For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

IBM System z: Trends And Drivers Catalyzing The Next Generation Midframe

by Brad Day, November 14, 2007

IBM's System z9 stands at a crossroads. Some IT folks believe System z remains challenged, constrained by a lack of available programming and administrators' skills, legacy application re-use, and perceived higher software license and support costs. Yet . . .

Dynamic LPARs on IBM iSeries: The Pearl in the Oyster

by Brad Day, June 30, 2003

OS/400 V5R2 created significant improvements in two key areas: (1) improved enterprise applications support and (2) infrastructure software support (e.g, high-performance Apache Web serving, both with secure sockets and caching accelerators).

Two Faces of Sun's V1280 — As Challenger, As Challenged

by Brad Day, March 4, 2003

Sun's new 12-way V1280 server is important not only for Sun's ability to create an obvious growth path for the Sun Fire V880 installed customer but also to serve as an extension of its entry into the midrange market to encourage Solaris 9 migration.

HP 05 Series Servers — New Selection Criteria in Unix Workgroup and Entry Midrange

by Brad Day, September 4, 2002

While both Sun and IBM have similar strategies in lower-priced preconfigured server alternatives (e.g., Sun's Volume Systems Products and IBM's pSeries Express configurations), Giga believes HP has soundly addressed customer requirements.

IBM's pSeries 630 — Implications of POWER 4 for Unix Entry Customers

by Brad Day, June 27, 2002

For the existing RS/6000 44P Model 270 and pSeries 640-B80 customers, the pSeries 630 provides a compelling upgrade incentive for both tower and rack-mount upgrades.

HP Opts for ProLiant: Options for NetServer Clients

by Adria Ferguson, May 14, 2002

NetServer customers should have plenty of time to adjust to the migration but might want to contact their account manager to ensure ongoing support and migration needs will be met.

IBM's pSeries 670 — POWER4 Functionality in a Midrange Price Point

by Brad Day, April 12, 2002

The IBM pSeries 670 serves to accomplish several objectives for IBM's Unix systems customer — including leveraging the same POWER4-based reliability, availability and performance scalability of its high-end p690.

Superdome's First Year (Part 2): Partitioning - Up Close and Personal

by Brad Day, April 4, 2002

Giga looks at two customer case examples that best examine the solution details—and benefits realized for each customer—through HP's nPartitions technology, which is part of Superdome.

Superdome's First Year (Part 1): Zeroing in on Scalability and Consolidation

by Brad Day, April 4, 2002

Giga examines the four product components that make up HP's "partitioning continuum"-HyperPlex, nPartitions, vPartitions and resource partitions (otherwise known as workload management)-which are all part of Superdome.

HP's rp7410 Server: Renewed Position in Entry Midrange

by Brad Day, March 22, 2002

As Hewlett-Packard had decided to architect many of the same high-end Superdome systems features that debuted in its rp8400, the new eight-way rp7410 also maintains some of the same design goals.

Sun's V880 Workgroup Midrange: As Challenger and Challenged

by Brad Day, November 7, 2001

Sun s new eight-way V880 helps it create a more aggressively priced UltraSPARC III entry server product refresh as well as serves as an enticement to keep companies from defecting to a four-way and/or eight-way Wintel or Lintel server solution.

HP s rp8400 Server: Proposition for Customers, Protection From Competitors

by Brad Day, September 19, 2001

The introduction of HP's rp8400 (code-named Keystone) is the company's first intent to answer the four-fold requirements of its installed midrange server customer base (both predecessor K- and N-class customers).

Hewlett-Packard and Compaq Merge: Impact on Low to Midrange Intel Server Strategy

by Adria Ferguson, September 7, 2001

Instead of having redundant product lines (particularly in the low to midrange Intel server market) we anticipate that if the merger goes through the companies will enhance the interoperability of middleware and management technologies.

iSeries as Consolidator Logical Partitions Getting Traction

by Brad Day, July 30, 2001

LPAR has improved significantly during the last several years on iSeries (formerly AS/400) and has become a critical technology underpinning IT organizations that are looking to get the most efficient use of its AS/400 footprint.

IBM Completes pSeries Significance to Customers, Challenge to Competitors

by Brad Day, May 4, 2001

New positioning in midrange performance, and price/performance, only secure a further opportunity to drive a hard bargain for deeper discounts on new server acquisitions with Sun and IBM on the short list.

Sun's Midframe Debuts — What's Here Now, What's Still Evolving

by Brad Day, March 22, 2001

While system pricing looks aggressive vs. HP and IBM, with an entry-level Sun Fire 3800 at less than $150,000, customers' interest will be in how these new systems may lower the cost of specific software licenses or possibly change pricing models.

Windows Server Integration on AS/400 Compelling Now, More to Come for the iSeries

by Brad Day, March 15, 2001

We believe companies should only consider iSeries technology when trying to achieve one or more of the following business benefits: managing multiple applications on a single server, lowering the cost of user administration and reducing operations costs.