Where next for IBMi ?

The announcement in spring by IBM of the end of support for IBMi 7.1 plus the malware attacks of both Spectre and Meltdown has left many a Sys admin’s looking at how they future proof their IBMi environments.

IBMi (AS400) user group communities have recently been discussing the the need to develop greater high availability from legacy hardware as suggested by the recent surveys undertaken by both Help Systems and Vision solutions.

This trend to provide more resilient environments comes at a time of increased compliance and security obligations. Every week there seems to be another security breach that is made public much to the embarrassment of the victim. Steps to prevent such activities are now at the top of user group and open IBM discussions. These discussions are fueling a trend to review application and server architecture; shoring up application access and IBMi architecture by gaining greater code and performance insight via products like X-Analysis.

For many the age of austerity remains, with small funding to replace legacy application servers, as the demand for storage and backup continues to eat into the budgets once protected to ensure optimal application performance. This environment is seeing in house IT strategist look for alternative ways to get more from legacy application environments rather than refreshing every 5 years. IBM partners are helping clients to avoid the capital costs of a refresh by re architecting legacy hardware with 3rd party evaluation and optimisation tools.

Rolling up to Power9. Many in the IBMi community who are looking at the end of support in September for their 7.1 (and below) assets feel the time is right to assess the virtues of Power8 or 9. Power9 represents a major shift in direction for IBM, who have shaped their next generations of servers in line with the increasing demand for AI and all things cognitive computing. This marks a departure from the competition of Linux and Windows, who continue to compete on the traditional features associated with buying application servers. Power9 also represents an attractive TCO compared with legacy and competitive environments which could generate interest from those considering a refresh over the next 12 months.

Where next for my IBMi Environment?
Given the commercial backdrop to leverage legacy application servers and the rise of optimisation tools now could be a good time to evaluate your current IBMi architecture. Contact us today to speak to an IBMi expert.

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