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Transitioning from AIX servers to a modern Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment.

  • 1.  Transitioning from AIX servers to a modern Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment.

    Posted Fri November 28, 2025 10:09 PM

    So does that subject line make you feel warm and fuzzy?  "Transitioning from AIX servers to a modern Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment."  As in IBM's announcement at:  https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7249518



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    Robert Berendt IBMChampion
    Business Systems Analyst, Lead
    Dekko
    Fort Wayne
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  • 2.  RE: Transitioning from AIX servers to a modern Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment.

    Posted Sat November 29, 2025 07:33 PM

    Yes, I think IBM really hasn't done a great job taking care of AIX this past ten years. It must be really difficult to keep up with all the libre software out there, but bringing it to AIX is an awesome start.

    What IBM should do with AIX is difficult to answer. It would clearly be better for the mind-share of AIX to make it readily accessible: To open source contributors, students, hobbyists, and smaller businesses who can't afford power systems (and PowerVS is a good start at that, but $143 / mo. per core cf. free tier/ $5-$20 x86 commodity hardware). Perhaps a port to x86, could expand the user base, and/or a more affordable PowerVS, can open up space for builders.

    Except, that would probably destroy IBM's business model for AIX, and likely wouldn't offer a new one.

    I don't see IBM as likely to invest in AIX the kind of innovation it would take to stay competitive with the F/OSS space, and I don't see IBM making it more radically available (although PowerVS might be more radically available than before). It seems AIX is doomed to suffer in order to keep the current legacy stuff afloat. Perhaps buying RedHat was a way to insure against the changing market forces. I think the broadcom vmware debacle has shown that these products are more than just code, they are communities of people who co-partnered and invested who stand to lose to: Employees, Users, Re-sellers and business partners, certified technicians. I hope that IBM can find something useful to do with AIX, because there are a lot of other mutually interested parties.



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    John Cuningham
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Transitioning from AIX servers to a modern Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment.

    Posted Sun November 30, 2025 12:38 AM

    In the context of that tech note, it's a double or maybe triple slap in the face for AIX professionals.  There's a sense of "if you can't make your own stuff work, then ..." a sense of "if you don't think your own stuff is modern, then ..." and at the same time, reducing the number of sites/servers makes the RAS features of what they're keeping more important (where AIX/POWER almost always win).  It's not like their internal, Ansible tooling (making assumptions) won't work with AIX.  It's not like other products (like Puppet) won't work with AIX.  AIX's PowerSC integration, RBAC, auditing, and other features out to "enhance security" in a big way.  If "streamlining operations" means they've decided to go with an infrastructure design that's just not compatible (like Docker or Kubernetes), then they ought to come out and say that.  It's also the kind of thing that a real (and empowered) marketing team should have told them to edit before posting.



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    Christopher Petersen
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Transitioning from AIX servers to a modern Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment.

    Posted Mon December 01, 2025 05:47 AM

    It doesn't sound good coming from the company that produces AIX!



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    Phill Rowbottom
    Unix Consultant
    Service Express
    Bedford
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Transitioning from AIX servers to a modern Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment.

    Posted Mon December 01, 2025 07:56 AM

    No, that small line in the announcement you quoted is not making me feel warm and fuzzy! If it makes me warm, it is probably more out of anger than out of anything else.

    It kinda suggests that AIX isn't modern and that AIX is not capable of running a secure, fancy, SFTP server for the IBM support environment. When combined with the goals of enhancing platform security, streamlining operations, and optimizing infrastructure resources it becomes even less understandable. As IBM Champion for AIX+Power I have always understood AIX to be a very reliable platform, with consistent high uptime and (platform and OS) security. 

    Maybe there are good reasons to migrate the SFTP service to Linux, but the sentence that we are moving SFTP away from AIX to a modern platform like Linux is completely irrelevant in this announcement and is (once again) signaling (potential) AIX clients that IBM is slowly stepping away from it. This is contrary to the statements we have been given the last decades or so, that AIX will continue to be a major platform for POWER, with support for all new features in the Power architecture and continuous development along the way.

    I hope this announcement (or at least the debated sentence) is a slip-up of a technical person, not caught by any marketing & sales department. 



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    Richard Westerik
    Principal specialist
    Simac IT NL bv
    Ede
    +31651575123
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Transitioning from AIX servers to a modern Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment.

    Posted Mon December 01, 2025 08:19 AM
    On Mon, Dec 01, 2025 at 12:56:09PM +0000, Richard Westerik via IBM TechXchange Community wrote:
    > No, that small line in the announcement you quoted is not making me
    > feel warm and fuzzy! If it makes me warm, it is probably more out of
    > anger than out of anything else.

    Seconded.

    > It kinda suggests that AIX isn't modern and that AIX is not capable
    > of running a secure, fancy, SFTP server for the IBM support
    > environment. When combined with the goals of enhancing platform
    > security, streamlining operations, and optimizing infrastructure
    > resources it becomes even less understandable. As IBM Champion for
    > AIX+Power I have always understood AIX to be a very reliable
    > platform, with consistent high uptime and (platform and OS)
    > security.

    Plus all the modern bugs, easily available zero days for consumer CPU
    chips, nonstop CVE's...

    > I hope this announcement (or at least the debated sentence) is a
    > slip-up of a technical person, not caught by any marketing & sales
    > department.

    When's the last time you saw IBM announce a new application fully
    compatible on AIX? Marketing has been so far behind.

    Even my customers that have traditionally stayed on AIX are
    questioning IBM's commitment.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------
    Russell Adams Russell.Adams@AdamsSystems.nl
    Principal Consultant Adams Systems Consultancy
    https://adamssystems.nl/


    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Transitioning from AIX servers to a modern Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment.

    Posted Tue December 02, 2025 10:02 AM

    The support article has been revised as the consolidation and transition of the service had nothing to do with one OS versus another.



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    Carl Burnett
    DE, IBM Infrastructure, IBM Power
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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Transitioning from AIX servers to a modern Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment.

    Posted Tue December 02, 2025 11:04 AM

    IBM has a long history of sending the worst possible signals to the market, then look quizzically when the customers choose "worse" (i.e. non-IBM) solutions. 



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    José Pina Coelho
    IT Specialist at Kyndryl
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    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: Transitioning from AIX servers to a modern Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment.

    Posted Tue December 02, 2025 11:23 AM
    Edited by Kc Vearner Tue December 02, 2025 11:25 AM


    Original Message


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