WWWalker's IBM Overview
See IBM Cloud (Red Hat) | IBM Experience | High Entry Costs | eServers Glossary | Software | Peripherals | Virtualization | IBM Acquisitions | IBM Disposals | Industry Collaboration | jStart Team on Emerging Technology | IBM Think | Big Data Webinars | IBM Developer | DevOps | Web Support | IBM Newsroom (NSW Have Your Say | Hardware Sales Down | eHealth) | Lenovo
Servers
In 2014, a colleague gave me 2 xSeries 306 eServers running CentOS Linux. The fan was very noisy as they were meant for a server room. They died.
Desktops
I use IBM desktops and screens running Windows.
OS/2 Warp
I experimented with OS/2 Warp in 1990s when it first came out. It was very cool but had very few applications to run on it.
In January 2010, I found Rhema FM radio station in Orange NSW running their playlist using StarTrax on OS/2.
You get the impression IBM deals with middle to large companies. Small companies like ours
struggle to make use of the good software due to lack of infrastructure - communications bandwidth and processor speed, hard disk size and RAM size. Capital is what it is all about hey? IBM needs to break its downloads into smaller chunks e.g. 50MB, and port its software
to less high-end versions of operating systems e.g. Fedora. We are being squeezed out of our own industry - open source software - in the stampede to capitalise on Linux
as an alternative to Solaris, Windows, SCO and Mac OS X.
Be careful of what IBM does. They will sway the industry and have such huge intellectual property investments in alternative operating systems that they will sew up the computer world. They take out more patents per day than any other company for 13th consecutive year! (IBM takes out 2941 US patents in 2005 - 1100 more than any other company - then: Canon 1828, HP 1797, Matsushita 1688, Samsung 1641.) They are pushing into 3rd world countries where no-one cares about Microsoft
and making huge coups for Linux over Windows e.g. Peru, Brazil, China.
So the only way to beat IBM is:
- have more patents (incredibly hard - you'd need billions of dollars in staff and equipment) or
- outrun them and use smallness to bamboozle them (OK if you have the energy and resources) or
- make your own software outside their controls (possible but limited in scope - bit like a withered branch on a vine - this has been our way since people have ripped us off when outsourcing to them - we own the source and license it to them to stop this 'pinching your brain and leaving you with nothing' mentality of today's wasters)
IBM don't seem to be that bright when it comes to dealing with small business. It is like a torrent of information coming at you from them but not much filtering goes on when dealing with that kind of brontosaurus so it almost becomes comical how bad they are at small tasks. They have NO creativity: all suits and straight down the line conservatives.
In the late 1990s, IBM moved into the middleware tools market (e.g. Rational) away from their hardware market. Hardware made little money on the margins as it is cloned by Taiwanese companies with no royalties.
They make billions out of services by partnering with IT consultants. Partnering requires a non-disclosure agreement and business plan. They are very straight with business plans and
business value (total cost of ownership). They deal with the suits in a business (non-technical side). So to deal with IBM, you have to be
very business like. This will tighten up your balance sheet and profit and loss statement (a good thing really) and make you think what you will get out of
being a part of a very big organisation's connections.
I once visited IBM at Pennant Hills, Sydney. It was like being a rebel fighter entering the Death Star - massive entrance
and floors and floors of consultants, technical specialists and marketing people swarming everywhere. I felt totally out of place! I'm more into PCs (microprocessors) and smaller handheld systems so going near a mainframe hub was a bit daunting! I prefer smallness and flexibility than centralist control systems that people like governments and armies use to muster up power and control over the masses.
IBM, being the ulimate geeks, encode all the product names with esoteric names. Below is our effort to decode this for the average pleb.
| Brand | Acronym | Size | CPU | OS | Form Factors | Languages/Software | User Groups |
|---|
| ex IBM |
|---|
| Lenovo bought System x (Redbook xREF: IBM x86 Server Reference) | x = Xeon | Small | 64-bit Intel Xeon | Linux, Windows | BladeCenter E, BladeCenter (Wikipedia) | | |
| IBM |
|---|
| AIX | p = POWER | Mid-Range | 64-bit POWER5 and POWER5+ | AIX 5L or OpenPower (Linux) | p5 | | |
| IBM i | i = AIX | Mid-Range | 64-bit POWER5 aka RS/6000 (Intel emulator) | i5/OS aka AS/400 and OS/400, Linux, AIX 5L, Windows | i5 | | iSociety (dead), AS400 Blog |
| Power Systems (replace iSeries) | POWER = Power RISC Processor | Mid-Range | 64-bit POWER7 | IBM i, AIX, UNIX, Linux | POWER7 | | iSociety (dead) |
| z Systems | z = z (big) | Mainframe | z9, zec12, z14, z13s, z13 | Linux on System z9 aka LinuxONE, z/OS aka OS/390, z/VM, z/VSE, VSE/ESA, TPF, z/TPF | z16, z15, z14, z13s, z13, z9-109, zEC12 | | IBM Z and LinuxONE Community, IBM z/OSMF Guild |
| ex IBM |
|---|
| marketing | IBM Watson Marketing now Centerbridge Partners Acoustic | ecommerce |
| documents | HCL Connections sold by IBM in 2019 | community documentation |
| IBM |
|---|
| devops | IBM Developer
IBM Software Directory
IBM Rational Developer for i Hub
IBM Systems engineering software and solutions ex Rational
Rational Build Forge
UrbanCode
Rexx (Learning Rexx language) - z/OS
languages on z/OS: Rexx, C, Java, maybe Python, Go
languages not on z/OS: PHP, Perl | CASE tools, middleware, embedded IDE tools, DevOps tools, CI/CD |
| devops | Developing software with Rational ClearCase | software configuration management |
| devops | IBM DevOps (ex Tivoli) (manual) | network fault management (NBN) |
| devops | IBM | Developer | Cloud | Red Hat OpenShift |
| web | Websphere Web application server | Websphere Web application server |
| web | WebSphere Cast Iron Cloud Integration, Push REST API (Swagger) from Cast Iron Project to API Management | cloud |
| cloud | Hybrid Cloud explained | Websphere Web application server |
| cloud | Pure Systems | cloud |
| cloud | IBM Cloud console (ex BlueMix), IBM Cloud (ex BlueMix), IBM Cloud Blog, IBM Cloudant, Red Hat OpenStack, OpenShift, JBoss, Ansible hybrid cloud | PaaS, cloud, container, automation, J2EE |
| storage | IBM Data Storage | flash storage, SDS (software-defined storage), SAN, tape storage, data protection software |
| messaging | IBM IT Infrastructure ex Xtify now IBM MQ | push notification, messaging |
| AI | IBM Supply Chain | Watson supply chain, Watson ecommerce, Watson marketing, large retail department stores |
| AI | IBM Smarter Workforce - Kenexa - IBM Watson Talent | Human Resources and Recruitment |
| AI | IBM Watson - AI - IBM Watson Analytics Community - medical simulator - AI on Z 101 - IBM Z and LinuxONE Group: AI on IBM Z & LinuxONE | medical, cognitive, AI computing |
| database | IBM Informix
EzNoSQL - z/OS | embedded database, IoT, NoSQL |
| analytics | IBM DataOps (ex InfoSphere)
Apache Hadoop
IBM Netezza Data Warehouse Systems | IBM Cloud: big data in the cloud, data warehousing, business intelligence, analytics |
| analytics | IBM Cloud Pak for Data: Analytics, Databank.ai | DB2 database |
| analytics | SPSS | statistics, surveys, business intelligence, data mining, data modeling |
| documents | ex Lotus: Think conference
Notes and Domino Family (formerly Lotus)
IBM Collaboration Solutions User Community
IBM Domino
IBM Notes and Domino 9 Social Edition: Messaging Server
IBM Notes: Integration Tools
Open output: Producing ODF spreadsheets from your Web services - Directly generate files with PHP and Python
Workplace Collaboration Services | collaboration |
| finance | IBM Blockchain | blockchain, finance tech, accounting, distributed |
| system | peripheral | model |
|---|
| mainframe | tape libraries (petabyte) | TS3200 |
- List of mergers and acquisitions by IBM
- recent
- UrbanCode 4/2013
- Xtify 10/2013
- Red Hat 10/2018 - Red Hat acquisitions
- Ansible 10/2015
- CentOS 1/2014
- CentOS was retired early in 12/21 killing CentOS 8 years early
- forcing free CentOS sysops onto commercial Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) by IBM
- caused anger amongst Linux sysops in 12/20
- alternatives to CentOS
- JBoss 6/2006
- Lenovo
- personal computer division to Lenovo in 2005 including ThinkPad
- server lines including System x and Bladecenter to Lenovo in 2014
IBM is in numerous industry groups:
I have considered partnering with IBM and visited their St Leonards NSW base in 15 March 2011 to attend a big data Sydney SMAQDown meetup presentation on Hadoop on how the British Library archived the internet and also saw their very interesting computer museum. IBM jStart Emerging Internet Technologies team in Australia sponsored this meetup.
This is an annual software and systems seminar. In 2012 it was in Melbourne 14/8/12 and Sydney 16/8/12 as Software Innovate now Think. In 2020 IBM Think is in May and 2021 IBM Think is in February on internet.
IBM Webinars are high bandwidth and require Flash. They don't work well on Vodafone 3G. PDF download works but not audio streaming. Close all other windows in browser other than Webinar or there will be no audio. Firefox with Flash 11 plugin on Linux works.
- IBM Ideas
- IBM Developer videos
- Develop apps in the cloud with DevOps Services
- IBM Cloud toolchains ex JazzHub - pay as you go, some free services
- DevOps community
- IBM supports Linux on their Intel, POWER and Mainframe architectures.
- Most demo software requires a high-end CPU (2GHz), RAM (1GB), disk (80GB), RHEL, SuSE. Demo is 1.2GB! You need broadband to download (>=1Mbit/sec).
- IBM runs Webcasts on IDEs, middleware and CASE tools that are OK over dialup.
- IBM holds good free developerWorks seminars on CASE tools and Linux in the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.
In April 2013, IBM acquired UrbanCode a DevOps tools vendor.
- Kubernetes
- I will use Red Hat Openshift once I get training provided by Red Hat and IBM or someone else
- IBM/Red Hat still only uses CLI (command-line interface) on terminal with very poor graphics and manual. Nothing has changed since the mainframe days.
- I tried to do Kubernetes training in AWS but it was too hard to setup lab (link did not work, too many steps, couldn't view documentation very easily, teacher Andy Yuen was very poorly prepared) 5/21
- I tried to do Kubernetes training in IBM Cloud but it was too hard to setup lab (required private browser page to open link to lab) and trainer Mo Haghighi was too fast 2/21
- Kubernetes is very expensive - $1900 / mth 2/21
- IBM buys Xtify - messaging 10/13 - now IBM MQ
- IBM Cloud (ex BlueMix) - PaaS
- IBM Garage for startups and enterprise innovation
- IBM acquisition
- technology
In October 2018, IBM acquired Red Hat hybrid cloud computing.
In October 2015, Red Hat acquired Ansible cloud automation software.