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I agree that being as current as possible is what we all should be
striving for. But when you are talking about medium sized companies that
don't keep payroll or other things in house that would warrant immediate
encryption capabilities you need to take things in stride. Comanies get
"behind" from time to time. But I would say that as long as you are on a
supported OS you are still 'OK'. Not the 'BEST' but OK. I haven't looked
over the improved HA capabilities in 6.1 yet. We use 3rd party monitoring
software, not sure if that makes a difference.

Corporate spies in our industry don't gain much by looking at sales data
since its a pretty niche market and we know who is winning contracts we
don't get and usually we know why and vice a versa. Things just aren't
that sensitive here. R&D is where your keep an advantage in our industry.
Anyway... rest assured we'll be on 6.1 before V5R4 goes belly up. I
don't think 7.1 will be out before we get to 6.1 either.



Thanks
Bryce Martin
Programmer/Analyst I
570-546-4777



"Ingvaldson, Scott" <Scott.Ingvaldson@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
03/15/2010 05:23 PM
Please respond to
Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


To
"Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
cc

Subject
RE: Bleeding edge Was: DDL Record Select






Bryce -

I apologize if you felt overwhelmed by my self-righteousness and am
pleased that you are at least running V5R4 on Power 6, and are current
on PTFs.

That said, V5R4 was GA'd on 2/14/2006, and our bleeding edge O/S, V6R1
(yes, that's what it says on IBM's own Release life cycle page) was GA'd
on 3/21/2008. It will be two years old next week. Many companies are
still two releases back. Heck, there was a post on this list last week
from someone who had just upgraded from V5R3 to V5R4. V5R3's been out
of support for almost a year. Lukas' point was that at V5R4 you WILL be
two releases back very soon.

So no, I have no idea of the (exact) needs of your particular company,
but I do have a pretty good idea of the needs of an "average" company.
You say that your company has HA going strong, why do you think that
indicates no need for the HA enhancements in 6.1? I would think that
might be a reason to consider 6.1.

You say that you have no need for encryption of backups and data on disk
because you're a private company? I don't know what you have on your i,
payroll maybe? Any need to secure that? Proprietary information? Any
corporate spies in your industry?

You said previously that you didn't have time to go to 6.1 right now, do
you think that it will be easier to find the time if you "have to" go to
6.1 for some reason?

I'm not trying to make blanket statements that overstep any boundaries.
I would never presume to make your decisions for you. But I do hope
that you consider the ramifications of your own decisions. Very few
systems have the problem of having too current capabilities or being too
secure.

Regards,

Scott Ingvaldson
Senior IBM Support Specialist
Fiserv Midwest


-----Original Message-----
From: Bryce Martin [mailto:BMartin@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 1:01 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Bleeding edge Was: DDL Record Select

HAHA. I had to laugh at your post...

You have no idea of the needs of our company, what we are running
hardware
or software wise, so I will prove to you that yet another blanket
statement is over stepping its bounds....

I quote you as saying...

When you talk about "value added" do you consider the value added by
being able to plan and execute a processor upgrade in three months vs.
nine because your O/S is two releases back? Do you consider the added
risk of having to do an unload/reload to a new release because your old
machine doesn't support the new release? How about the extra effort
involved in doing a skip release upgrade? Do you think that you're not
"gaining a whole lot" because the next release doesn't come with a
snazzy new theme on the GUI?

Or are things like "Improved system integrity and performance, Support
for new processor capabilities, Support for regulatory requirements with
encryption of backups and data on disk, New high availability solutions
manager, Improved performance for Java and WebSphere applications and
Expanded virtualization capabilities just words to your company?


Let me go point by point...
First, we are on V5R4, just one release behind. We are current on PTF's
so I think we ok there. Just put up a new box with Power 6 hardware at
the new year, hmmm no problems, no 3 months of planning, just ordered it

and installed it. We have HA going strong now for over a year, 1 main,
with 2 targets. All on the same release and working without a problem.
Personally its kind of offensive that you think my knowledge and
observability of the system is going to be oh so easily swayed by snazzy

new themes and GUIs. Its a server, it doesn't need to be super pretty.
Usable, yes. Stable, yes. IBM i, YES!

We don't at this time have a need for performance increases since we
don't
even come close to maxing out our current box. Does 6.1 offer some
processor capabilities that V5R4M5 doesn't? Especially that I can't live

without right now? Regulatory requirements... well since we are a
private
company and don't store sensitive data such as SSN or CC Numbers it
doesn't matter. If we need to do that in the future, we will address it
and do what we need to do. We have one Java app running under WebSphere
right now that loads quicker than a blink of an eye, so really there
would
be no noticable gain for us there. We don't use virtualization on IBM i
so that isn't needed for us either.

So all these things you mentioned don't really apply to our company all
that much. I'm glad you are an advocate for the i. I am as well, but
lets not get all self righteous.

Thanks
Bryce Martin
Programmer/Analyst I

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