Re: giving an iSeries system to each college (was LPAR - micro partitioning an i5-520) -- MIDRANGE-L

Hi, Aaron:

As part of the System i Academic Initiative, IBM has established a "hub"at University of Nebraska in Lincoln, -- a very large model 570 or 595,and ANY college or university can join the IBM Academic Initiative(formerly PIE) and gain free access to this hub system -- userIDs andpasswords etc. are all provided (zero administration), with an IPaddress to connect to this system via TCP/IP over the Internet.

See:
   http://www-304.ibm.com/jct09002c/university/scholars/products/iseries/

then click on the link "Access to System i Environment":

http://www-304.ibm.com/jct09002c/university/scholars/products/iseries/getting_started/equipment/hub.html

The biggest problem with just "giving an AS/400 to each school" is thatmost colleges don't have anyone on staff with the expertise to set itup or maintain it, let alone perform routine software tasks such asinstalling additional LPPs, or ordering and applying PTFs, etc. So,what usually happens is, an IBM business partner or some other "sponsor"(usually a local IBM iSeries customer) may volunteer to help the collegeto set it up initially, but from then on, it remains fairly static and"frozen in time." I know of several colleges who are still running V4R5because no one on campus has the necessary knowledge or the time (orthey are afraid) to load a new release of the OS, etc. And, somecolleges even have older AS/400 systems not capable of running thenewest releases.

Even worse, very often, local college or university "politics" actuallyprohibits the faculty from connecting ANY "unauthorized" hardware to thecampus network or performing any software maintanance tasks on "servers"-- these tasks MUST be performed only by the college's authorizedinternal IT support staff, who are usually already overworked, so thelast thing they want is to have to learn all about yet another kind ofsystem to maintain. These are NOT Windows or Unix/Linux systems, sotheir existing skills, knowledge and experience does not help much.

Also, believe it or not, many colleges WILL NOT ACCEPT older "donated"hardware -- they only want brand new equipment that is under warranty,supported by the vendor, etc.

So, there you have it. Encourage your local colleges and universities tojoin the IBM System i Academic Initiative -- there is no cost to thecollege to join or participate, and faculty and students gain access to"the big iron."


Sincerely,

Mark S. Waterbury

> albartell wrote:

I think it is a real shame that IBM does this, since the 600 CPW are way

underpowered and slow (The minimum requirements for a one developer
workspace for WAS is _twice_ that) - but also very expensive.

That is interesting because from what I understand much of IBM's System i5
new lines of business aren't selling boxes for people recently adopting RPG
but instead those wanting to run their Java web app on solid scalable
hardware.  Maybe they figure nobody buying an entry level machine will want
to run Java web apps?

Maybe there are other reasons for IBM not pushing for a low cost solution.
Maybe they COULD afford to let "Websphere ready" entry level machines go out
the door for $8k but the volume they would sell would require support line
infrastructure changes because they are already maxed out?  That may seem
like a foolish reason, but it could definitely happen.

I am still waiting for them to come up with a solution to get free access to
people in the community similar to the Virtual Loaner Program (VLP) that I
have used - though you need to be selling a product to use that service.
Just think if students at a university could gain qualified(*) access to a
System i5 to do their enterprise Java web development!

(*) They would have to collaborate with IBM to gain access by going through
a short questionnaire of use and such.

My thoughts,
Aaron Bartell
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