Re: Typical PC Guy question - and request for RFB contacts

It's hard to put this in PC terms, since the way an AS/400 uses the CPU
and the way a PC uses the CPU are very different.

I'd say your upgrade is probably somewhat close to going from a high-end
486 to a low-end pentium 2... maybe a 266 or 300.

When we did our upgrade, we went from a 12 shared CPW system, a model 200,
to a 270 with very similar benchmark scores to yours.  Although the
interactive CPW only changed from 12 to 25 (a factor of about 2) the
response times are more like 10 times the speed.   As I understand it, the
reason is that the operating system processes that drive the whole machine
are running at the higher CPW value (the "batch" value) and therefore the
interactive processes that rely on them are faster as well, even though
they are themselves limited to 25...

That's just one experience, though, your mileage may vary! :)


On Wed, 4 Dec 2002, Anthony Hardy wrote:

> I, having very little AS400/iseries experience am in charge of our
> current AS400.  I understand fully the impact in performance when I talk
> in Megahertz, RAM, etc. and have learned a decent amount of IBM lingo,
> DASD, main memory, CPW, etc.
>
> My question is this .  .our third pary vendor recently made a needed
> change to our administrative software which has our current system at
> its needs.  We are a higher ed. institution and we have students waiting
> 3-4 minutes for fees to process.
>
> Our current machine is a model 600-2129 , 22.7 SHARED CPW, 192 main mem.
> and 12G DASD.
>
> I am looking at a refurb 170-2291, 115/25 CPW, 512 main mem and 17G DASD.
>
> Disk space is not an issue for me . .the ONLY thing this box is used for
> is this ONE third party app (no web, mail, storage, etc).  I have been
> told that this 170 config will push me to the top of the P05 group
> (don't want to go P10 for budgetary reasons).
>
> My questions are this:
>
> 1. What kind of performance increase am I looking at generically.  I
> know you can't give me exact figures, but in generic terms, are we
> talking about moving from a 386 to a pentium here?  maybe better?  I
> have some performance figures on this box . .but i'm really not
> interested in specifics . .just trying to get an overall feel for CPW
> ratings and the difference they make.
>
> 2. I need to bid out this project (the hardware, license transfer and
> data move).  If you handle this type of thing, please send me your
> contact information, including name, address, phone, fax and email.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Anthony Hardy
> Director of MIS/Enrollment Management
> Jefferson Davis Community College
> (251) 809-1531