Happy New Year everyone!

Well it's Tuesday again, and you know what that means? IBM Announcements!

(Update: I thought it was quite clever to announce the new z13 mainframe on January the 13th. A few [triskaidekaphobic] employees pointed out that certain [Greek and Spanish-speaking cultures] consider Tuesday the 13th to be an unlucky day. However, superstitious people should probably not work in IT, as it would be difficult for a worldwide company like IBM to avoid all the numbers that different cultures consider unlucky.)

IBM will have a live streaming event on Jan 14, Redefining Digital Business: The new generation of IBM z Systems], for those who want to hear the announcement in more detail. Here is what the invitation page has to offer:

But what does this really mean? Are you thinking BFD?

(Update: For those not familiar with IT acronyms, BFD refers to "Bigger, Faster, Denser" -- the trend in IT to announce new generations that are merely bigger, faster, and/or denser versions of the previous generations. Fortunately, the z13 takes up the same amount of data center floor space -- 2 floor tiles = 2 square meters = 20 square feet -- and weighs approximately the same as the z196 and zEC12, so raised floor struts do not have to be strengthened or reinforced to take in this new system.)

You may have noticed that we are now talking about "z System" instead of "System z". This change was made to line up with IBM's change to "POWER Systems" from "System p". Leadership felt that dropping the stodgy old zEnterprise and giving the mainframe a "hip" new name would attract new emerging digital workloads like Cloud, Analytics, Mobile and Social.

 

This is not the first time IBM has renamed products in a series. While the IBM mainframe just celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, the "13" refers to the 13th generation of CMOS-based mainframe technology introduced in 1994. Here is a quick table to show you the names that have evolved over the years:

Generation	Product name
1 to 6	S/390 G1 to G6
7	zSeries z800 and z900
8	zSeries z890 and z990
9 to 10	System z9 and z10
11	System z196 and z114
12	zEnterprise zEC12 and zBC12
13	z13 System

(Note: This change also corresponds to a completely restructuring of IBM into business units, eliminating its former hardware and software groups. The design and development of all mainframe-related hardware, software and middleware will be consolidated under the IBM Systems business unit. I will wait for IBM's 4Q financial results announcement on or after January 20 before I cover this in any more detail.)

The z13 machine itself has some unique differences from previous generations. Instead of a "Multi-chip Module" (MCM) that contained multiple processor and storage controllers on a single slab, the z13 uses Single-Chip Modules (SCM) that are either a single 8-core processor, or a single system controller, allowing them to be field replaceable units (FRU).

Previous generations organized the processors in 1 to 4 vertical "books". The problem was that if you had a single book system, you bought a lot of hardware infrastructure designed to support a full four books. In the new design, processors are organized into horizontal Central Processor Complex (CPC) drawers, with additional hardware infrastructure provided per drawer. This makes the lower-end models more affordable. Each drawer has six processor SCMs and two system controller SCMs, providing 39 to 42 usable cores per drawer. Models ranges from 30 to 141 usable cores, with the option to upgrade from one model to another as your needs grow.

The z13 provides N-2 generation compatibility. This means you can have the z196, zEC12 and z13 all participate in the same Parallel Sysplex. You will also be able to upgrade your z196 or zEC12 to the new z13 system.

The new z13 can have up to 10TB of memory, and this can be assigned entirely to a single Logical Partition, or LPAR. The system can be subdivided up to 85 LPARs, versus 60 on the previous generation. Currently, z/OS v1 can only have up to 1TB per LPAR, and z/OS v2 can only go up to 4TB, so I suspect this 10TB is planning for future OS releases.

The new z13 now offers Simultaneous Multithreading [SMT]. Initially, this will double the number of threads for IFL engines (supporting Linux and z/VM), and zIIP engines supporting DB2, Java, XML and IPsec workloads. IBM is eliminating the zAAP engines, since zIIP engines can do all of that. The new [Preview z/OS v2.2] will take advantage of this SMT capability.

To assist with database, analytics and multimedia workloads, the z13 offers Single Instruction, Multiple Data [SIMD] capability. This allows a single instruction to perform the same update or action across many data fields.

For those clients with zBX models 2 and 3, allowing you to run POWER-based AIX and x86-based Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems on your mainframe, they will be able to upgrade to [zBX model 4 for the z13 System]. Now that IBM has sold off its x86 server business to Lenovo, I suspect it will also phase out the zBX offerings as well.

To handle emerging workloads of Cloud, Mobile and other Web applications, IBM will offer a new stronger and faster Crypto Express5S cryptographic adapter. The z13 will enhance public key support for constrained digital environments using Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) for users such as Chrome, Firefox, and Apple's iMessage. The z13 will also minimize reformatting of databases with new exploitation of VISA format preserving encryption (FPE) for credit card numbers.

The z13 also made some enhancements for Linux clients. The zAware analytics that analyzes internal traces and logs for z/OS has been extended to support Linux on System z. For those who want to use GDPS Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery services, but don't want to develop z/OS skills for the "K" system, there will now be a Virtual GDPS appliance that will run self-contained z/OS. Lastly, IBM has made a statement of direction that it will support open source Linux KVM as a Linux-only alternative to z/VM hypervisor. OpenStack will support both this new Linux KVM as well as z/VM 6.3 release.

The PCIe bus has been upgraded to Gen3 at 16Gbps, from Gen2 used in the zEC12. These can be used for Coupling Facility Links, which are faster than the legacy 6 Gbps InfiniBand, which are also supported for legacy migration. People with z196 and zEC12 can either carry forward their I/O drawers they have previously purchased, or move the PCiE Gen2 cards into the new Gen3 drawers.

The new z13 will also support 16Gb FICON, using the new FICON Express5S cards. Here is my segue into storage, as you are probably now wondering when I was going to get to the storage part of the announcement!

IBM is also announcing corresponding changes to the DS8870 firmware and accessories to go with the z13 System. This includes:

FICON Dynamic Routing

Reduce cost with improved and persistent performance for supporting I/O devices. This feature will allow SAN directors to have both FICON and FCP share the same Inter-switch Links (ISL). This is especially useful for clients who use FCP with their Linux, z/VM, AIX or Windows workloads.

16Gb Host Adapters

Improve network performance with twice faster FC and FICON adapters, and minimize latency for database log writes with zHyperWrite and Metro Mirror. These 16Gb adapters can auto-negotiate down to 4Gb and 8Gb, so that the DS8870 can connect to both the new z13 mainframe, as well as older models.

Forward Error Correction

Preserve data integrity with more redundancy on the information transmitted via 16Gb adapters.

zHPF Extended Distances improvements

Increase remote data speed with 50 percent better I/O performance when accessing remote disk, typically after a HyperSwap. The "zHPF" acronym is short for z System High Performance FICON.

Fabric Priority

Improved resiliency capabilities while enhancing the value of FICON Dynamic Routing mentioned above. IBM is extending Workload Manager (WLM) Quality of Service (QoS) optimization that exists now for compute and storage to the SAN Fabric, allowing WLM policies to influence FICON traffic.

IBM zHyperWrite™ capability

Helps you achieve better DB2 log write performance when using Metro Mirror (PPRC) in a HyperSwap-managed environment. Log writes are sent directly to both DASD, freeing up Metro Mirror resources.

But don't just take my word for it, here are reviews of the new system from various journalists:

"They seem a computing odd couple: the mainframe, the old workhorse, and the smartphone, the cool-kid computer of today. But IBM has designed the latest version of the mainframe, which is being introduced on Wednesday, with the smartphone in mind. The new mainframe, the z13, has been engineered to cope with the huge volume of data and transactions generated by people using smartphones and tablets."
-- New York Times

"One customer enthusiastic about such features is Citigroup Inc., a longtime IBM user that favors mainframes for both reliability and security. 'Security is in the DNA of the mainframe,' said Martin Kennedy, Citi's managing director for platforms and storage. Another factor shaping the bank's needs, Mr. Kennedy said, is the rising volume of transactions carried out using smartphones and other mobile devices. Mainframes are particularly good at combining data from a variety of systems and presenting them to a user's mobile app, he said."
-- The Wall Street Journal

"IBM is introducing a new mainframe in a bet that clients will need its souped-up speed and security to handle a surge in consumers using smartphones for everything from banking to checking health-care records. The z13 system can encrypt and analyze data in real time and process 30,000 transactions a second, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) announced today. That means faster and safer transactions for consumers on mobile phones."
-- Bloomberg

"With the unveiling of the z13, IBM has taken its MobileFirst Platform to deliver even better performance and security than before, as it incorporates the fastest microprocessor in the world, server processors that are twice as fast as existing products, 300 percent additional memory and 100 percent more bandwidth analytics speed. Last year, IBM formed a partnership with Apple to help bring Apple's iDevices to business customers to boost sales, with IBM providing cloud and mobile analytics support."
-- The Street

"'We're driving toward a world where more and more people are using mobile devices, or embedded devices, to interact with systems,' John Birtles, director of IBM z Systems, tells WIRED. 'We need to make sure that those devices are secure, that the transaction's secure, and that our clients get the level of analytics that gives them opportunities to improve their businesses.'"
-- Wired

IBM mainframes are used to process the majority of financial transactions around the world, is well positioned to handle Cloud, Analytics, Mobile and Social workloads. The IBM DS8000 series disk is the #1 market leader for disk storage on mainframe environments.

To learn more, read the [IBM z13 announcement letter] or [Press Release].

technorati tags: IBM, z13, mainframe, z+System, DS8000, DS8870, HyperWrite, FICON, PCiE, #z13

Well, it's the end of the year, so I thought a recap of year 2014 would be in order.

The year started out with some January announcements, including the IBM FlashSystem 840. IBM is proud to be ranked #1 in All-Flash Arrays, and the IBM acquisition of Texas Memory System has caused all of the other competitors to scramble their own wanna-be offerings. IBM also announced it was going to sell off its System x division to Lenovo.

In February, I wrapped up a project to build a Linux-based PC for a kindergarten class. IBM announced some exciting new things at Pulse 2014 conference, including IBM Bluemix Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), new IBM SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center offerings, and acquisition of Cloudant Database. Also, on Valentine's day, IBM announced the FlashSystem V840, which combines the software-defined storage features of SAN Volume Controller, with the Microlatency of the FlashSystem 840. IBM sold its 10,000th PureSystems converged expert-integrated system.

In March, I completed a six-month film project ["A Tucson Executive Briefing Center: A Quick Visual Tour"]. I was writer/director/actor for this quick 3-minute film posted on YouTube. I wrote the script and had it reviewed by a professional script reviewer, hired a professional cinemetographer, paid royalties for background music, located a voice-over expert for narration, and trained the actors (all IBM employees) how to read their lines and stand on their mark for the camera. It was a big success!

Also in March, I worked with the Netezza, Tivoli and Storwize V7000 team to work out [complete backup options for IBM clients who use PureData System for Analytics, powered by Netezza].

In April, I presented at the Systems Technical University in Istanbul, Turkey. I had been to Turkey before, but this was my first time to the city of Istanbul itself. The owner of my local [Savaya Coffee] is from Istanbul, and was able to introduce me to someone who was able to arrange for a full tour my first day! Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, IBMers in New York were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the IBM mainframe, including a cameo appearance on the TV show "Mad Men".

In May, I was busy presenting at the IBM Edge conference in Las Vegas. IBM celebrated the sixth anniversary of IBM ProtecTIER data deduplication device, announced "Codename: Elastic Storage" and new features on the DS8870 disk system, and presented analyst findings that IBM Software Defined Storage was substantially less expensive than competitive offerings.

In June, I was recognized as one of the most influential bloggers in the IBM company, earning the prestigious [IBM Corporate Technology Social Business Imact Award for 2013].

In July, I took a nice summer vacation, [a road trip across the state of Tennessee]. IBM made a strategic partnership with Apple to offer mobile apps for the data center enterprise for the iOS operating system on iPhones and iPad tablets.

In August, I completed a summer partnership with University of Toronto and IBM Softlayer to build "Concept IBM Watson", a scaled down version of IBM Watson based on my infamous 2011 blog post [How to replicate Watson hardware and systems design for your own use in your basement]. Rather than using three physical servers, however, we had virtual x86 machines running on IBM Softlayer cloud. The system was only asked the simplest "How many...?" questions against a single text document, but proved to the University that teaching analytics by replicating IBM's historic achievement was effective and possible.

In September, I celebrated my eight year "Blogoversary". That's right, I have been blogging for the past eight years! With over 800 posts, and five published books, I countinue to be ranked #1 most-read blog on IBM developerWorks. IBM was ranked #1 for Software Defined Storage!

In October, I presented at the Systems Technical University in Dublin, Ireland. This was my first time in Ireland, and I found Dublin to be quite a beautiful city, with friendly people and delicious food.

The rest of October, and much of November and December, I spent on the road, visiting clients to help close deals! (Sorry folks... Due to SEC black-out rules, I am prohibited from telling you how well I did) Since I am not allowed to talk about on-going discussions that I have with clients, my blog has been noticeably silent during these months. I apologize for any stress or anxiety this might have caused any of my readers!

Despite too-much-candy, too-much-turkey and too-many-cookies that the year-end often brings, I managed to lose twenty pounds on a low-carb, gluten-free, Paleo diet and exercise.

2015 is shaping up to be a good year!

This week, I am in Dublin, Ireland for the [IBM System x, IBM PureSystems and System Storage Technical University] conference.

(Note: While Lenovo has officially taken over the System x on October 1st back in the United States, China, and several other countries in Asia and the Americas, it has not yet happened in Europe. This is expected to happen this December. This results in some awkwardness during this period of transition.)

Day 1 started off with some keynote sessions. Amy Purdy, IBM Director of Training Services, was the emcee.

Gareth Tucker, Director of EMEA for Intel

Gareth focused on the strong partnership between IBM, Lenovo and Intel. For example, a client query that took 4 hours with traditional DB2 database on Intel Xeon, but only 90 seconds on DB2 BLU with the new Xeon V2 chip.

10 years ago, some storage vendors warned clients not to use any Intel-based storage devices. Today, over 85 percent of storage is Intel-based, including most of the IBM System Storage portfolio. IBM SoftLayer also uses Intel to offer both bare metal and virtual x86 servers, and was the first cloud provider to use Intel's "Trusted Execution" mode.

Next year, Microsoft will drop support for Windows 2003 server on July 15, 2015. This represents an excellent selling opportunity to get clients to upgrade their x86 server hardware. Intel estimates there are 24 million instances of Windows 2003 worldwide. On average, it takes 150 days to migrate to Windows 2012, so get clients to start now!

Jeff Howard, Vice President of Lenovo Flex and BladeCenter

Jeff was a last-minute stand-in for Adalio Sanchez who is busy getting thousands of employees and hundreds of trailer trucks full of IT equipment from IBM's Raleigh location to Lenovo's new building in Morrisville.

Lenovo's goal is simple: to be the #1 vendor of x86 enterprise servers. Lenovo sees a $44 Billion USD opportunity in x86 servers, with an additional $14B opportunity selling IBM System Storage attached to these servers. Lenovo is already #1 for Personal Computers in the consumer space, and is #1 for customer satisfaction. IBM System x #1 in reliability and up-time for x86 servers. In a client survey of how many clients had an outage lasting four hours or more, less than 1 percent from IBM System x compared to 13 percent for HP servers. That's a big difference!

There is a 40 percent growth in "Converged Systems" such as the Flex System and PureFlex systems. Lenovo will take over the x86-only versions of these, while IBM will retain the POWER-based and Power-and-x86 hybrid models. IBM will also retain the PureApplication and PureData models of the PureSystems line.

Lenovo is also focused on security. Their "Trusted Platform" includes Self-encrypting Drives (SED) managed by IBM Security Key Lifecycle Manager software, and Crypto-assist co-processors.

Jeff also mentioned new reference architectures for VMware's VSAN, Microsoft's Fast-track Data warehouse for SQL Server, SmartCloud Desktop Infrastructure VDI with Atlantis ILIO, and Flex Systems for Hyper-V.

Greg Lotko, VP of IBM Storage Systems Development

Greg is the new VP of Storage Systems Development, about 11 months on the job, but I am glad to hear that he recognizes that IBM System Storage has a huge portfolio of products.

He focused on those areas where IBM is ranked #1:

• IBM is #1 for All-Flash arrays.
• IBM is #1 for Software Defined Storage (SDS).
• IBM is #1 for Tape, including tape drives, tape libraries and virtual tape systems

 

The weather here in Dublin is great, although I have had not had much time to enjoy the outdoors with all the awesome and interesting sessions inside!

technorati tags: IBM, #ibmtechu, Lenovo, Intel, SoftLayer, VMware, VSAN, Microsoft, Gareth Tucker, x86, converged systems, expert-Integrated systems, Flex Systems, PureFlex, BladeCenter, , Jeff Howard, Self-encrypting drives, Security Key Lifecycle Manager, SED, SKLM, , Greg Lotko, Software-Defined Storage, SDS, All-Flash, Tape, x86, Dublin Ireland

This week, I am in Dublin, Ireland for the [IBM System x, IBM PureSystems and System Storage Technical University] conference.

Here are the sessions that I will be speaking at:

Day	Time	Session
Monday	14:30	IBM Smarter Storage Strategy
Tuesday	16:15	Cloud Storage Options
Wednesday	09:00	What is Big Data? Architectures and Practical use cases
	10:30	New Generation of Storage Tiering: Less management, lower investment and increased performance
	16:15	IBM Archive Storage Solutions - Data Retention for Government Compliance and Industry Regulations
	17:45	Meet the Storage Experts
Thursday	14:30	Data Footprint Reduction - Understanding IBM Storage Efficiency Options
Friday	10:30	IBM Smarter Storage Strategy (repeat of Monday)

If you are at the conference, stop by and see me! You can also follow me on Twitter @az990tony and the hashtag #ibmtechu.

technorati tags: #ibmtechu, Smarter Storage, Cloud storage, Big data, Storage tiering, Archive storage, Data footrpint reduction, storage efficiency

Well it's Tuesday again, and you know what that means? IBM Announcements!

(Ha Ha! It is actually Monday. Some of these announcements were originally scheduled for October 28, but with [Enterprise 2014 conference] this week, and the [IBM System x, IBM PureSystems and IBM System Storage Technical University] next week, IBM executives moved up the date!)

We have a lot to cover, so I will do the quick recap today, and then go in-depth on subsequent posts.

IBM FlashSystem 840 and V840

The FlashSystem now offers a high-voltage 1300W power supply. There are two supplies providing redundancy. In the unlikely event that you are doing maintenance on one of them, the other supply handles all the workload. With the original power supply, the system slowed down the clock speeds to reduce electrical demand. The new power supplies can handle full performance.

Also, the Graphical User Interface (GUI) now holds 300 days of performance data with pan-and-zoom capability. Five predefined graphs showing key performance metrics with additional user-defined metrics available for visualization.

See the [Announcement letter 114-157] for details.

IBM DS8870 Enhancements new v7.4 microcode

The new v7.4 level of microcode combines features from v7.2.7 and v7.3 into a single code base.

In previous 3-site mirroring implementations, you had A-to-B-to-C cascading. Metro Mirror would get the data from A-to-B, then Global Mirror would copy B-to-C. Multiple Target Peer-to-Peer Remote Copy (PPRC) feature number 7025 allows you to have two separate paths of the data: A-to-B and separately A-to-C. Some folks refer to this as a "star" configuration.

For System z mainframe clients, the new v7.4 introduces new zHyperWrite for DB2 database logs, enhances zGM (XRC) write pacing, and extends Easy Tier automated-tiering API to allow z/OS applications to influence placement on different tiers of storage.

The High Performance Flash Enclosures (HPFE) that IBM introduced last May for the "A" frames are now available for "B" frames. You can have four HPFE in A, and another 4 in B.

DS8870 now offers 600 GB 15K rpm SAS and 1.6 TB 2.5-inch SSD encryption drives for additional capacity and cost performance options to meet data growth demands within the same space. Both support data-at-rest encryption.

Lastly, we have upgraded the OpenStack Cinder driver to the latest Juno release, including features like volume replication and volume retype.

See the [Announcement letter 114-171] and [114-172] for details.

IBM SAN24B-5 switches

The latest SAN switch is a slim 1U high box that can be configured with 12 or 24 ports. These are 16Bps ports that can auto-negotiate down to 8Gbps, 4Gbps and 2Gbps. These are easy to set up, and can be managed with the IBM Network Advisor management software.

See the [Announcement letter 114-162] for details.

GPFS v4.1 and GPFS Storage Server

GPFS is the core technology for IBM's "Codename: Elastic Storage" initiative.

You have several options. First, you can purchase just the GPFS software itself. It runs natively on AIX, Windows and Linux, and can be extended to support other operating systems through the use of NAS protocols like NFS or CIFS. Today, the Linux support which was previously just x86 and POWER has been extended to include Linux on System z mainframes as well.

GPFS v4.1 offers "Native RAID" support, with de-clustered RAID in 8+2P and 8+3P configurations. Like the IBM XIV Storage System, this scatters the data across many drives, and can tolerate drive failures better than traditional RAID-5 configurations.

Another option is to get a pre-configured "Converged" appliance that combines servers, storage and hardware. We already offer SONAS and the Storwize V7000 Unified, but IBM now offers the "GPFS Storage Server" running on the new P822L Linux-on-Power servers, RHEL v7, and and GPFS v4.1 with Native RAID to twin-tailed attached DCS3700 expansion drawers. Since GPFS provides the RAID, no need for DCS37000 controllers, saving clients substantial costs.

For more details, see [Announcement letter 214-376] and [214-367].

Storwize family

The IBM Storwize family includes SAN Volume Controller, Storwize V7000, Storwize V7000 Unified, Storwize V5000, Storwize V3700 and Storwize V3500.

The big announcement is that IBM now offers data-at-rest encryption for block data on internal drives in the new generation of Storwize V7000 and V7000 Unified models. There is no performance impact, and no need to purchase new SED-capable drives.

Data-at-rest encryption helps in several ways. First, it protects data if a drive is pulled out and taken away maliciously. Second, it protects data if the drive fails and you want to send it back to the manufacturer for replacement. Third, it allows you to perform a "secure erase" so that the data can be sold or re-purposed without fear of anyone reading previous data.

Initially, the encryption key management is built-in, with the keys stored on a USB memory stick physically attached to the model. In the future, IBM will extend this support to SVC, extend this support to external virtualized drives, and extend this support to IBM Security Key Lifecycle Manager (SKLM).

Other announcements include 16Gbps adapters for SVC, Storwize V7000 and V7000 Unified. The entire Storwize family will also enjoy both 1.8TB 10K RPM 2.5-inch drives, and 6TB 7200RPM 3.5-inch drives

See the Announcement Letter (available later this month) for details.

New TS1150 enterprise tape drives

The anticipation is over! The new TS1150 tape drive has been announced, with 10TB raw un-compressed "JD" media cartridge capacity and 360 MB/sec throughput performance. The new drive is read/write compatible with TS1140 on JC, JY and JK media cartridges.

 

See the [Announcement letter 114-165] and [114-163] for details.

TS7720 now supports tape library attach

For the virtual tape libraries for the System z platform, IBM offers two models. The TS7740 had a small amount of disk front ending tape library of physical tape. The TS7720 had a large amount of disk with no tape library.

But then the person carrying the chocolate bar bumped into the person carrying the jar of peanut butter, and the rest is history. IBM will now allow tape attach on TS7720, best of both worlds! Large disk cache plus tape library attach.

Tape-attached TS7720 configurations can have up to eight partitions, with different partitions have different policies. Some might move data from disk cache to tape more aggressively, while other partitions may keep data on disk for longer periods, or indefinitely if needed.

Logical tape volumes can now be up to 25GB in size.

See the [Announcement letter 114-167] for details.

DCS3700 Disk System

The DCS3700 is IBM's entry-level disk system for sequential-oriented workloads. Today, IBM announced new disk drive options: 400GB 2.5-inch SSD, 800 GB 2.5-inch SSD, and 1.2TB 10K RPM 2.5-inch drive. All of these offer T10 Protection Information (PI) data integrity.

I won't be attending this week's [Enterprise 2014 conference], but I will be at the [IBM System x, IBM PureSystems and IBM System Storage Technical University] next week. If you will be in Dublin, Ireland next week, let me know!

technorati tags: IBM, FlashSystem, FlashSystem 840, FlashSystem V840, DS8000, DS8870, SAN24B-5, GPFS, GPFS Storage Server, GSS, GPFS Native Raid, GNR, Elastic Storage, de-clustered RAID, Data-at-Rest, Encryption, SVC, Storwize, Storwize V7000, Storwize V7000 Unified, TS1150, TS7720, DCS3700, #Enterprise2014, #IBMtechU, Dublin Ireland

Hello everyone! I am back, fully well-rested from a wonderful 3-week vacation touring the lovely state of Tennessee. Here's a quick recap:

(FCC Disclosure: I mention various companies and products in this blog post. I have no financial interested in any of them, nor have I received any compensation to mention or endorse them here.)

Lynchburg

Our first stop was Lynchburg, TN, home of [Jack Daniel's], America's oldest whiskey distillery. Our tour guide, Ron (who both looked and sounded like [John Goodman]) took us first to see how they burn wood to make charcoal, then the natural water spring which supplies the iron-free water used for the whiskey. We then got a whiff of the mash at various stages of fermentation. Lastly, we had samples of Original No. 7, Gentleman's Jack, and Single Barrel.

(A word of caution: Domestic airlines only allow FIVE LITERS of Bourbon, Whiskey or Rum in your checked luggage. That is only six bottles at the 750ml size, of beverages that are between 24 to 70 percent alcohol by volume [ABV]. Anything above 70 percent is considered too flammable to take on the plane. Excess bottles can be custom packed and shipped, but can be quite expensive. Nearly everyone we met drove all the way to Tennessee instead of flying, and now I understand why.)

While in the area, we had a nice lunch at [Miss Mary Bobo's], a boarding house turned into a restaurant. They only serve one meal a day at 1pm, by reservation only. And we were paired up with eight others and served food "family style" a large round table with a [Lazy Susan].

Jack Daniel's is not the only attraction in the area. We also visited [Falls Mill], a grist mill that grinds corn, wheat and rye for the other distilleries. Mo and I visited [Prichard's Distillery], where they make Whiskey, Rye and Rum. We highly recommend their molasses-flavored "Sweet Lucy"!

Chattanooga

We stopped at the famous historic landmark, the [Chattanooga Choo Choo], which was formerly a train station, and now renovated into a hotel. We asked to see the inside of one of the train cars converted into a hotel room.

 

Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge

We stayed in a cabin in the [Smokey Mountains] near Gatlinburg. In addition to pleasant rides through the National park, we also walked around the small town, looking at all the shops and amusements.

The next town over is Pigeon Forge, and driving down the main parkway is like Las Vegas in a slightly alternate universe. One person called it the Redneck Riviera!

We spent two days at Dollywood theme park, named after its founder, famous country singer Dolly Parton. We arrived after 3pm the first day, so they gave us the second day free!

In addition to roller coaster rides, artisan shops and restaurants, we found zip lines! Mo and I put on harness, attached to a pulley, and zipped over roller coasters, trees and rivers throughout Dollywood park. It was a lot of fun!

We also went to Dolly Parton's other attraction: Stampede. This was a dinner show with horses. It was similar to the Excalibur show we saw in Las Vegas last year during the week of Edge 2013 Conference.

 

Knoxville

On our way from Gatlinburg, we stopped into Knoxville to have lunch with clients. We had a choice to make, we could either drive up into Kentucky and visit the distilleries in the Bourbon trail, or drive straight to Nashville and spend more time there. We opted for Nashville, saving the Bourbon trail for a future trip.

Nashville

Our final stop was Nashville, known as Music City. Our hotel was on Broadway, walking distance between Vanderbilt University and the [honky-tonks] downtown.

We had purchased advanced tickets for the [Grand Ole Opry]. This is not your typical concert. Instead, you have no idea who will play until just a few days before. The three hour show had about a dozen different musical acts, some famous, some new to the country music scene.

We went to the Johnny Cash Museum. People with ticket stubs from the Grand Ole Opry get in for a discount!

After the museum, we had lunch at [Demos' restaurant] and then listened to live music at a honky-tonk called [Second Fiddle]. Mo got a picture with the country singer [John Riggins]!

Searching [TripAdvisor] for things to do in Nashville, I found [The Escape Game]. You pay them money to lock you up in a room with a bunch of strangers, and then collectively as a team you need to figure out how to escape by solving puzzles and clues.

Each room has different themes. First, we tried the "Underground Playground". You know that TV show [Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader?] Well, the majority of our so-called team were not in this case, and after 60 minutes the referee told us we had failed and unlocked the door.

We had so much fun that we came back two days later to try a different room. This time we tried "The Heist" which is all about art theft. The strangers we were teamed up with were very motivated to get out of the room in time, and we succeeded, getting out in just 54 minutes!

Mo and I had a great time, but are glad to be back home!

Well, it's Tuesday again, and you know what that means? IBM Announcements!

Back in 2007, my blog post [Double Happy Wedding] compared IBM's acquisition for a company that produced data migration software to the practice in Japan of waiting until the bride is five to seven months pregnant to have a wedding. In USA, these are called "shotgun" weddings.

I was in Japan when I wrote that, and the company IBM acquired was Japanese, so the comparison stuck.

Today, IBM announces the latest versions Transparent Data Migration Facility z/OS v5 [TDMF] and z/OS Dataset Migration Facility v3 [zDMF] software products.

(Where better to commemorate this event than in Pigeon Forge, Tenessee, the capital of shotgun wedding venues! Including, and I am not making this up, a replica of the [grand staircase of the Titanic]. Yes, you can book this for a shotgun wedding, while your guests re-arrange the deck chairs. I stopped at a local McDonald's to submit this blog post.)

TDMF software allows you to migrate CKD volumes that are attached to your System z mainframe, including those that are actively being used by applications. zDMF allows you to migrate z/OS data sets, including those currently open by applications.

The migration is hardware-agnostic, supporting CKD volumes on IBM, EMC and HDS disk systems. As many clients are migrating from EMC and HDS disk systems to IBM DS8870, this is a good time to look at TDMF and zDMF to help make the process as transparent as possible.

Of course, if you are not interested in acquiring the software to do this yourself, you can hire IBM Data Mobility Services, which uses TDMF and zDMF to do it for you!

technorati tags: IBM, TDMF, zDMF, shotgun wedding

This week, I was one of the 24 recipients of the IBM Corporate Technology Social Business Impact awards!

The list of recipients spans 14 countries (in alphabetical order):

Country	Award recipient
Australia	Darryl Miles
Brazil	Sergio Varga
Egypt	Ahmed Abbass
France	Jean Francois Puget
Germany	Turgut Aslan
	Detlef Helmbrecht
	Sebastian Thaele
India	Prashanta Chandramohan
	Vinod A Valecha1
Italy	Massimo Chiriatti
	Bruno Portaluri
Korea	JungWoon Lee
	HyungKeun Park
Netherlands	Edwin Schouten
Poland	Renata Anna Bilecka
Spain	Maria Borbones
Switzerland	Alessandro Sorniotti1
United Kingdom	Richard G Brown
	Jon McNamara
	Rick Robinson
United States	Paul DiMarzio
	Tony Pearson
	Christopher Pepin
	Elisabeth Stahl

The award was based on engagements and conversations resulting from blogs, tweets, Facebook and Linkedin posts, Slideshare, Flickr, and other social venues, over the 2013 calendar year.

I would like to congratulate the other 23 winners! I am glad to recognize several of the people that I had helped get their blog started, and mentored along the way, have made it to the list!

technorati tags: IBM, Social Business, Darryl Miles, Sergio Varga, Ahmed Abbass, Jean Francois Puget, Turgut Aslan, Detlef Helmbrecht, Sebastian Thaele, Prashanta Chandramohan, Vinod A Valecha1, Massimo Chiriatti, Bruno Portaluri, JungWoon Lee, HyungKeun Park, Edwin Schouten, Renata Anna Bilecka, Maria Borbones, Alessandro Sorniotti1, Richard G Brown, Jon McNamara, Rick Robinson, Paul DiMarzio, Tony Pearson, Christopher Pepin, Elisabeth Stahl

Years ago, I wrote a series of blog posts related to IBM Watson computer that played Jeopardy! game show. My most popular post to-date has been [IBM Watson -- How to replicate Watson hardware and systems design for your own use in your basement], which I had previously used "Watson Jr." an an unofficial name for your own personal implementation.

Over time, I have gotten many emails, comments and tweets related to this post. The instructions have been downloaded over 130,000 times!

The letter below was so inspiring that I felt I need to share it. (Published here with permission from the author, who goes by the screen name DaveAlex)

Thought you would like to know that I am working toward an AI Agent hopefully more advanced than "Watson Jr." although I will probably include the software behind it.

The hardware I have on hand is a System X3650M2 which I bought for $250 on eBay. It has four 2.66 GHz Xeons with 6 cores each, and 16 GB RAM. I have another 16 to install when I need it. I will shortly have 4 TB of HDD space on line, plus an addition 3 TB USB3 drive.

Ultimately, I hope to have some of the available knowledge bases on line, Freebase, CYC, etc which will handle specific information perhaps better than the Watson software by itself.

What the target (goal) that I am aiming for is a stationary version of Commander Data of Star Trek, Next generation.

I envision if having some form of self knowledge, being capable of processing graphical data, i.e., facial recognition, gesture interpretation, voice input/output, mathematical processing, with graphical output (display & hardcopy) and several additional features.

As I have studied this project, I am amazed at how much of the required software is already available. The biggest stumbling block is integrating the separate parts.

Back to Hardware. I just bought 2 Dell 2850 servers, each with dual Intel Xeons which can handle some of the tasks. If I need more processing power, I just happen to have about 10 other towers with Pentium IV or dual core processors sitting around, which can be pressed into service as needed. So far, my total cost is less than $1000 US Dollars, and my wife has not thrown me out yet. I continue to watch eBay for additional older used equipment for fractions of the original cost. My friends who follow my project keep telling me that I need to get on with the software, and add hardware as needed; they are absolutely correct, but I can't resist a bargain.

The power consumption is a potential problem, but I have a 4500 Watt solar array to use. The cooling could be a problem too, but my house sits into the side of hill, and can readily duct the air supply pass the sub-surface wall, perhaps with old Processor cooling fins glued to the wall.

I hope to get some hobby programmers involved in the project, it is a bit beyond my programming capabilities. I hope that I can live long enough to see it come to fruition; I am 78 now, and mentally in very good condition.

-- DaveAlex

Wow! He is 78 years old! While others his age are playing shuffleboard at the nursing home, he is out there learning new things about the latest technology. I wish him the best of luck on this! If you would like to reach out to DaveAlex, send me a note or comment below, and I will forward them on to him.