“Benefits With the ease of scalability of Power, OpenTech can dynamically spin up down additional CPU cores for dynamic loads and power boosts based on demand and usage of the OpenXAI solution. The ability to configure a system exactly the way a client required was also a key benefit of Power. The Power10 processor excels at multi-threading and vectorization, critical for enterprise AI workloads and applications such as OpenXAI. This is a major advantage for not just the OpenXAI solution, but the entire OpenTech application portfolio as well because it allows for better processing of background tasks and resource management of the systems. The reliability, uptime, and security capabilities of Power are also all critical for OpenTech serving client needs.”
IBM i and IBM Power courses out there
(the original article can be found HERE)
“We are leaving the platform, because we cannot find RPG programmers” I am sick and tired of this comment. For me this is pure BS and I will tell you why.
First of all, to be a bit more humble, if you are still running RPGII and RPGIII code from 1970s and 1980s you might be correct (It is awesome you can still run this on completely different and hyper modern hardware architecture that would have blown the programmer away when the code was written). You will even find it impossible to get someone who wants to learn those versions (even if I have a very inspiring example when this happened and they are now using AI in the modernised RPG application). Learn, yes people are still interested in learning things such as MODERN programming languages where Full Free Form RPG is one of them. Remember new programming languages comes out every now and then and people learn how to program in them.
To be successful you therefore need to do your homework and give the developers an environment that is attractive to them. Most likely you have a pretty cool business to support with the application already, IBM i is always involved in business critical stuff after all. Btw, an attractive environment for developers today includes modern IDE’s, open source and modern tooling like Git based stuff. I hope I don’t have to remind you that SQL should be your other No1 programming language. It is time jump off the steam locomotive and jump on the high speed train that is on the same platform.
Learn modern RPG is not difficult for a decent smart person. To learn your or your clients business though is often the tricky part. If you have other developers in house already who knows at least the basics of your “business logic” I would start by reaching out to them. If you hired people with the right attitude and curiosity to begin with they will say H*LL YEAH!
By the way, like Paul Tuohy (the picture is not of his best side should be mentioned) says there are two kinds of programmers. Maintenance programers and business application developers. You should most likely to go for the latter. Well, not if you are still looking for a RPGII person perhaps 🙂
“No schools educate people in RPG”, is another comment I virtually punch people in the face when I hear. One reason is because this is not true, the second reason is I rarely hear companies in the need of programming skills in R, D, Rust, Go or any new programming language crying out the same complaints. Instead they are reaching out to schools and companies learning these languages or just put courses up themselves if they have the resources, like Asseco PST in Portugal or Sanmarco Informatica in Italy.
Therefore I have put together a list of alternatives for you (Thank you Michael Mayer for your list on your great site https://ibmireference.blogspot.com for a number of links) when you are planning for the future of your IBM i application.
IBM Education (still around and updated)
In Europe you have a number of local provides teaching in their native (speaking) language as well.
There are also hundreds of smaller firms helping out if needed.
And my own little hobby www.ibmicompetence.com
Now repeat after me
Infor Clients Cloud Concerns
We are collecting Infor Clients Cloud Concerns into a list.
(Updated 2023-02-08)
Infor Cloud is a completely new product with all that means
What about all our modifications
What happens with our infrastructure investments
Cost of changing the business processes
Compliance for different industries, who is responsible (Irland Tax Regulations…)
Regulations don’t allow us to go to AWS
Mainteinance costs in the long term. 5x as for 13.4
Requires high quality bandwidth all the time
Unclear license models
Operations, ticket when a batch job doesn’t go through. We manage issues like that ourselves quickly today
Performance issues over all
Latency issues
Project costs, not an upgrade, a completely new implementation
Response Times when AWS moves instances, going from 25-35 ms to 5000 ms (AWS can do this without permission)
Subscriptions model. What happens the day you stop paying the fee?
Data growth – archiving. Solutions?
Storage tiers.. higher costs. How to avoid..
No saving in head counts as customers have to hunt Infor doing their job..
AWS is not in our cloud strategy
AWS outages
A general uncertainty and even war in the world makes us wanna keep a computer in the basement
Infor is not following AWS recommendations when it comes to availability zones because of performance issues
Left behind, “we cannot help you because you are on prem”
“Amazon compete with us”
Infor are taking Cloud Suite down during 1 – 4 hours every month. MANDATORY
You can never be backlevel for any reason. You have to apply all new features and functions
Currency change if paid in USD for example (AWS, AZURE warns for 30%+ cost increese 2023)
Consultant firms say there is more for them in the Cloud suite
Exit plans?
Cost related to moving data from the cloud (VERY Expensive)
Amazon layoffs. Is Infor their priority?
Power10 Promo video with Benoit Marolleau
AIX Certification Preparation
There is a new certification in place for AIX admins and we would like with this post try to help you get a better grip of what you need to know and how to acquire the right skills to become certified.
There are different ways of learning stuff as always. Courses are one way but reading Redbooks and other documents could be a good alternative and/or complement. Most links are taken from the original landing page for the certification, but we’ve added a bunch of other good links that hopefully helps in your journey to become certified.
(IBM Champion Dmitry Mironow has written about the certification process and gives some tips in THIS ARTICLE)
IBM AIX v7 Administrator Specialty
You can get a sample test HERE
By IBM recommended courses:
AIX Basics (Course code AN10DG)
Power Systems for AIX II AIX Implementation and Administration (Course code AN12G)
Pre-reqs for AN12G:
AN11G:Power Systems for AIX I: LPAR Configuration and Planning
Power Systems for AIX III: Advanced Administration and Problem Determination (Course code AN15G)
Pre-reqs for AN15G
AN11G: Power Systems for AIX I: LPAR Configuration and Planning
AN12G: Power Systems for AIX II AIX Implementation and Administration
AIX Network Installation Management Concepts and Configuration (Course code AN22G)
Pre-reqs for AN22G
https://www.ibm.com/training/course/AN11G
https://www.ibm.com/training/course/AN12G
Areas and objectives in the exam
System Management
- Set user’s environment
- Create and troubleshoot a shell script
- Connect to AIX system console
- Create and verify a system backup using mksysb, volume group backups with savevg,
- Manage file backups and file archives
- Define AIX management tools including SMIT
- Manage devices and attributes
- Document the systems configuration
- Identify the LPAR configuration
- Manage system time
- Manage services using System Resource Controller (SRC)
- Start and stop programs / scripts in /etc/rc.local etc
- Manage the AIX boot and shutdown sequence
- Manage root email
- Define the process lifecycle and priorities
- Scheduling execution of commands using cron, at, batch
Software Management
- Install AIX fixes and updates
- Manage open source packages with rpm
- Use NIM
Storage Management
- Explain the LVM terminology
- Manage volume groups
- Manage root volume group specific tasks
- Manage logical volumes
- Manage file systems
- Manage raw physical volumes
System & Network Security
- Log-in to AIX and configure SSH
- Manage basic system security
- Manage users and groups
- Explain file permissions
Network Management
- Manage basic IP configuration
- Manage hosts and name resolution order
- Manage network services with inetd
- Mount and export NFS
Performance Management & Tuning
- Define performance bottlenecks
- Explain the difference between logical, physical and virtual CPU
- Define basic VMM concepts
- Monitor usage of memory
- Expand and monitor usage of the paging space
- Define basic IO performance concepts
- Display system tunables
Problem Determination & Management
- Monitor for hardware and software messages using errpt, syslog and alog
- Define the requirements to generate files for IBM support
- Troubleshoot client log-in issues
- Troubleshoot boot errors
- Boot AIX from an external source
- Troubleshoot the file system
- Use diag for basic troubleshooting and maintenance
