Fortress Rochester: The Inside Story of the IBM iSeries
Frank Gerald Soltis, Frank Gerald Soltis · Medical Entomology and Zoology · 2001
From the Publisher: The transformation of the AS/400 into an e-business server, the renaming of the system to the iSeries, and the introduction of Version 5 software mark a major milestone in the evolution of IBM Rochester systems. Fortress Rochester takes you behind the scenes at IBM Rochester and inside the iSeries to give you a guided tour of the very latest iSeries technologies and functions. Authored by Dr. Frank G. Soltis -- IBM's iSeries chief scientist and the creator of the technology-independent architecture used in the AS/400 and iSeries -- Fortress Rochester is written for anyone who wants to know more about the iSeries. If you want to understand how the iSeries works so you can make smarter business decisions, write better programs, or simply see what makes the system tick, Fortress Rochester is for you. You'll get detailed looks at these and other key iSeries areas: architectural principles, PowerPC and POWER4 processor technology, memory systems, the new I/O, the technology-independent machine interface, objects, single-level store, file systems, partitions, Unix and Windows, environments, Java and Domino, and Linux. As an added treat, the appendix, History of Fortress Rochester, provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the people and the location that produced such successful and revolutionary computer systems as the iSeries, the AS/400, and their predecessors. Reappearing in Fortress Rochester is Dr. Soltis' popular chili pepper rating system, used to identify the level of technical detail as an aid to readers of various backgrounds: relatively mild technical content, a little more technical spice, definitely getting spicier, and smoking hot technical detail. About the Author: Dr. Frank G. Soltis created the revolutionary computer architecture used in today's IBM iSeries. Based on his Ph.D. dissertation research, his architecture first appeared in the IBM System/38 and later in the IBM AS/400. The technology-independent machine interface and the single-level addressability that he originally proposed have led to a totally new breed of computers. During the past few years, Dr. Soltis led the effort to define the architecture of the 64-bit PowerPC processors used in the IBM iSeries and pSeries servers. As the IBM iSeries chief scientist, he continues to define future directions for the iSeries. In addition to his IBM responsibilities, Dr. Soltis is an adjunct professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches graduate courses on high-performance computer design.