What makes the difference in a platform?
Of course, stability and resilience that is the ability to always be able to rely on the availability of the system, its application services, and especially its data.
Another focus is the simplicity of the tool and the management of the user experience. Ideally, it would then be ideal to have rich documentation that can help the end user but especially the platform manager.
One point that is often overlooked, however, is the aspect of the user community and the possibility of being able to contribute to the evolution of this platform. Here, in the context of IBM Power systems there is ample room for community and its members, just think of you reading this post, all the various more or less organized groups of people who share their information, their knowledge and sometimes their questions. Over the years, I have had the pleasure and opportunity to be able to attend some events such as the Common Europe or Tech Exchange, and I was able to see how specialists in the field were extremely willing to engage in discussion by giving different points of view to the various speakers.
However, the very interesting thing that I would like to focus on is the possibility of making suggestions or making requests. Yes because in the first instance a platform belongs to those who use it, those who fight with it and bang their heads on it every day. IBM in this case provides the Ideas portal, the place where any developer, systems engineer, end user can propose new features, changes to tools or system behaviours, etc. to IBM developers.
Giving feedback on the portal is very easy, just log in with an IBM id (everyone can create their own for free), and select the technology for which you are opening an implementation request. Among the most popular are requests related to IBM i systems, AIX and PowerVM. At this point, it will be necessary to enter a title to the idea, and the tool will check that there is not already an idea with similar content to that suggested in the title. Finally, once you have verified that it is okay, you will need to detail the request as much as possible-the more information the better.
The game is done!
The Ideas Portal also allows users to compare and evaluate the ideas of other users. In fact, from there, it is possible to check the other proposed ideas and give your support by voting them.
So, at this point, please try to take a look of Ideas Portal and let me know what do you think about.
Andrea