Re: DIY -- MIDRANGE-L

I echo Larry's sentiments. FWIW, I think you are about to waste a lot of
time by trying to build the hardware that will have little tangible
value**. Instead, as others have suggested, get a bare bones IBM i in the
cloud and start from there. You can still go through a lot of the motions
that you mentioned, just not the hardware.

**Years ago I went through the process of owning two 520s that sat in my
basement. It was not a good experience. We started hosting our IBM i in
the cloud a number of years ago and have never looked back. In fairness to
you, I had the same spirit/mindset of wanting to dig deep into the machine
I loved. So, if that's what makes your weekends sing, well, sing away :-)

My response is a little selfish. You're interested in open source on IBM
i. I am hoping you pursue that and contribute to IBM i related projects.
The recent COMMON Connect issue
<http://connect.common.org/commonconnect/december_2015?pg=4#pg4> has the
COMMON President (Kevin) talking about their high(er) interest in open
source and initiatives they will pursue. Great place for a mind and
excitement like yours to give time. Again, this is my selfishness speaking
:-)

Aaron Bartell

On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 3:52 PM, DrFranken <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

First, I would be a little hesitant telling the world and all the IBMers
listening here that you will re-install the O/S every 70 days when it
requires you accept the license agreement to do so and in there tells you
that you may not do that. :-) Like it says on every movie DVD ever made:
Piracy is not a victimless crime.

On the flip side I laud your goal of becoming the Jedi master of these
things however you will need to execute the 'spendalotofmoney' command to
acquire enough hardware and software to truly get that experience.

For example customers are quickly now migrating from internal disk to SAN
storage so becoming master of internal storage (cheap to acquire) will soon
have (perhaps already has) significantly less value in the market.

IOPs are dead, ignore them. Modems, SCSI Cards, and nearly all tape
besides LTO have gone to haunt the FrankenLab, not customer data centers.

Once upon a time I asked a very wise IBMer "How do you be an expert in all
thinks like you are??" His answer was VERY good:

"I'm not! You see there are hundreds of very smart people at IBM building
and testing and designing and improving all parts of the system and its
software. I cannot hope in 10 lifetimes to keep up with them. So I am only
an expert in some things, I keep up with those things, and I speak about
those things! It is YOU that implied I am an expert in all things because I
am an expert in the things I speak about."

And so we have many people on this list who are good in many things but
true experts in fewer. Aaron can explain web stuff to a tree root and it
will understand, Pete will give you every nuance of an IBM i upgrade,
Birgitta will make SQL sing better than Pavarotti. But you won't see Aaron
doing PTFs, (oops, maybe that one) or Pete doing Ruby, or Birgitta
designing a SAN solution.

Pick your areas to be master of or become 'Jack of all trades, master of
none.'

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.Frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com - Personal Development IBM i timeshare service.
www.iInTheCloud.com - Commercial IBM i Cloud Hosting.

On 12/30/2015 4:28 PM, Rob wrote:

Aaron,

My end goal is to have my own development machine at home.
Something I can practice with and learn the IBM i inside and out...

Building... OS installation... System protection... OS, Software
and Data Backup, Recovery & mirroring.

I have that level of competence with the Windows and Linux systems
I manage. I hate off the shelf machines. They were lacking the moment
they were designed.

I do not mind installing the OS every 70 days. What I will be
using for does not require 24/7 operations. I what to become a master
of this universe which is the IBM i.

I really like Mark Waterbury suggestion of starting with a used 520
for a few hundred dollars... adding some SCSI DASD drives. But I
understand the IOP cards and other processor boards to consider. I want
to learn it all!

Thanks,
Rob.

On 12/30/2015 02:42 PM, Aaron Bartell wrote:

Rob Couch, what is your end goal? Learn how to put together an IBM i or
<something else>?

Aaron Bartell

On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 2:40 PM, <rob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snip>

used Power 8 hardware...
</snip>
will be a lot rarer than a used 2016 Cadillac.
People tend to hold on to their Power equipment for at least a couple of
years.

And, yeah, that license of IBM i... You might want to research that
before
scouring Ebay for used Power 8's.

IDK if you have much familiarity with AIX but my boss felt that buying a
licence of AIX to run on Power was chump change compared to what
licences
of IBM i cost. And then there's SQL, compilers, etc. All sold
separately.
Really starts to make idevcloud look good. I get no money from them.

See the command WRKLICINF on your system.

Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1
Group Dekko
Dept 1600
Mail to: 2505 Dekko Drive
Garrett, IN 46738
Ship to: Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com

From: Rob <rob.couch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: 12/30/2015 03:11 PM
Subject: DIY
Sent by: "MIDRANGE-L" <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

I have learned quite a bit in a very short time....

Thanks Mark...

So I guess I am looking for used Power 8 hardware...

I am thinking my home office rack and my wallet wont know what hit
them!!!!!

Thanks,
Rob

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