Maybe I live in my own delusional world or something.
I received an email from a vendor offering to move Lotus Notes customers to the cloud. They showcased a case study which had a client move to cloud-based Google Apps, GMail, Google Calendar and GTalk.
The client originally had 32,000 users and 6,000 applications running on 250 servers. Two hundred and fifty servers! Is that what it's like in the x86-64 world? I'm honestly not being facetious...I just don't know.
That's 38,000 applications and mail files, so about 152 total per server. No wonder the client was looking for a simpler solution.
A few years ago, IBM released some benchmark tests using it's then-current low-end System i model 520 and 4 Lotus Domino 6.0.3 servers. Here's the details:
24,000 concurrent Lotus Notes mail and calendar users. System i model 520-8966 (2 x 1.5 GHz POWER5 processors) 32 GB memory 53 x 35GB disk drives 4 partitioned Lotus Domino 6.0.3 servers. "Partitioned" Domino on IBM i means servers running in separate subsystems, not a separate instances of the operating system.
24,000 concurrent mail and calendar users? The average response time was 92 miliseconds.
In those benchmarks, there were bigger machines taking on 175,000 concurrent mail users but I'll compare at the low-end boxes because of the large SMB install base for IBM i.
Now tell me, do you think a modern low-end IBM Power 720 Express running IBM i 7.1 with a similar configuration could handle 38,000 users concurrently with similar response times? You'd have to use bigger drives (35GB aren't produced anymore) and I'd personally double the memory, but I think it would. In fact, I bet it would. I would just love IBM to come out with some new benchmark tests using Lotus Domino 8.5.3 and modern Power7 hardware. The combination of performance improvements in both IBM i and Lotus Domino plus the new blazingly fast Power7 systems would probably blow these results out of the water.
Am I delusional? Or am I just using a solid, working solution that can scale to unmatched heights?
If you're looking to leverage your existing investment in IBM, simplify management, reduce overhead/costs and consolidate your servers then you need to take a look at IBM i on Power Systems running IBM Lotus Domino. There is no better combination.
IBM Connections on IBM i - DB2, JDBC and IASPs
Mon, Apr 29th 2013 9:21p Steve Pitcher For anyone looking to do an IBM Connections install on IBM i, the biggest "gotcha" I encountered was due to the fact that I have an Independent Auxilliary Storage Pool (IASP) defined in my relational database directory entries list (think WRKRDBDIRE). If you're using IBM PowerHA for replication then you'll have an IASP defined. I would log into the Connections homepage successfully but then get an error that the request couldn't be completed. I found errors in the systemout.log for each a [read] Keywords: connections
ibm
application
applications
blogging
database
db2
server
sql
twitter
websphere
Installing WebSphere Portal and IBM Web Content Manager
Thu, Mar 7th 2013 10:13a Steve Pitcher The installation instructions for WebSphere Portal on IBM i could be a little more clear. I'll be submitting my suggestions to IBM to update them. Here's what I did in order to install Portal and WCM on IBM i. If you're not using IBM i, but want to do a silent installation using response files, you may still get some value out of this. I downloaded the following images from IBM Passport Advantage. All these images need to be consolidated in a single repository. More on that below. CI7 [read] Keywords: ibm
application
eclipse
interface
network
password
server
websphere
websphere portal
xml
145
A Lotus Domino Server Installed/Patched In 57 Seconds
Fri, Feb 15th 2013 8:23p Steve Pitcher I had to load a new Domino server this afternoon for a new product we've purchased. Once I hit the Enter key to set the server installer program into action I got up, walked twenty feet and refilled my cup with black coffee. I had a quick look out the window and walked back to my laptop with the server ready to rock n' roll. That was pretty fast...so I did another installation test and timed it at 76 seconds. I traded tweets with Keith Brooks who interestingly did a upgrade time trial on [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
lotus
sametime
application
blogger
google
laptop
server
twitter
123
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Sun, Jan 20th 2013 11:17a Steve Pitcher OK, this post is far from technical but I wanted to share it because I'm a big food guy. I do a lot of the cooking in our house. In the last few months I've been trying my hand at baking sweets, cookies, breads, etc. I may even start a different blog for that type of content. I've made some decent chocolate chip cookies in the last little while but they turned out flat like a normal homemade cookie. I wanted to get more "fluff" so I began playing around with cream cheese as a partial [read] Keywords:
104
Business Agility and Efficiency with Consolidation
Mon, Jan 14th 2013 11:00a Steve Pitcher At IBM Connect, Tim Rowe, Roxanne Reynolds-Lair and I will review how business value can be achieved with the state-of-the-art collaboration solutions running on Power Systems while keeping a simplified, agile and efficient IT environment. http://www.vivastream.com/events/connect2013/sessions/CUST112 [read] Keywords: collaboration
ibm
152
Goodbye Active Directory?
Sat, Dec 29th 2012 8:21p Steve Pitcher For me, just maybe. I'm going to at least give this a solid look. We have a loose migration plan for all of our x64-based Microsoft Windows servers to IBM Power Systems. All except our Active Directory servers. We use those for Group Policy, Domain authentication, Domino web authentication, DNS and a few other familiar functions. As per ZDNet, the release of Samba 4 appears to be a viable alternative to Active Directory. More to come once I dig a bit more information about it. I wonder i [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
microsoft
98
Selling the Metal!
Tue, Dec 18th 2012 7:07a Steve Pitcher Here's a piece I wrote for MC Press Online. Check it out. In the Wheelhouse: Selling the Metal Let's dissect two studies that put IBM i at the top of the list for lowest total cost of ownership, total cost of acquisition, and total amounts of awesome! You want justification? You got it. ITG Studies to Help You Sell the Metal International Technology Group (ITG) recently published two studies that talk about total cost of ownership, total cost of acquisition, risk exposure, cost of downt [read] Keywords: ibm
community
integration
security
virus
108
We're Speaking At IBM Connect 2013!
Fri, Dec 14th 2012 7:50p Steve Pitcher Yes! Now the real work begins! All sessions are listed here. Session Business Agility and Efficiency with Consolidation Program Lotusphere - For IT Practitioners Track Track 08: Customer Case Studies (from an IT perspective) Activity Type Lecture Speaker(s) Tim Rowe, IBM; Steve Pitcher, Scotsburn Dairy Group; Roxanne Reynolds-Lair, Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising Abstract In todays flat world, successful businesses have their staff, customers and business partne [read] Keywords: collaboration
ibm
lotusphere
blogger
email
instant messaging
mobile
networking
