Deep Inside Rochester

engine, noun,

Used to refer to the microprocessor chip(s) installed inside a computer system (like IBM's System i)

During a recent set of presentations that I attended, the term engine was used frequently (mostly by IBMers) in the sense defined above. I'll keep my eyes and ears posted for uses in "outside" publications and presentations.

# posted by Bob Donovan @ 9:17 PM 0 comments

Systems running with the new chip excel at key benchmarks. The new IBM System p 570, running the POWER6 processor, claims the No.1 spots in SPECint2006, SPECfp2006, SPECjbb2005 and TPC-C. This is the first time that a single system has owned all four categories.

Linus Torvalds summarized the situation quite well in a recent post to Real World Technologies:

"At 4.7GHz they [IBM] just own it."

# posted by Bob Donovan @ 6:39 PM 0 comments

... sometimes it's too hot,


sometimes it's too cold,


and sometimes (but not often) it's just right.

<violins>


Right now, it's too cold. We're on track for the coldest April ever, and the forecast is calling for 5-10 inches of snow by tomorrow afternoon.

I guess I'll just stay home tonight and work.


</violins>

# posted by Bob Donovan @ 8:08 PM 0 comments

Earlier this week, an article called "Why 64 Bits Will Soon Matter" was published at IT-Analysis.com. The article talks about a 64 bit Revolution where a new generation of applications will have a single view of data in memory and divorce themselves of assumptions that the primary copy of the data is held on a spinning disk.

Beneath System i's machine interface, we call this single-level store. Applications built on this technology make no distinction between data in memory or on a "spinning disk."

Some days, the i just stands out.

# posted by Bob Donovan @ 8:09 PM 0 comments

C-level, adj,

Used to refer to an executive-level officer, such as the CEO, CIO, CFO, COO, etc.

The LUG was in Rochester last week (despite the snow), and several members made a reference to their "C-levels."

# posted by Bob Donovan @ 8:41 PM 0 comments

This is new for System i, and I found it to be an entertaining way to make a point about System i's reliability and robustness (yeah, there is an alternative to running your business on a PC).

The end of each video points you to the "iwantcontrol" site, which has more information about i.

Check it out.

# posted by Bob Donovan @ 8:06 PM 0 comments

In Minnesota, the Democratic party calls itself the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, or DFL for short. Until recently, the Republicans called themselves the Independent-Republican Party, or IR for short.

Leave it to Minnesota to be different. Is it any wonder that a computer system designed and developed here would also be different? I'm glad that in this case, different is good.

# posted by Bob Donovan @ 10:16 PM 0 comments