Re: iSeries specific benefit - Disk IO performance

Haven't done any kind of cost comparison (neither TCO nor just hardware/software). We have a very simple set up here, but it is also critical to our business. When the mail server craps out, everybody gets irritable, but they survive. When the Windows file server goes south, people get belligerent, but no one dies. When the System i5 goes south, people get - hell, I don't know what they get; it's never died. But I do know that the mission critical applications are on the System i5 because of its reliability; my boss just laughs when a Windows vendor tries to sell him a Windows solution to replace our i5 apps (and he's a Windows guy!).


I'm a fairly good programmer, though from what I read on the lists not in the same class with many of you, but I'm a lame-o as a system admin. But what little admin there is on the i5 is pretty easy. Part of that may be our simple set up here, but once you get things (system values, etc.) defined, the i5 takes care of itself. It even calls home when it's not feeling well - I had a voice mail from IBM one morning telling me that my disk cache batteries were low before I could check error messages. Ease of use counts for something, but I'd be hard pressed to quantify it.


I have had to interface with disparate systems and never had a problem. I'm working on one right now for which I'll need to use OpenSSH for the first time. With all of the things in the archives here and the manual, looks like I'll be busy for a little while (but should be fun learning something new). There was a brief (real brief) discussion about putting the data from the vendor on the Windows file server; however, because it's mission critical data and apps, my boss (and his boss, the COO) nixed that idea.

I could go on, but my point is that the i5 is for critical data and apps. I guess other servers have or could be configured to run as reliably; I'll admit my ignorance there. But the few shops that I have seen that claim to have reliable set ups had a full-time staff to baby sit it.
* Jerry C. Adams
*IBM System i5/iSeries Programmer/Analyst
B&W Wholesale Distributors, Inc.* *
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Peter Dow (ML) wrote:

Hi Steve,

Does your statement below mean that it's simpler to take a Windows app and put it on a Linux box than it is to take an AIX app and put it in PASE on an iSeries box?

Peter Dow
Dow Software Services, Inc.
909 793-9050

Steve Richter wrote:

as far as migrating apps and in which direction, my speculation is the
important thing is for a package vendor to be able to drop its package
on a system and have it both run well and integrate well with other
applications on the system. Just my guess, but the integrated
database model of the i5 probably makes that harder to do than
otherwise.

-Steve