IBM i at the eart of cognitive solutions

Editor's Notes

• #6: When this platform was first conceived… it was for a purpose… and that purpose was for business computing. … Knowing its purpose ahead of time meant that thoughtful consideration could be given to what needed to be included: It would need a database engine to effectively collect, organize, manage and analyze business information It would need to be secure and provide clear audit trails It would need to efficiently process transactions produce output It would need to be easy to use and manage … in fact it should manage itself as much as possible, minimizing the need for people to intervene It would need to accommodate change without disruption And so on What resulted from this “purpose driven” development activity is known today as IBM i… We call it an operating system, but it is more accurately an operating environment that includes operating system and middleware components that are designed, built, tested, delivered and supported as one. The differences between the IBM i operating system and Windows, Unix or Linux operating systems are huge… it’s hard to overstate the significance… IBM i is… More comprehensively designed. … Think about it … What was the original purpose for Windows? … Games? … Personal productivity? … It certainly wasn’t business computing! … And what was the original purpose for Unix? … Games? … Scientific computing? … And how about Linux? … It’s purpose was to have an open source alternative to Unix once vendors began adding proprietary extensions. … None of them was designed for business computing. Now that doesn’t mean that Windows, Unix and Linux can’t be used for business computing, because clearly they can. … But it does mean that capabilities which are required for business computing need to be added after the fact… because they were left out of the design. So IBM i is more comprehensively designed, and because of that… It has more built-in functionality… little of anything has to be added to support business applications. And it’s more thoroughly tested … and better supported … because it’s treated as a complete entity rather than a collection of individual products. It’s more easily managed … because it is one thing to manage, not many things. … In fact much of the environment is autonomic … self-configuring, self-managing, self-healing, self-protecting. It is more stable … because it is developed, built, tested, delivered and supported as one. Consequently, you get more productivity from your IT staff… because they are focused more on the business than the technology And your return on investment is better. Perhaps the use of some metaphors will help in clarifying the advantages of integration….
• #7: Let’s look at the infrastructure from the more traditional view of the “solution stack” for business applications … Sitting on top of the hardware you’ll typically find a virtualization layer, one or more operating systems (each with a basic file system), a relational database, perhaps a Web server, security software and auditing tools, systems management tools, storage management tools, and performance management tools. … On top of the stack, of course, sit the business applications. The left side of the chart represents the Linux/Unix/Windows view of the solution stack … these are all separately identifiable, separately orderable components … and they are most likely coming from multiple vendors. … The right side of the chart reflects the IBM i view of the solution stack … the simplicity of total integration. And then you start asking yourself some important questions … Who’s responsibility is it to install this stuff? … To integrate and test it to ensure the components are interacting properly and operating together? … To manage and update the components when patches, fixes and new versions are released? … To resolve problems when support is required? It’s pretty easy to see how … when so much integration occurs “after the fact” as it does with Linux/Unix/Windows environments ... The burden of responsibility falls more on the client … managing the solution stack adds cost and complexity. By contrast, when integration occurs by design as with IBM i, … the responsibility and accountability lies much more with the vendor, … reducing cost and complexity for the client. What’s important to recognize and remember here is that we’ve redefined the industry view of integration in order to make this distinction … We’re changing the expectation, … raising the bar. Why? Because competitors like Oracle are trying to lay claim to integration as an advantage … providing everything from the hardware to the application. But is it really integration?
• #10: The 2015 HorizonWatch Technology Trends To Watch list contains the technologies that are the building blocks of the Smarter Planet. To get to a Smarter Planet, we need to have these technologies in place and embedded into enterprise data centers and application solutions. Some of these trends have been around for years now. That does not make them less important in 2015. Some of the trends on this list are more mature in their adoption and development than others. However, these are the key trends that CIOs and IT leaders will be wanting information on during 2015….and that’s why they are on the list. The 2015 HorizonWatch Technology Trends To Watch list Security Cloud Computing Mobile Computing Internet of Things Big Data Analytics Cognitive Computing Data Visualization Social Business Emerging Trends Digital Business 3D Printing Enterprise Wearables BlockChain / Crypto-Currencies Healthcare Transformation Connected Vehicles Video-enabled Business Affective Computing Robotic Logistics Quantum Computing http://www.slideshare.net/HorizonWatching/emerging-trends-horizon-watch-2015-trend-report-client-version-28jan2015
• #15: Steve
• #18: Also in June 2016, a bunch more stuff!! Let's talk about them….
• #28: 27
• #46: 45
• #48: The drugstore market in Germany is highly competitive, with several big chains claiming their market share. Supermarkets and online stores also offer a range of similar products at competitive prices. How can drugstores stand out from the crowd? For Dirk Rossmann GmbH, Germany’s second largest drugstore chain, the key is aligning product range with consumer demand. To do so even in peak times, the company updated its IT infrastructure to ensure consistently fast response times. Equipped with up-to-the-minute retail figures, managers can make the purchasing decisions that suit Rossmann’s customers. To stay ahead of the game, understanding consumers’ needs and preferences is crucial. Not having the full picture can mean that shelves are not optimally stocked and lead to consumer disappointment, and potentially to loss of customers.Heike Köhler, head of data center operations at Dirk Rossmann GmbH, explains: “It was important for us to be able to process and access key sales data efficiently so that managers could make informed purchasing decisions for an ever larger number of stores. While we were expanding quickly, poor analytics performance was slowing down our business response, and it became clear that we needed to improve the speed and capacity of our reporting capabilities to increase productivity and continue to grow.”Rossmann runs an ERP solution to manage the business, running the IBM i operating system on IBM Power Systems servers, and stores transactions in a separate data warehouse for in-depth analytics and reporting.Heike Köhler comments, “The data warehouse, running on Windows on x86 servers, simply could not scale as required to support our operations, and we ended up migrating the systems about once every year, costing time and money. Additionally, the data backup process frequently over-ran, which meant that the systems were slowing down staff during business hours, yet sales, logistics and other departments demanded rapid availability of analytics capabilities at all times.”
• #49: The drugstore market in Germany is highly competitive, with several big chains claiming their market share. Supermarkets and online stores also offer a range of similar products at competitive prices. How can drugstores stand out from the crowd? For Dirk Rossmann GmbH, Germany’s second largest drugstore chain, the key is aligning product range with consumer demand. To do so even in peak times, the company updated its IT infrastructure to ensure consistently fast response times. Equipped with up-to-the-minute retail figures, managers can make the purchasing decisions that suit Rossmann’s customers. To stay ahead of the game, understanding consumers’ needs and preferences is crucial. Not having the full picture can mean that shelves are not optimally stocked and lead to consumer disappointment, and potentially to loss of customers.Heike Köhler, head of data center operations at Dirk Rossmann GmbH, explains: “It was important for us to be able to process and access key sales data efficiently so that managers could make informed purchasing decisions for an ever larger number of stores. While we were expanding quickly, poor analytics performance was slowing down our business response, and it became clear that we needed to improve the speed and capacity of our reporting capabilities to increase productivity and continue to grow.”Rossmann runs an ERP solution to manage the business, running the IBM i operating system on IBM Power Systems servers, and stores transactions in a separate data warehouse for in-depth analytics and reporting.Heike Köhler comments, “The data warehouse, running on Windows on x86 servers, simply could not scale as required to support our operations, and we ended up migrating the systems about once every year, costing time and money. Additionally, the data backup process frequently over-ran, which meant that the systems were slowing down staff during business hours, yet sales, logistics and other departments demanded rapid availability of analytics capabilities at all times.”
• #50: Solution:To cure its data warehouse woes, Rossmann looked for a solution that would remove the need for frequent upgrades and migrations, and provide a scalable, high-performance data warehouse platform for the foreseeable future. Today, the company runs its ERP solution on IBM i with IBM DB2 for i software, and its data warehouse system on Red Hat Enterprise Linux with IBM DB2 for Linux, UNIX and Windows.Michael Franke, system administrator at Dirk Rossmann GmbH, takes up the story: “We found that IBM DB2, combined with Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power Systems, delivers the capacity and scalability we need. Scalability and a stable system are important to us to be able to serve the business without disruptions, and IBM POWER technology has always played a big part in Rossmann’s success, giving us confidence that this was a great choice.” Rossmann deployed the data warehouse and ERP systems on two IBM Power 770 servers, featuring POWER7+ processors. Located at two data centers, Rossmann runs a primary production server with manual failover to the second machine, which acts as backup, disaster recovery and development and test server. 
• #51: Benefits of the Solution:Heike Köhler elaborates: “Using IBM FlashCopy technology, we accelerated backups from 15 hours to only five seconds, this is over 99.9 percent faster. Quick backups enable faster recovery and minimize business risk.”IBM DB2 software offers additional technical benefits, as Oliver Mensinger, database administrator at Dirk Rossmann GmbH, says, “IBM DB2 compression has reduced data volumes by up to 80 percent, and features such as Self-Tuning Memory Manager have helped to cut time spent on manual performance optimization by 50 percent. And with automated time-based table partitioning, we have substantially reduced table sizes, and now process only the data that our users actually need, delivering enormously faster response.”Thanks to high-speed data processing and shorter data-backup-times Rossmann’s managers can now make purchasing decisions fast and accurately, having an up-to-date view of key figures on sales and stock, and subsequently consumer preferences and market trends at all times, even during peak times. Michael Franke explains: “Rossmann takes advantage of the IBM Capacity on Demand offering, which allows us to activate additional computing and memory resources instantly whenever we need them, without production downtime. The solution provides 50 percent faster access to analytics reports and shorter loading times. Sales and purchasing managers can now analyze large chunks of data and gain new insights faster, making on the spot decisions to help us maximize sales.”Heike Köhler concludes: “Running our business warehouse on DB2 with Linux on IBM Power Systems has increased IT efficiency, management productivity and cut costs. Rossmann’s managers now make purchasing decisions based on up-to-date retail figures, ensuring product ranges match consumer preferences and maximizing sales revenues, enabling the next phase of the company’s growth.” 
• #52: http://www.cosmetic-business.com/news/277674 4/16/15 | 9:52 AM time In fiscal 2014, drugstore chain Rossmann tops €7 bn in sales for the first time Rossmann, a German drugstore chain based in Burgwedel (Lower Saxony), has generated consolidated sales of €7.2 billion in fiscal 2014, i.e. 8.7% more than in the previous year. It is the first time that the company has exceeded €7 billion in sales within one fiscal year. Rossmann currently operates 3,253 points of sale in Germany and five other European markets (Albania, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Turkey). Sales by the company's foreign businesses grew by 11.7% from €1.65 billion to €1.85 billion in fiscal 2014. Still, the lion's share of turnover is generated in Germany. In fiscal 2014, the domestic market accounted for a total of €5.38 billion in turnover, growing by 7.9%. Guidance for fiscal 2015 Rossmann currently operates 1,930 stores in Germany alone. For comparison: drugstore chain dm has 1,686 stores in Germany. This makes Rossmann the most widespread drugstore chain in Germany. The company has announced its intention to further extend this lead in 2015. Investments worth €170 million have been budgeted, €120 million of which will be spent in Germany. There are also plans to open 340 new stores in Germany and abroad. Rossmann currently accounts for 13.5% of the German drugstore market, the company reports. The company has performed well in the first three months of the current fiscal year, too, generating sales of €1.8 billion – an increase by 10%, Rossmann says.
• #55: Business Need:Havertys know their customers, who they consider to “Considers value, but favors selecting right item over just price” Common to buy new furniture when moving into a new house, but, sales of houses have been lower in recent years… Havertys Annual Report - 2014 http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9NTc0OTY0fENoaWxkSUQ9Mjc4NDA0fFR5cGU9MQ==&t=1 “A cooling in housing activity and home-related spending challenged…”
• #57: 35% of web sites are accessed via a mobile device Customers get technology
• #61: Associate sends email link offering design assistance. Either in-home or on-line. All explained in a customer landing page for her. Customer reads note and follows link on how to take a picture of her room. Customer sends a picture of her room and a picture of something she saw on line that she likes. Associate is alerted in MSC that customer has uploaded pics. Associate can design the room in the 3D planner, ask for design help from a HVT design expert via MSC. Plan is developed, reviewed and sent to Customer She gets link to plan she shares on FB. Friends love it!
• #65: Steve
• #70: 69