IBM Corp yesterday gave the AS/400 its fall facelift, coming out with the first upgrades to the new 64-bit PowerPC AS RISC CPU. There are faster processors on Models 40S, 50S, 53S and 530, a new 13Gb quarter inch cartridge tape for improved save and restore, dramatic improvements in performance with the new v3.7 of OS/400 over v3.6 on the existing AS/400 Advanced Series RISC models – up to 50% in some environments. There are enhancements to AS/400 Client Access Windows95 client, since everyone feels constrained to embrace Windows NT these days. Lotus Notes runs on the Integrated PC Server, which at the last count was still an 80486 co-processor rather than a Pentium, and the thing also – at last – runs NetWare, for which there is now enhanced integration. There is an Internet Connection for OS/400 3.7, and all products for that release of the operating system are Millennium-compliant – does that mean that nothing earlier is, and if so, is that not something of a disgrace? On the hardware front, a new processor for the entry server Model 40S can boost performance up to two and a half times the previous level. New processors on Models 50S, 53S, and 530 deliver system performance gains of up to 25% – these may be clock wind-ups, but in some cases, IBM creates more models simply by adding cache, where in the Unix world, no RISC systems manufacturer can get away with not offering a full complement of cache in even the base configuration. The new hardware is available now, but you’ll have to wait until November for the operating system and some software follows in spring.
