IBM iSeries going stronger than ever

The future for IBM’s iSeries (AS/400as was) remains bright, according to Nigel Adams, iSeries product manager. It would, wouldn’t it, but he makes a good case for the not-so-old favourite. Not so old because it’s still going through revamps that build on its original appeal – tight integration, total automation, ultra-robust – making it almost unrecognisable. It’s not just the Power 5 processors, nor the low cost Express bundled offerings at the entry level, but for example the recently increased multi-operating system support – including Linux, Windows and now also AIX and Intel Linux on Intel processors outside the logical partitions. “So instead of buying separate servers for your Windows and Linux requirements, you can run all of the workload on a single system, share resources and shift processing power between partitions – virtualising the power as peaks occur,” says Adams. Now that is clever, useful, cost-cutting and easy on administration – all four – and another reason for iSeries nurds to remain zealots. The only thing you need is your main application running on OS/400 – and enough still do, or are platform independent.