations and maintenance, improving its high availability and disaster recovery position. It did this while getting special prices associated with the Solution Edition, which reduced its initial solution cost over the alternative, as well as reducing its ongoing maintenance costs.

Tuner didn’t stop there, either. The company also invested in SSD technology, which reduced the runtime of most batch jobs by 50 percent. Additional work was done to modernize some older queries to SQL, reducing their runtime from 20-30 minutes to one second! And now it can take excellent advantage of the easy-to-use DB2 WebQuery product alongside World to help run its business as it grow.

This is one example of many among the customers IBM i and JD Edwards serve together. And this solution is just one of many that are part of the Solution Editions program around the world.

In future blogs, I will almost certainly highlight other Solution Editions. They are excellent examples of the vitality of the IBM i, Power Systems, and the Business Partner and ISV marketplace, and they demonstrate the commitment we all have to bringing the latest technology to our clients to help them compete effectively.

 

 

 

Twitter: #ibmi, #powersystems @Steve_Will_IBMi

 

Expanded Solution Editions for IBM i

Back in August, I wrote about IBM i Solution Editions. It’s time to write about them again, because today IBM is announcing a significant expansion of the offerings.

To remind you what I’m talking about, here’s a summary, excerpted from my previous blog.

IBM i Solution Editions provide complete, integrated solutions for midsize businesses. They leverage the total integration of the IBM i operating environment to lower your ongoing cost of ownership. The IBM i Solution Editions enable you take advantage of the combined experience and expertise of IBM and partnering independent software vendors (ISVs), to deliver a low risk implementation of your new business solution. IBM i Solution Editions are:

• Pre-integrated and supported with implementation services to enable rapid deployment
• Optimized for performance, scalability and system utilization
• Totally integrated with IBM i, with trusted security to deliver low cost of ownership
• Designed to lower risk by leveraging over 30 years of IBM and IBM Business Partner experience
• Specially priced to deliver competitive Total Cost of Acquisition (TCA) and proven Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

So what's new about the new IBM i Solution Edition offerings? Three primary things:

• A new entry Solution Edition offering -- the 720 4-core
• Making it available to more customers by expanding the offering into Europe and Italy
• Partnering with dramatically more ISVs; up from 10 to 57.

New entry: The new entry Solution Edition is based on a 720 4-core Power Systems server, but it also includes a reduced price for IBM i user entitlements, one additional no-charge HW processor activation, so you can run even more work in your IBM i environment for the same cost, and a no-charge IBM i Access license. Pretty great deal, both for cost of acquisition and long-term use.

Available for more customers: With so many of our customers in the European and Italian markets wanting small systems, and being users of key ISV solutions, it just makes sense to make these IBM i Solution Editions available there as well.

More ISV solutions: It’s not a surprise that our market would want even more ISV solutions available in these easy-to-buy, easy-to-use integrated packages. Some of the ISVs which had Solution Editions in August expand their availability with this announcement, but equally importantly, key ISVs who serve customers in Europe and Italy are now part of the program. You can see the entire list here.

Thanks, again, to Guy Paradise and his team for continuing to make new ways to improve our IBM i offerings for our customers and potential customers.

Travel Note:

Next week, I hope to have my blog cover my participation in iSeries DevCon 2010. They have invited me to be their keynote speaker, so I will make my first trip to Las Vegas to open this conference and meet a few of the many innovative developers who keep the solutions on IBM i fresh. If you’re going to be at the conference, I hope to see you there.

You and i Will Like Solution Editions

I’m frequently asked about ways in which IBM is promoting IBM i in the marketplace. As I promised in my “Announce Day” blog, I want to provide more details about our latest initiative to partner with industry-leading ISVs to promote IBM i as the best platform for SMB business solutions: IBM i Solution Editions. Because people tend to think of IBM i as being more expensive, IBM i Solution Editions deliver competitive total cost of acquisition (TCA) and significantly lower total cost of ownership (TCO) when compared to the stack Windows and x86 components. I want to thank Guy Paradise, our POWER platform offering manager for his help in getting this information.

IBM i Solution Editions provide complete, integrated solutions for midsize businesses. These solutions are optimized for the latest IBM Power Systems to deliver new levels of performance and energy efficiency, and they leverage the total integration of the IBM i operating environment to lower your ongoing TCO. According to a recent ITG report, Power Systems with IBM i can reduce your three-year TCO by up to 41 percent as compared to running Windows Server on competitive x86 servers. The security and ease of management of IBM i, along with its legendary reliability, allow companies of all sizes to have an advanced IT capability without huge IT staffs.

The IBM i Solution Editions enable you take advantage of the combined experience and expertise of IBM and partnering ISVs, to deliver a low-risk implementation of your new business solution. IBM i Solution Editions are:

• Pre-integrated and supported with implementation services to enable rapid deployment
• Optimized for performance, scalability and system utilization
• Totally integrated with IBM i, with trusted security to deliver low cost of ownership
• Designed to lower risk by leveraging over 30 years of IBM and IBM business partner experience
• Specially priced to deliver competitive TCA and proven TCO

The IBM i Solution Editions are built on POWER7 processor-based systems, which can reduce energy consumption, downtime and other operational costs. Coupled with the total integration delivered by IBM i, these solution offerings deliver the performance you need, along with low TCO. Each Solution Edition provides a simplified, easy-to-manage, high-performance IT environment for core business applications. IBM i Solution Editions optimize leading business software with POWER7 processor-based systems and the IBM i operating environment. The Solution Editions are offered through an extensive, highly skilled worldwide network of IBM Business Partners and backed by IBM’s trusted services and support infrastructure.

IBM i Solution Editions deliver:

• An integrated, trusted combination of relational database, security, Web services, networking and storage-management capabilities
• A broad and highly stable database and middleware foundation for efficiently deploying business-processing applications
• Flexible configurations for memory, disks and network adapters, and your choice of tower or rack mount to address your individual requirements
• Lower TCA and TCO across the hardware, systems and application software due to tight integration and partnering between IBM and the application providers

The IBM i Solution Editions are available for the IBM Power 720 Express and IBM Power 740 Express. The Power 720 Express allows small or midsized companies seeking simplicity to avoid increased spending and staffing requirements while becoming more responsive to their customers, improving their productivity and keeping their data secure. The Power 720 Express with IBM i integrates features to simplify your IT environment and deliver a complete, cost-effective business system that can grow with your business. The Power 740 Express provides the same integrated value as the Power 720 Express with additional capacity and expandability, enabling even higher system growth and more consolidation as your business grows. The performance, capacity, energy efficiency and virtualization capabilities of the Power 740 Express make it an ideal server for solution deployments with demanding capacity and growth requirements. Both systems deliver outstanding performance and workload optimizing features of the POWER7 processor.

So who are the leading ISVs offering IBM i Solution Editions? The current list includes the following companies with worldwide offerings:

• IBS
• Infor
• Lawson
• Oracle JD Edwards
• SAP AG

In North America, we currently also have:
• Healthcare Management Systems
• Jack Henry & Associates
• SolarSoft
• VAI

And we’re working with more companies, too. You can get information about IBM i Solution Editions, and see the up-to-date list of ISVs online. I’m excited about the IBM i Solution Editions because, as much as I love our operating system, I know that it’s not a complete solution until it’s partnered with an application that allows a customer to run a business. Working with ISVs who have these solutions completes the picture, and demonstrates the continuing value of the work You and i do on IBM i.