AS/400 Online Backup

The AS/400 (Application System/400) is the first version of what became the eServer i Series. It debuted in June of 1988, and stayed in production until 2000, when it was renamed the i Series. A lot of users still call later variants the AS 400 thanks to the tendency of IBM to change the names of its products in a rapid and somewhat unpredictable manner. The AS 400 was a server that IBM designed for use by smaller businesses and for sub-systems or department use by large enterprise customers.

It is based on the PowerPC microprocessor, and is considered by many to have been one of IBM’s groundbreaking products. The AS/400’s versatility and easy scalability has resulted in an exceptionally long service life. There are still a significant number of AS/400s in use by a wide variety of institutions, including multiple governmental agencies, small and medium sized businesses, and large corporations.
The AS/400 utilized the appropriately named AS/400 Control Language, which is a scripting language closely related to IBM’s Job Control Language. There are many command objects (CMD) that are “in the wild” that were written for the AS/400.

The majority were written in-house at IBM by their developers to create Code Language programs and other command to provide program emulating functionality. Hundreds of programs remain available for the AS/400, should one be inclined to do a little online searching.
It also boasted one of the highest uptime percentages of any server family, with a claimed uptime percentage of 99.9%, not far removed from perfection. With this type of record, it did not take long for the AS/400 to gain a reputation for reliability. This also made the AS/400 less expensive over time, as IT expenses for maintenance and repairs were significantly reduced vis-a-vis many other competing server options.

Even though the venerable AS/400 is slowly fading away, despite its long legs, there are still uses for the server. IBM has suggested a few potential uses to keep the server from going to waste. Some of these potential uses include data warehousing, which can make use of the large amount of RAM and HDD storage available on the AS/400. Other suggested uses include e-commerce and web server use, as the AS/400 still has the necessary chops to handle the needs for a small to medium sized business. Since the AS/400 also has a tightly integrated Java virtual machine (VM), it can be used as a Java development system.

The sales numbers of the AS/400 is truly impressive. It is estimated that more than 600,000 AS/400s were sold over the model’s long sales life. Even more amazing is the fact that an estimated 350,000 AS/400s remain in service around the world. A look at job listings for IT professionals reinforces the fact that the AS/400 is neither completely gone, nor forgotten. Many job listings request candidates that have experience with the AS/400 and AS/400 Code Language. The AS/400 was an exceptional product that came along at the right time, and IBM rightly enjoyed significant success as result of their solid, robust and scalable design.