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Software is the soul of any computing infrastructure. It transforms cold, dark hardware into a functioning facility that can accomplish meaningful work for a business. Good software also help bring order to what might otherwise be a set of disjointed and chaotic activity.
For the sake of discussion, we will categorize software into the three layers shown in Figure 2.3:
Application programs
Middleware
Operating systems.
Figure 2.3: The three software catagories.
Let's take a quick look at each.
The top layer in our software model is the application program layer. Application programs do the type of work that makes a computer system valuable to a business, including accounting, financial modeling, making reservations, managing banking transactions, calculating the trajectory of the Hubble space telescope, tracking the test scores for a school system, etc. Typical computer users most often interact directly with application programs.
The two basic types of application programs are custom application programs (specially designed and developed to the specifications of a single customer) or pre-packaged application programs (designed and developed to be sold to a range of customers).
The more pre-packaged application programs available for a given server, the more desirable that server becomes to e-businesses. So IBM has developed partnerships with many independent software vendors to make sure that the pre-packaged application programs they develop can run on pSeries systems (as well as the other eServer lines). Conversely, like any other business, software vendors want to reach as large a market as possible with their application program offerings. By developing their pre-packaged application programs on low-cost open standard operating systems like Linux, they can develop the application program once and then deploy it on many different brands of computers that run UNIX. Since pSeries systems run either AIX (the IBM version of UNIX) or Linux, these pre-packaged applications can be deployed on pSeries systems. There are over 10,000 pre-packaged appliation programs available for pSeries systems.
Catalog of pre-packaged application programs for pSeries
Introduction to WebSphere Studio Application Developer
Businesses that develop their own custom application programs for internal use benefit in the same way. That is, they develop their applications on an open standard system (e.g., pSeries running Linux and using WebSphere Developer Studio) and can deploy those applications on almost any brand of open system computer.
As you move along the e-business adoption path, there is an increasing need to integrate core business processes across the enterprise (and with the processes of customers, suppliers, business partners, etc.). This means that the typically disparate computer systems (hardware, software, application programs, storage devices, networks, etc.) that support each core business process must be made able to freely share information with each other. This is the job of middleware—the second layer in our pSeries software model.
WebSphere Software Platform Web site
DB2 data management software
Informix data management software
Lotus software Web site
Tivoli Web site
Middleware helps application programs freely share information with one another. These application programs might reside on the same server or be connected over a worldwide network. These might be old application programs that have been around for many years (termed legacy application programs), brand new, or more likely a mix of the two. In fact, new e-business application programs increasingly are being designed to take advantage of middleware, which effectively decouples the application program from its underlying infrastructure and thus increases flexibility. Typical users rarely interact directly with middleware.
Important tools for pSeries in the middleware layer include:
The WebSphere family of products, which enables the type of end-to-end integration promised by e-business.
Database products like DB2 and Informix, which manage large amounts of information efficiently. These products are often used to implement large data warehouse projects.
Lotus Notes and Domino, which provide advanced communication and collaboration functions.
Tivoli, which is used to manage complex computer infrastructures.
The operating system software layer manages the details of the computer hardware to keep things running smoothly while providing services to both the middleware and application program layers. Typical users rarely interact directly with operating systems.
Operating systems are a key part of the IBM e-business toolkit. By offering different operating systems across all eServer lines (AIX and Linux), the options when a user searches for pre-packaged application programs are far greater, as stated earlier. More application flexibility means eServer systems are more valuable to users. In addition, eServer operating systems implement many of the advanced functions that provide the technology leverage, risk mitigation, infrastructure efficiency, and total cost of ownership that are basic to the IBM eServer strategy. Let's take a quick look at the two operating systems available for pSeries servers: AIX and Linux.
The AIX operating system is and will continue to be the premier operating system for pSeries servers. AIX combines the basic functions of the UNIX operating system with many enhancements, some developed by IBM and some designed by other companies and academic institutions. AIX adheres to the many open standards that have been developed to make systems from various vendors more compatible and to facilitate information interchange between systems from different manufacturers.
Because the AIX operating system conforms to many open standards, pSeries servers are open systems. This means that the AIX operating system conforms to open standards (programming interfaces, communications protocols, and so on) defined by independent standards bodies rather than using an IBM proprietary set of standards not generally adhered to by other computer manufacturers. As discussed earlier, adherence to open standards is an important characteristic when building an e-business computing infrastructure because it offers more options when selecting e-business applications, easier integration of different types of computers, etc. AIX implements and supports the key functions within pSeries systems like Capacity Upgrade on Demand, Dynamic LPAR, SMP, dynamic processor and memory deallocation, etc. AIX version 5L brings with it many enhancements, including an affinity for Linux application programs and instant messaging. There are thousands of application programs available that run on a pSeries system and AIX.
IBM AIX Web site
UCLA's library of public domain software for AIX
AIX Affinity with Linux (technology paper)
Instant Messaging for AIX (technology paper)
In addition to AIX, pSeries systems can also run the Linux operating system (as do all eServer systems). Linux is a relatively new phenomenon in the operating systems world. It is the most successful product arising from the Open Source Initiative, which encourages programmers around the world to improve, adapt, and redistribute their software. This Open Source concept is gaining enormous interest as it is producing quality results in a fraction of the time required for more traditional software development.
Initially, Linux was thought of as an experimental environment rather than a serious business operating system because it lacked a warranty or guaranteed support. But now the growth of several distributors of Linux and suppliers of Linux services has helped to increase corporate support for the Linux environment. Linux has proven to be a low-cost, high-performance, secure, and highly reliable operating system. Because of this and a natural affinity for the Internet, Linux is quickly moving into the mainstream. According to IDC (March 2002), Linux is expected to grow at a compound growth rate of 37% between 2002 and 2005, making it the fastest-growing operating system on the planet.
IBM has fully embraced Linux and Open Source software as key components in taking e-business to the next level. IBM has invested over $1 billion in Linux and has more than 5,000 employees working on Linux in research, services, development, porting centers, sales, and marketing, etc. IBM is currently shipping over fifty software products on Linux across its DB2, WebSphere, Lotus, and Tivoli families. Some 4,700 IBM business partners support Linux-enabled software. Further, IBM is working with over 250 software developers in the Open Source community to advance Linux. With this level of effort, it's no surprise that IBM was the fastest-growing Linux vendor last year.
Introduction to Linux and links
Open Source Initiative Web site
Introduction of Linux for pSeries (technology paper)
Linux for IBM eServer pSeries Web site
Overview of Linux for iSeries and pSeries (SuSE)
History of Linux on CNN.com
IBM clearly believes that Linux will help enable the long-term growth of e-business by providing an open standard operating system that can harness leading-edge technologies and simplify user choice. Linux will help ensure software interoperability across heterogeneous servers.
By using the LPAR functions of pSeries systems (covered earlier), you can run one or more instances of Linux along with AIX on a single pSeries server. This provides a low-risk way to test and deploy Linux application programs on a pSeries server while still running production AIX application programs.
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