BM will crank up the performance of its AS/400 midrange application server with the next major release, due in late summer or early fall, and will load the AS/400 with Java capability by early next year.
IBM is finishing a RISC processor, code-named Apache, that will replace the seven processors now used in high-end AS/400s. According to an AS/400 consultant, a high-end, four-way AS/400 530 system uses 28 chips that aren't as powerful as the four Apache chips tha
t will make up a four-way by the end of summer. In addition, according to the consultant, IBM will introduce an eight-way Apache system and double the memory of the new system. IBM wouldn't provide details.
Reflecting its commitment to Sun's cross-platform language, IBM is turning the AS/400 into a Java machine. "The AS/400 division is betting on Java," says Phil Couthard, a software engineer for the IBM lab in Toronto. "We're reinventing the box around Java."
Java poses a threading challenge for the AS/400's operating system, OS/400. "Java is heavily threaded, and we currently have `faked out' thread support on OS/400 because it doesn't have built-in support threads," says Couthard. IBM will build a Java interpreter and static compiler into the OS/400 by the first quarter of 1998. The current AS/400 is on Version 3, Release 7 of OS/400. The next major release will incorporate OS/400 V4R1, which will consist mainly of integration with the Apache chip. V4R2, available by year's end, will add thread su
pport, says Couthard.
The Java integration will be a matter of refining performance. Says Couthard, "You [have to] get it to the layer just above machine instruction logic to avoid overhead."
In addition, IBM will port its groupware and Web server technology, Lotus Notes Domino, to run natively in OS/400. That will include tight integration with the AS/400's bundled database, the DB/400, says Couthard.
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BM will crank up the performance of its AS/400 midrange application server with the next major release, due in late summer or early fall, and will load the AS/400 with Java capability by early next year.
