Re: Moving forward or backward...

I think it would be interesting to know what IBM is actually charging you
for in that 520 scenario. Being that everything runs on Power I am curious
what a System x or p would cost to compete with your laptop. I am guessing
the price would be closer because it doesn't include the cost of a DB and
proprietary OS (both of which are worth their price).

I guess, in the end, just comparing performance doesn't give anybody much of
anything - know what I mean? That would really only be good if we were
concerned about how many CPU cycles we could fit into a single second - and
a business need is more complex than that. So maybe that is where our
disconnect is.

One area that I would consider a valid argument for the IBMi to cost more is
time saved in admin of the DB. Let's say I make $50k a year as a developer
and because of an integrated DB I save myself 10% of my time, well, I would
consider that money well spent.

I would be curious to know your thoughts on the ITG report that was recently
published that puts IBM i as an excellent choice over Windows and Linux:
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/software/i/strategy.html


Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com
http://mowyourlawn.com/blog/


On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 9:51 AM, Lukas Beeler <lukas.beeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

wrote:

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 16:30, Aaron Bartell <aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I don't have numbers to support any of my theories, but I would be

surprised

if your laptop could out perform in every workload. Not saying it isn't
possible, because I don't know - just that I would be surprised.

It will, and it's pure hardware basics. Be aware that i did never say
that my laptop would be more stable or more resilient than a Power
system in the specific configuration in my mail - i just said it would
PERFORM better.

It would not seriously suggest anyone to run this in a production
environment, all i'm trying to tell you that you will need to SPECIFY
what you want to do using which configuration. And you'll need to be
aware of the drawbacks of the IBM i platform if you seriously want to
promote it.

I'm not a marketing person. I'm a technician. That means all those
things that are okay and work without issue don't concern me - it's
those that are problematic that concern me.

- Running a DB

Assume we have a Database the size of 4GB. Do 100 full table scans on
the Laptop (with the SSD and 8 GB of RAM). Then do 100 full table
scans on the IBM i with 1 GB of RAM and two 147GB 15kRPM SAS drives.

Here's a hint: After the first full table scan (which will be faster
because a single SSD outperforms these two servers drivers), the
entire thing will be cached in RAM.

- Running an HTTP server

Not a problem - since the laptop has two cores, it can serve two
clients concurrently, making it faster at any CPU intensive workload
like PHP or Java.

- Running an app server under the HTTP server

Of course.

- Allowing multiple admins on the box to be doing various things

Yep.

- Allowing multiple developers on the box to be compiling and

implementing

new programming changes.

Can be done.

- Act as a file server

Of course.

- Have users running queries, and have the ability to gate them so they
don't over take the system.

Naturally.

- Do you have a failover NIC on your laptop?
- What if a HD fails in your laptop?
The last two questions could be added to, but it is basically saying you
would quickly need *some* type of server and that a laptop only goes so

far.

Of course not. All i'm trying to get into your head is that the
baseline machines IBM sells for 20k are slower than a laptop. This is
VERY important. I'm not trying that anyone should start trying to run
his business on a ThinkPad W500.

These IBM machines are also more reliable (HW monitoring, redundant
fans, redundant networks (though IBM i doesn't support bonding or
teaming, which sucks), redundant power, HW RAID controllers). All this
costs money of course.

But if you compare a 20k System x 3650 M2 against a 20k Power 520,
things get much uglier than just the laptop comparison. That's what
i'm trying to tell you.