Re: I am in a Holy War about webserving from a System i

Disclaimer #1 - My job is 'The Man'.

I try to push my people towards things that promote all things i. I try to only hire people that have written a procedure in a service program. I think I promote current, if not leading edge techniques.

That said, I think IBM has priced much of the internet/web stuff out of the range for many (most) of their customers. We currently run our intranet on a Win2003 machine, primarily written in ASP. Would I prefer it do be Websphere? YES - but the cost/performance metrics are not there for us. Luckily, the System i is a super simple database to access from any language, so we are not crippled and the ASP site has proven a great vehicle of growth.

Because of WS pricing, and system spec requirements, we are staying with a Windoze server for web enablement. It is cheaper, faster, and impacts our core business (i5) less that running WS enabled apps. Simple test apps on the i5 seemed to have dramatic affects on our daily transactions.

FYI - This is NOT a governor issue. We are (happily) one of the shops that bought the Enterprise license and do not have to deal with the interactive tax. WS Express works fine, but performance is no where near what we see on a dedicated box.

Give me an affordable Portal/Hats/etc, and we will move. Right now everything is priced for people with huge staff/budgets. IBM needs to recognize than innovation comes usally from the small fry/entrepreneur - not corporate behemoth. That is where they need to look for growth,

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