IBM

IBM/AIX

AIX Technical University, Budapest 2010 kristof Mon, 05/10/2010 - 11:09
Topics
IBM

I spent the last week in Budapest, attending the IBM AIX Technical University. Hundreds of presentations about AIX, Power, Storage and Tape, spread over 4 days in Budapest. The most interesting talk was about the new stuff in TSM6.2, where one of the most markant features was client upgrades through the TSM ISC. Client packages are pushed from the ISC to the TSM server, where they reside on a diskpool, ready for shipment to the clients. Currently only a Windows feature, but Unix will probably follow in the 6.3 release. There was unfortunately no possibility for a TSM certification, which meant I could not renew (or upgrade) my 5.4 certification.

There wasn't that much time for city sightseeing, though we did manage to get a small visit to the castle on the Buda side of the Lanchid bridge. Pretty nice city, and a good idea for a next city trip...

ProtecTIER kristof Sat, 11/22/2008 - 19:33
Topics
IBM

I spent last Friday in the IBM labs in Mainz, to evaluate IBM's data deduplication engine, called ProtecTIER, and to see how well it integrates with IBM's backup flagship, TSM. Everything went quite smooth, though we lost quite some time due to a TSM bug - apparently it only scans SCSI attached libraries during startup, so it misses any online changes to these libraries.

Mainz's a lovely city, filled with cosy pubs and to restaurants converted churches. Shame we could only stay one night...

AIX university, Amsterdam 2007 kristof Sat, 11/10/2007 - 17:45
Topics
IBM

Last week I spent in Amsterdam, visiting the AIX university congress of IBM, which dealt with new stuff on AIX (AIX 6 !) and the Power architecture. There were some sessions about Linux, but they mainly dealt with Linux running in AIX LPARs. Some sessions dealt with TSM, and one indicated how to deal with performance issues of TSM on AIX. Very interesting stuff. The good thing is that I'm now a TSM certified engineer : I passed the TSM 5.4 Administration exam with little or no preparation, which is great.

Amsterdam is a lovely city, just be careful not to be hit-and-run by the thousand bicycles whizzing by. The only bad thing was the time when I ordered an Amstel malt bear, only to find out it was alcohol-free. How it tasted ? Think about a disgusting cocktail of bad beer and apple juice. On the other hand, I left Amsterdam just in time before I got addicted to peanut butter :)

Smitty screen overview kristof Thu, 01/25/2007 - 10:25
Topics
IBM

I'm taking a course on AIX administration, and an excellent administrator tool is smitty. However, as an AIX newbie, it's easily to get lost in the menu's of this tool. Where, for instance, do I find the paging space administration menu ? The IBM site carries a good whitepaper listing all screens available in smitty. If you know the fast path, this paper directs you to the correct location.

Unrest kristof Sun, 11/13/2005 - 21:20
Topics
IBM

I spent the last week in Barcelona, visiting the IBM AIX5L seminar, located in the beautifull World Trade Center in the old Barcelona port. I'm under a NDA, so I can't much blog about the AIX technical issues discussed there, so I'll stick to talking about Barcelona itself. The city hasn't changed much since I visited it two years ago, though I was surprised to find out that I liked it much more now. The nightlife is quite vibrant (not difficult if you see that most restaurants only open at 9 pm), and the unrest it radiates really caught on me. Unluckily, the convention center opened every day at 9 am, which made a deep plunge into the Barcelona nightlife nearly impossible (can't say we didn't try... ;)

A mail from the IBM legal dept kristof Fri, 10/17/2003 - 11:09
Topics
IBM

I got a mail from someone claiming to be from the legal department of IBM.co.uk, asking if I had legal permission to use their logo on my site. A quite surprising question, if you ask me, since I have a legal disclaimer at the bottom of this page. But since I had not that kind of legal permission, and it is IBM's logo after all (my motto in those matters is : never meddle with companies whose legal department is at least as large as their IT division), so I removed the logo in question, and replaced it with a homemade one.

Hercules VM/370

By kristof on Tue, 03/25/2003 - 18:10
Topics
IBM

Last week, I have been toying with Hercules, a "mainframe" emulator for Windows and Linux. Within Hercules, one can install different mainframe OSses, such as MVS, VM/370 or Linux/S390. Different older IBM mainframe OSses can be downloaded from cbttape.org. It looked promising to run VM on my laptop, but alas, the VM/370 version there is arcane. You won't find utilities like FILELIST or XEDIT, which makes it almost useless. A bit of a shame : it's hard to believe that IBM won't provide a modern VM OS to tinker with. It could attract lots of new administrators and developpers.

The IBM songbook kristof Tue, 04/02/2002 - 05:45
Topics
IBM

We're proud of all our Engineers in I. B. M.
No problem is insolvable to these great men.
Their mastery of the technical -- mechanical -- electrical --
Behold in their accomplishments.

Each year they perfect new machines for I. B. M.
Superior products all the time for business men.
We thank and praise our Engineers,
The whole wide world unites in cheers,
To the Engineers of I. B. M.

If you have friends working at IBM, you can allways nag them about the IBM songbook, which was apparently the result of the enthusiasm of the IBM salesmen in their dark suits and white shirts who set out to sell IBM's to the world.

Subscribe to IBM