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

The PIE program has been around for many years. The latest initiative
with the college in Nebraksa? Kansas? is new. Seems like they're going
great guns. In my experience it wasn't the lack of systems or
curriculum or instructors - it was the lack of students. Colleges are
not enthusiastic in providing classes for a small number of students,
especially when they can use the same classrooms and instructors to
teach classes that draw a lot of students.

On 1/24/07, albartell <albartell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Wow!  I am really impressed with what IBM has put together with this.  I
heard about it at COMMON in Mnpls I believe and was excited about it at that
time but haven't heard much about it since.  I would be curious to know what
is included in the license agreement to see what restrictions are put in
place.  For instance, based on this first sentence it doesn't appear that
you even need to be a college: "The System i Center will give you access at
no cost to the latest System i technology for teaching and research purposes
without the expense of your own System I"

So could somebody that was curious and committed to learning about the
System i5 get a LPAR through this program?  What about David Gibbs at
midrange.com getting an LPAR for his purposes of serving the community?  I
am guessing they have a process of ruling out "time wasters" that wouldn't
amount to much other than signing in and not doing anything else with it.

Has anyone on the lists taken part of this initiative?  What are the things
you liked and what are the areas that need work?  I remember rants on the
lists 4 or 5 years ago about the fact that new blood wasn't entering the
market and it looks like IBM is answering that call!

Aaron Bartell

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mark S. Waterbury
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 10:04 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: giving an iSeries system to each college (was LPAR -
micropartitioning an i5-520)

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/gettin
g_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

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