One of the things IBM is very good at is hiding the benefits they have to offer. I have been a member of Partners in Development for over 10 years now and enjoyed a lot of the benefits that brings with it. I recently wrote a new product RAP/400 which required access to two systems to allow full testing. I was testing by foxing the system and having Remote Journalling come back to a single system (Yes you can do it) I had to fix up the programs so they would not actually do the apply of data and therefore could not fully test the error capture and display functions as well as a number of other features.
So I was thinking about buying another 520 / 515 or 525 from IBM, the PID program offers the ISV significant discounts on hardware and software used for development so it was ideal. Anyhow I was looking through the site trying to find out as much detail as I possibly could about the various options when I came across the VLP program (Virtual Loaner Program), basically IBM allows you 2 weeks of system time for free to test out your products etc. So I signed up for a trial and after a few challenges had to give up due to time constraints. A few weeks passed before I had time to try it again but this time it went a lot smoother than before. I was amazed to have a pair of 570 based LPAR’s available for the test and could even save the images after the test was completed! Needless to say this really helped me get through the testing in record time and I would like to thank IBM for that opportunity.
The point I am making here is the effort IBM puts in by making resources available to allow you to develop and test on the System i5, yet I am sure very few people know about it! the website is really hard to use and every year I have a few days of hell just getting the data required to be part of PID entered. But the effort is worth it once you really get to see the benefits it offers.
If you need help with getting into some of these programs let us know, we feel sure there are many more people out there like us who just dont know what IBM offers to the developer!
Chris…