RE: What is an i5 (iSeries, AS/400) -- MIDRANGE-L

An i5 is a hardware platform that comes bundled with i5/OS (not OS/400).
It can be extended via software and sometimes hardware to also run AIX,
Windows 2000/2003 Server, and 32- and 64-bit Linux distributions from
Red Hat and Novell (Suse).  It can execute any applications designed for
any of those operating systems provided that OS is installed and
configured with sufficient resources.

PASE is more or less an operating environment within the i5/OS operating
system.  Very poorly analogous to Win 3.x running as an operating
environment on top of DOS.

'Native' to an i5 is anything that runs on any of the OSes that can be
installed on or in an i5.

'Native' to i5/OS is anything that runs on i5/OS, regardless of
operating environment or required OS components (WebSphere App Server,
Domino, etc.).

Literally, MS Office is native to the i5 (when run on Windows on an IXS)
but not native to i5/OS.

John A. Jones, CISSP
Americas Information Security Officer
Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.
V: +1-630-455-2787  F: +1-312-601-1782
john.jones@xxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: Walden H. Leverich [mailto:WaldenL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 10:52 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: What is an i5 (iSeries, AS/400)

OK, this may sound like a stupid question, but what is an i5 (or iSeries
or AS/400)? I don't want the answer "It's the new iSeries", I mean what
do you consider to be the i5? When you're running on an i5, what are you
doing? 
 
For example, I was reading iSeries magazine (I think that was it)
recently, and someone announced the availability of a Citrix Metaframe
component for the i5. "Interesting" I thought, then I read the fine
print, "only available on i5's with the IXS adapter" so actually, it's a
Windows app, running on a blade in the back of an i5. Is the i5 now a
blade server?
 
Elsewhere (on this list) I read a post about someone having a really bad
week. Part of the bad week involved having to reboot the Domino Sametime
server and a Linux partition. So is the i5, now just a piece of hardware
on which we run some not-so-stable operating systems?
 
I visited a customer a couple of weeks ago that swore up and down that
he was running WebSphere "on the iSeries". Well, I looked high and low
and I couldn't find it. Finally tracked it down to WebSphere on W2K,
running on an IXS, again is that "on the iSeries"?
 
I've also seen posts about people wondering if there are "native" ports
of PHP, even though it's available in PASE. So is PASE not "native". Is
something that runs on PASE not "native" to the machine? DNS is in
there. So's DHCP. People say their i5 does DNS, don't they?
 
I myself got caught up in this, I'm doing a number of user group
presentations next week on HTML and ASP.NET, and someone asked me if
they could promote the meetings by saying that I'd look at running .NET
_on_ the i5. My quick response was, "no, you can't do that." but now I'm
wondering, can I? If it's on an IXS in the back of the i5 can I claim
it's on an i5? 
 
So, what is an i5 (iSeries, AS/400)? What does it mean to you? 
 
I'll tell you my answer. An i5 runs OS/400. If it runs in OS/400
(including QSHELL and PASE) then it's running "on" an i5. AIX and Linux
partitions don't count for me, I might as well do them on a pSeries. And
the IXS, well hell, I sure don't consider the i5 to be a big blade
server, so anything running on an IXS isn't running "on" an i5 as far as
I'm concerned. 
 
What do others think?
 
-Walden

------------
Walden H Leverich III
President & CEO
Tech Software
(516) 627-3800 x11
WaldenL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.TechSoftInc.com <http://www.techsoftinc.com/> 

Quiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
(Whatever is said in Latin seems profound.)
  

 
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