RE: IBM and the vanishing System i -- MIDRANGE-L

Um, I guess I don't see how "opposition to SOA" would have bearing on this 
omission....  Surely I'm not mistaken that SOA is the basis for most IBM 
middleware currently being produced, and that SOA is clearly the focus of IBM's 
developer roadmap....  So, why omit an entire server family from this paradigm? 
 Such discrimination just reinforces the "legacy" image of our platform.  

IBM can't even be counted upon to mention System i in its development redbooks, 
so why would we expect anything BUT opposition to this technology....

I was fortunate to be able to attend an SOA workshop at the IBM TEC in Dallas.  
IBM has the tooling and the necessary resources to support SOA development on 
System i, but that message never quite gets communicated properly.  It concerns 
me a great deal.....

Eric

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Trevor Perry
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 10:25 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: IBM and the vanishing System i


Joe,

Since there has been some major opposition to SOA in the System i World - 
including here on Midrange-L, why would IBM consider it a value proposition 
to run on System i?

I hear a large Chicago user group named OMNI has dropped SOA from its 
upcoming conference. If SOA is dropped from System i conferences, no wonder 
IBM SOA documents ignore the System i platform.

Trevor


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 9:40 AM
Subject: IBM and the vanishing System i

Far be it from me to want to intentionally give Steve any more ammo for 
his
cannon, but here's a little piece that really pisses me off.  It's an IBM
Redpaper entitled "Powering SOA with IBM Data Servers".  If you read the
abstract below, you'll see NO mention of the System i or of i5/OS.  Nor is
there anything in the entire 754 page Redpaper, either.

It's possible that we're left out because this is all due to cool DB2 V9
features, but I guess I don't understand why those features are available
for z/OS and not for i5/OS.

Joe

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247259.html


Abstract
Flexibility in business has become equal in importance with operational
efficiency. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) can help businesses 
respond
more quickly and cost-effectively to the changing market conditions by
promoting reuse and interconnection of existing IT assets rather than
time-consuming and costly reinvention.

SOA has been the top fashionable topic in IT for a few years now. This is
because there is a consensus of opinions among enterprise architects that
SOA is the key to making the IT department a catalyst for growth and
innovation.

This IBM Redbook helps you get started with SOA by showing the
implementation of the minimum requirements: The creation of Web services
that allow access to data that is stored in data servers or applications 
and
the realization of interaction services for business to consumer
integration. The data servers included in our scenario are DB2 for z/OS, 
DB2
for Linux, UNIX and Windows, Informix Dynamic Server and IMS.

This redbook is a roadmap showing how SOA can significantly improve the IT
business value.