RE: IBM Power Systems enhances its server and I/O options

No we did not document what we did, it's in our heads.

That exercise was as much a learning and experimenting tool as it was
practical. The real reason behind it was we were building the POWER
certification tests and we needed a place we would actually prove if the
wrong answers we wrote were wrong! There's too many times with this system
you think "that'll never work" and then it does.

Since POWER7 came out there really is not much in the way of experimentation
that can be done anymore so the project kind if died, but it was fun while
it lasted.


--
Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Jonathan Wilson
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2017 11:34 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: IBM Power Systems enhances its server and I/O options

On Thu, 2017-02-16 at 07:48 -0600, Jim Oberholtzer wrote:

Jon,

There is a whale of difference between "supported" and "works".
Supported means IBM has tested it completely and it will perform as

described.

The huge disk units will make IBM i very slow due to the way IBM i
does I/O to the DASD units, hence it won't perform within
specifications and therefore is not supported. You'd hate it if they
allowed you to use it except in very narrow circumstances such as
those that Larry pointed out earlier.

Remember that if you experiment and find out something works, (or
seems to) then when you call IBM for help on your hardware or
software warranty the problem may in fact be generated by that
unsupported equipment that may have been rejected by IBM for a reason.
IBM will tell you when you get to a supported configuration to call them

back, rightly so.

IBM i keeps its device drivers in LIC. When it recognizes a device it
loads the drivers needed for that device on to the interface card (SAS
or Fibre) and then the card is able to drive the device. The device
drivers for the item you hang on the system may not be there or if the
one it chooses is not really compatible then problems of unknown types
occur. Remember the "unexpected results may occur" phrase? It's there

for a reason.

In the end if you pay the money to get one of these systems at least
wait until its off warranty to try hanging unsupported stuff on it,
and NEVER,EVER do it to a production system.

Thank you for the information above.

When Larry and I built the first of the "Franken Series" boxes at
COMMON in Indianapolis we had specific goals in mind and we achieved
them. Those boxes were never in a production role. So when I say
what might work is different than what's supported we come from a
point of experimentation and knowledge. BTW: we did find some stuff that

simply did not work or did

work but would have blown up the system, so there are limits.

I was wondering if what was done was documented and if so if would be
possible to get a copy?

Sadly I'm not a member of common as I stopped programming a long time ago...
although I'm currently trying to refresh my rpg and other skills to try to
get back into work in the i.

--
Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects

Jon.

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