So will iSeries take on the pSeries?
The pSeries and iSeries are both mid-range systems, supporting from tens to thousands of users. As long as they have both existed, commentators have asked whether one will eventually win out over the other. IBM's answer has always remained the same, that both are aimed at different markets. But surely the cross-fertilisation of technologies will erode the differences?
Dave does not think so: "They are totally different in nature," he said. "People used to say that the mainframe would go away, but it didn't."
The two systems now have virtually the same parts, so the difference is not hardware, but software and operating system, he admits: "We will carry on seeing offerings from OS/400 and AIX, even though the hardware will converge. We have removed the focus on hardware, and are looking to the middleware."
However, he does say that in hardware the two systems have a totally different I/O path, and this will remain different: "The iSeries has always had distributed I/O and this will evolve."
IBM has argued that the iSeries has a lower cost of ownership than other systems because it is a plug-and-play systems which is easier to administer. This must be weakened by moves to simplify management on all systems. iSeries and pSeries will have a common interface for management, said Dave, so that administrators will only need to be trained once.
Offering the same management tools on both systems has become easier, because iSeries does in fact have an AIX interface. PASE (portable application solution environment) allows AIX applications to run natively on iSeries, but doesn't support the whole AIX environment (so it is no substitute for the promised LPAR implementation).
"We did not rewrite Tivoli for iSeries -- we just used PASE to bring in," said Dave. "We do this more and more to bring middleware across." PASE itself is expected to be developed further in future versions of the iSeries software.
Despite Dave's insistence, the delay to the AIX LPAR looks very much like an effort to keep a distinction between the two. There is no doubt that allowing technology to transfer between the different server lines has revitalised the iSeries, allowing it to continue where other suppliers' proprietary mid-range systems died years ago. But the eventual result, of a company selling the same mid-range machine in two flavours, will be a severe test of IBM's marketing brains.
The heart of the iSeries
According to Dave, the iSeries value proposition is that it is highly integrated, while the pSeries is an "open systems" platform which allows users to run different programs from different sources. Even when the hardware is completely identical (the iSeries has run on the same Power processors as the pSeries for several years) and the software is virtually the same.
The iSeries masks the complexities of set-up and is designed for a Big-Blue only setup. Traditional IT managers do not want this -- "they say it will put them out of a job," said Dave. But other people like it.
He describes an iSeries user -- a Korean gynaecologist who also owns the hospital where he works, and is also the chief information officer (CIO). Without needing to know much about the system, he has a high availability, multi-user business system, run by ordinary hospital staff, said Dave. The rarity of iSeries skills among specialist medical staff may, perhaps, be indicated by the fact that, according to Google, this very page is the first on the Net to include the words "iSeries" and "gynaecologist".
Users like this are happy to run IBM's Lotus Notes or Domino collaboration software which, Dave pointed out, runs natively and much faster on the iSeries. "The iSeries is the second favourite platform for running Domino [after Microsoft's NT/2000 platform]," ignoring the fact that Domino itself comes a poor second to Microsoft's Exchange.
The fact that more users run it on Microsoft servers is not such good news surely?. Dave leaves the iSeries track for a moment to assure us that "many users will replace Exchange with Domino servers, while keeping Outlook on their desktop." One role suggested for iSeries is sitting behind and supporting Windows systems.
For many people "highly integrated" means "proprietary", and the word seems to sting Dave -- needlessly so, because the typical iSeries user has no objection to using a proprietary system. He or she could not care less about open systems; they just want a machine that carries on working.
Dave admitted the system is proprietary, but pointed out that it allows IBM to do things like dramatically changing the operating system if required. But it is also open in several important ways.
"But are we open and do we adhere to standards in the industry? Yes. Are we open to new technologies? Yes." To illustrate this kind of openness, he pointed to the availability of the popular Apache web server on iSeries, as well as Java and Linux.
In fact, he argued that iSeries' proprietary architecture actually makes it a better Java platform. "Java is integrated better into the iSeries than on the pSeries. We have put Java into the microcode." While the open systems demands on the pSeries require it to run Java in a separate layer, iSeries can hide it in the silicon itself, he said.
Surviving in the market
While a small fraction of the size of the Windows server market, the iSeries seems healthy. There are 750,000 iSeries machines out there, according to Dave. Each one supports from 20 to 4000 users, so there are tens of millions of users on the system.
The machine's competitors vary from industry to industry, said Dave, including Microsoft NT, to Sun, HP and Compaq. "Others don't have the same commitment to focus on TCO," he said. "Feeds and speeds don't excite us - we talk about solutions, while Sun and HP talk about hardware."
One source of converts to iSeries might be users stranded on other vendors' erstwhile proprietary mid-range systems, such as the HP3000. These systems, if they are supported at all, tend not to have newer technologies such as Java and web services, and vendors are usually making every effort to move users onto their Unix systems. iSeries may be able to offer this kind of user something close to what they are used to, said Dave.
But the touted "ease of use" benefit may be another distinction which is being eroded. Initiatives such as HP's Utility Data Center (UDC) which aims to offer scalable processing and storage on demand may eventually provide something as easy as iSeries, without the downside of proprietary hardware.
Here, iSeries has to at least nod to the newer developments, in everything from storage to grid computing. "How do we participate in a SAN environment, while continuing with what we already have been doing in direct attached storage?" mused Dave. "We are looking at ways to continue offering customers a choice."
iSeries' involvement in the Grid computing initiative is serious, with machines participating in IBM's Blue Grid test bed. It will be in delivered products, once the standard OGSA (Open Grid Services Architecture) interface is implemented, he said.
So it looks like IBM's iSeries team will keep on working at conflicting demands: advanced enough technology, which is nevertheless proven and easy to use; systems which are similar enough to other IBM servers, yet distinctive enough to justify their existence.
