RE: subject: iSeries Legends

>From: Joe Pluta [mailto:joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
>I know that, Walden.  But they cost alot more than Scott's FreeBSD machine.

My watch costs more that Scott's FreeBSD machine. <G> But your request was
for a "Unix box handling thousands of OLTP users on gigabyte databases with
subsecond response time." I don't think you'll find a box capable of that
south of several million anywhere. Hell, several terabytes of disk alone
will cost that on an iSeries. 

>Many don't have the uptime either.  

True, but many do. Take a look at Oliver's post, his experiences, while
perhaps not typical, aren't unheard of. The iSeries doesn't stay up years on
end anymore. Might one? Sure, but I'll bet there's a Windows 3.11 box
somewhere that hasn't been rebooted in 4 years either.

Oh, and Oliver, no you can't ignore the disk failures, down it down --
unless the windows folks can ignore downtime due to viruii. <G> Heck, in
todays world I'd argue you can't ignore _any_ downtime -- scheduled or not.

>And of course I'm being facetious, there are probably more than three, but
>they are damned expensive and have a lot of support personnel.

A lot more that three, however they are not that expensive. How much do you
think an iSeries w/512GGB of memory and 58 Terabyes of storage would cost --
if you could get one. And what level of support would you expect to have for
it? 0.5FTE? I don't think so.

Oh, and please don't confuse the uptime and capabilities of MS's desktop
OS's (95, 98, ME, W2KWorkstation, XP) with their server OS's (W2KServer and
W2K3). Windows 2003 and Windows XP have as much in common as OS/400 V5R2 and
CPF R7 -- are they similar, sure. Are they comperable, no!

-Walden

------------
Walden H Leverich III
President
Tech Software
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Quiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
(Whatever is said in Latin seems profound.)