MBA Students Learn Power Systems in Second Life

Three Midwest universities have teamed together to use the online virtual world Second Life to teach more than 100 MBA students core concepts exemplified by IBM's Power Systems and IBM i. Second Life is a three-dimensional environment that lets its inhabitants buy, build, learn, and interact online.

The program is a collaborative effort between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Iowa State University, and Wright State University. While most IBM i-focused training aims to teach the next generation of programmers or administrators, the Second Life project focuses on the higher rungs of the corporate ladder.

"We're working to expose business managers and executives to Power Systems," says Dr. Keng Siau, E. J. Faulkner Professor of MIS for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Most of the MBA students are business managers and executives by day who take graduate classes in the evenings and weekends to complete their MBA degrees.

Power Concepts
To kick off the project, the students were presented with 34 key computing concepts that were, of course, exemplified by IBM Power Systems. Some examples include virtualization, server consolidation, green computing, disaster recovery, and capacity on demand. They then researched the relevant IBM solutions and concepts on their own, with a deeper dive into IBM i, AIX, Linux, BladeCenter, RPG, WebSphere, and the like.

In the Second Life phase of the project, the MBA students worked in groups of two to discuss the IBM Power Systems solutions and concepts, and then selected a topic to present in a Second Life-based virtual design/presentation. The teams worked together for five weeks to complete their designs.

On the Island
Just like real estate in our own world, virtual land in Second Life is valuable, too. Companies like IBM have used real dollars to purchase their own islands in Second Life in order to maintain a virtual presence. For the MBA projects, the universities have their own island, the Power Academic Island, which provides a playground for the students to showcase their work.

They used primitive elements to build 3-D interactive representations of their chosen concepts, and the results are similar to what you might find in a museum exhibit.

"The process of doing the project is more important than the output," Siau says.

"By going through these phases of understanding, researching on the web, and discussing with their partners . . . I bet that after five weeks, they'll remember this for the rest of their lives—it's not just another guest lecture for three hours," he notes.

What's particularly cool about the Second Life project is that more than 100 middle and higher level managers and executives—the MBA students in Nebraska, Iowa, and Ohio—are now aware and informed about IBM Power Systems. Siau says the students averaged three to five hours a week on the hands-on Second Life project, which has created a deep impression of IBM Power Systems that should not only stay with the MBA students, but let them use that knowledge in their own companies.

Better yet, the project is ongoing.

"We'll be having another batch of MBA students in April," Siau says.

—Chris Maxcer, News Editor

IT Spending to Go From Small Rise to a Dive

The continuing impact of the recession has led the big IT consulting firms to hit their calculators again. For instance, instead of a 1.6 percent increase in U.S. purchases of IT goods and services, Forrester Research is projecting a 3.1 percent decrease in 2009. Meanwhile, Gartner is projecting a 3.8 percent decline in worldwide IT spending.

"IT organizations worldwide are being asked to trim budgets, and consumers are cutting back on discretionary spending," notes Richard Gordon, research vice president and head of global forecasting at Gartner. "The speed and severity of the response by businesses and consumers alike to these economic circumstances will result in an IT market slowdown in 2009 that will be worse than the 2.1 percent decline in IT spending in 2001 when the Internet investment bubble burst."

According to Gartner's new figures, computer hardware spending will decline 14.9 percent, software spending will rise just 0.3 percent, IT services will drop 1.7 percent, and telecom spending will drop 2.9 percent.

Not surprisingly, Gartner says the slowdown in IT spending will reduce new market penetration and will slow replacement activity. Consumers and businesses will continue switching to lower-cost products, extending the life of existing devices, and extending their current contracts and purchasing agreements.

Is Credit the Latest IT Issue?
"In many ways, the biggest factor affecting the tech market is not the recession but the breakdown of the financial system," notes Andrew Bartels, Forrester Research vice president and principal analyst. "The credit crunch is still causing companies to dramatically cut back on all forms of capital investment, including many IT goods and services, and this will affect 2009 revenues for most IT vendors."

Forrester expects that U.S. business and government purchases of computer equipment will drop by 6.8 percent in 2009, on top of a 4 percent decline in 2008. Forrester also expects telecom to drop 7.8 percent in 2009. IT consulting and systems integration services will slip 2 percent in 2009.

"There is a light at the end of the tunnel—demand has been delayed but not cancelled," Bartels said. "Growth will come back strong once the recession and tight credit conditions start to ease."

Forrester expects computer equipment purchases to bounce back in 2010, with a gain of 7 percent, as well as a 4.8 percent increase in telecom equipment, along with software purchase growth of 6.3 percent, followed by consulting and systems integration growth of 7.4 percent.

Bodes Well for IBM i?
With a world of renewed interest in value and efficiency, it's hard not to hope that these troubled economic times might actually be good for System i-based organizations. Those who have already invested in IBM i 6.1 will likely continue to maintain their i-focused efforts for some time. It's those customers who are on older boxes that hold the wild cards. Will they recognize the continuing value of their System i workloads by hunkering down and maintaining their applications for years to come? Or will they reinvest in IBM i once the money starts moving again, knowing that a Power System and IBM i will provide them with supreme flexibility for any future need?

—Chris Maxcer, News Editor

Bank Group Runs IBM i on Power 550 Express

At various times over the last couple of years, IBM has noted solid, if not strong, international interest in Power Systems and IBM i, and I ran across a recent example.

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, EON Bank Group has implemented an IBM Power 550 Express running IBM i to accelerate the bank's transaction process and improve its back-end system. The $5.5 million investment upgraded the group's core banking applications and disaster recovery site, IBM says. More specifically, the 550 is running V5R4.

"We are proud to be the first financial institution in Malaysia to acquire this new system, which will improve business responsiveness and customer service efficiency," notes EON Bank Group Chief Executive Officer Albert Lau Yiong.

The bank group is working to increase customer satisfaction.

"In order to serve our customers better and become the customers' bank of choice, it is critical that we continuously improve our performance and service level. We have tested the IBM Power 550 Express and found it to be stable, scalable, and flexible, which are the three necessary criteria to support EON Bank Group's projected business growth in the next 5 years," Lau says, adding, "This system upgrade establishes new benchmarks for innovations and responsiveness that others in the local banking sector will be challenged to match."

The IBM Power 550 Express lets the bank group run more applications on fewer servers, which helps reduce the infrastructure cost. Plus, IBM says, the system reduces management, maintenance, and licensing costs, and can be easily scaled to suit EON Bank's expansion plans.

"This system makes it possible for EON Bank Group's applications to run faster and be more responsive, which can result in added business advantages and higher client satisfaction. The near-continuous application availability also enables EON Bank to improve the efficiency and ensure business continuity," says Ou Shian Waei, managing director of IBM Malaysia. "IBM is committed to helping EON Bank Group grow and transform their business through our most advanced, proven solutions and rich industrial experience."

EON Bank Group jointly implemented the system with Silverlake Group, which provides the Silverlake Axis Integrated Core Banking Solution.

—Chris Maxcer, News Editor

IBM Targets Forgotten i Boxes

IBM has launched a new incentive program designed to up sell new hardware to hibernating AS/400, iSeries, or System i customers. Under IBM's iLoyalty program, customers can move to select i Editions of the Power 520, Power 550, and IBM BladeCenter with a no-charge IBM i processor license. Plus, customers can acquire IBM i user licenses at a 50 percent discount.

While the iLoyalty program is generally inclusive of any IBM i-focused customer, the target customers tend to be those who have installed their systems but haven't upgraded recently—those who leave their boxes running quietly in the corner and just forget they exist.

"This is an effort to reach out and deliver a compelling value proposition to these customers, many of which have not been touched [by IBM] for quite a while," explains Todd Morris, director of worldwide sales for IBM Power Systems.

"The sweet spot is for customers who bought an i box three, four, five, six years ago," he notes.

"In many cases, these customers can instantly save hundreds of dollars a month by going to a new Power 520 or BladeCenter," Morris says. "They'll save in software and hardware maintenance, and at the same time benefit from a pretty nice hardware update."

"This is designed to save cash from month one—assuming they lease," Morris notes.

Of course, for customers who are not on software or hardware maintenance, the savings aren't quite as compelling. Still, the processor entitlement equates from $15,000 to $44,000 in value, depending on what a customer is upgrading from and moving to.

In addition, customers can also often reduce their system's power consumption.

IBM, of course, is hoping that some of these customers might become reinvigorated through the adoption of a BladeCenter that will let them consolidate their i and Windows workloads in the blade form factor. In addition, a BladeCenter can help customers establish a more manageable storage area network setup, as well as give them room to add Linux or Unix workloads with additional blades.

"This is very much a Partner-led play," Morris says, noting that IBM's Business Partners will be reaching out to customers targeted under its iLoyalty program.

To learn more about the program, IBM has created an iLoyalty site (ibm.com/iloyalty) with handy resources like a tool for calculating your likely cost savings.

The iLoyalty offers are slated to end June 19.

—Chris Maxcer, News Editor

LXI Simplifies Data Recovery

LXI Enterprise Storage offers an IBM i product that helps simplify backups and recoveries. LXI Media Management System (LXI MMS) "is simplified intelligent backup recovery," says Tom Pojatina, channel manager for LXI. "That's what differentiates us. Our goal is to ensure that what is on the system is on tape."

It's not uncommon for a tape to get deleted from a backup database, and that's where intelligent recovery comes in. "If someone overwrites a tape, MMS is intelligent enough to re-back up that data for you," Pojatina says.

LXI MMS 5.6.1 supports IBM i 6.1. It provides intelligent backup, automated backup with no user interaction required, automatic determination of what needs to be backed up and what type of backup to do, and other recovery functions.

—Linda Harty, Executive Editor

IBM Conducts Green Analyses

With all the hype around going green, sustainable management and social responsibility, IBM has developed a new consulting service to help companies analyze their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and energy usage.

The new service, dubbed Carbon Management, should help companies develop strategies to better manage and reduce energy use and CO2 emissions while improving efficiency and lowering costs throughout their operations.

The Strategic Carbon Management offering uses a number of IBM consulting processes to help companies perform the analysis, including a carbon management diagnostic, carbon footprinting, green action planning, and business case modeling. It uses measuring and monitoring tools and dashboards to help customers analyze a wide range of issues and opportunities, including carbon trading, regulations, and incentives.

—Rita-Lyn Sanders, Senior Industry Editor