RE: i5OS running as a VM on PC

What you describe is already available through the Virtual Loaner Program
(VLP) - http://www-304.ibm.com/jct09002c/partnerworld/wps/pub/systems/vlp.
I made extensive use of it for about 1 year and was VERY impressed with what
the IBM VLP team did. I was basically able to "rent" (for free, because I
am an ISV) a partition on a mega i5 and I could do with it whatever I wanted
(within the license agreement) which worked perfect for my needs at the
time. The big downside is that each month I had to relinquish my LPAR
(which had an entire image of it saved to a SAN somewhere) and re-signup for
another month. The re-signup process only takes about 2 hours (that's
right, two hours to load a mirror image of my existing LPAR) which I was
amazed at. The process was entirely automated (read no human IBM
intervention).

I am guessing they have plans outside of just letting ISV's use it, and
really this could be the doorway for many developers to "try out" i5OS.
This model works for IBM because they obviously don't have to pay themselves
license fees. A company like Netshare400.com would have a harder time being
an ASP for i5OS because of LICPGM software costs needing to be purchased for
each partition.

I still think being able to run i5OS on my PC would rock, but can understand
the likelihood of that happening. I think an expansion of the VLP program
would be much more likely (after looking at their What's New I noticed they
are allowing ANY Partner World member to have VLP access and not just ISV's
- kudos to IBM for expanding this excellent benefit!). I wonder if they
could open up this service to universities as this could eliminate any and
all hardware costs of having an i5 "in house". Would be interesting to hear
about what their 5 year goals are for the VLP.

Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jones, John (US)
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2007 8:58 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: i5OS running as a VM on PC

Even with PearPC, it may be easier to port to something like the PS3 v.
the x86 platform. I don't know; it really depends on whether or not IBM
wants to write the appropriate platform interface for the SLIC to talk to.
Frankly I really doubt it'd be worth the effort.


The timeshare idea shouldn't be thrown out; it should be re-worked. IBM
(since they're the ones who need the community) could sponsor it. Set up a
big box or several small boxes and LPAR them to death. The standard
allotment would be an LPAR with 2 mirrored 70GB disks, 0.1-0.3 CPU, 1-2GB
RAM, and all relevant i5/OS LPPs. Connection is via VPN direct to the
machine, which lets you run iSeries Access and WDSCi on your own PC.

The idea is that each user (or student class or other grouping) gets their
own LPAR. They are free to IPL and do other things as they wish.
If they royally much it up IBM will restore from the last backups (1 free
restore per year; additional ones cost some marginal fee).

Everyone gets a 90 day free trial. Afterwards, PIE members get the LPAR
free. Small-shop developers and private consultants could pay a small
monthly fee (a lot less than renting your own box). This gives you access
to the latest tools without having to host your own environment and bear the
associated costs.

IBM does *NONSYS backups (scheduled via BRMS) weekly and has a mandatory
quarterly downtime window to apply PTFs & IPL. No BCDR provision.
Contracts can boost the services for a fee; a service menu could be
established. Examples would include BCDR, more frequent backups,
IBM-supplied operations, additional CPU/RAM/DASD, etc.

Even with some people paying for the service I don't think IBM would profit
from this directly. This is more of a mixed
service-provider/marketing/ensuring-the-platform's-survival effort.
What income it does generates would offset some of the costs while still
allowing for PIE access and availability for the curious.

--
John A. Jones, CISSP
Senior Analyst, Global Information Security Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.
tel: +1-630-455-2787 fax: +1-312-601-1782 john.jones@xxxxxxxxxx