Re: giving an iSeries system to each college

This makes a lot of sense.
Good for IBM.
jim

To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 11:03 AM

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 and
passwords etc. are all provided (zero administration), with an IP
address 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 that
most colleges don't have anyone on staff  with the expertise to set it
up or maintain it, let alone perform routine software tasks such as
installing 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 college
to 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 V4R5
because no one on campus has the necessary knowledge or the time (or
they are afraid) to load a new release of the OS, etc.  And, some
colleges even have older AS/400 systems not capable of running the
newest releases.

Even worse, very often, local college or university "politics" actually
prohibits the faculty from connecting ANY "unauthorized" hardware to the
campus network or performing any software maintanance tasks on "servers"
-- these tasks MUST be performed only by the college's authorized
internal IT support staff, who are usually already overworked, so the
last thing they want is to have to learn all about yet another kind of
system to maintain. These are NOT Windows or Unix/Linux systems, so
their 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 to
join the IBM System i Academic Initiative -- there is no cost to the
college to join or participate, and faculty and students gain access to
"the big iron."

Sincerely,

Mark S. Waterbury