RE: Ready to scrap an AS/400 -- MIDRANGE-L

Rob, I agree with some of what you are saying.

About five years ago, I benchmarked a mainstream AS/400 software product.
At that time, that product required an average of 0.6 CPW per user.

Over the last several years, that vendor re-wrote their entire suite.  The
current release of the new product uses between 3.0 and 40 CPW per user.

In both cases, the numbers are for interactive work, no batch is included.
As far as I can tell, the major differences are:

1. SQL database IO requires about 10 times more memory than an RPG program
and between 5 and 100 times more CPU cycles.

2. Client Server applications are written in object-oriented style.  OO is
better for highly complex applications for all the reasons that you already
know.  However, one of those reasons is: less shared memory access.
Translated into RPG-speak, that means less use of programmer-written cache
routines.  And that means, if I need access to an object, I just go and get
it.  No matter that the last guy went and got it, I will get it again.  CS
apps tend to do more IO than RPG apps for the same amount of end-user work.

3. Client Server applications usually use commitment control.  Most AS/400
shops don't know how to buy disk and controllers to serve commitment control
and they don't know how to tune for that level of journaling and the extra
commit-time CPU hit is usually ignored during planning.

4. Instead of custom-written, close-to-the-metal report and file-update
programs, most CS applications use general purpose reporting tools.  Where
the close-to-the-metal programs performed a lot of print and file update
work very efficiently, general purpose reporting tools are relatively
inefficient.  It requires a new mindset to figure out how to do some mass
operations that used to be done in batch programs.

5. Most client server applications are written in C.  C programmers use a
lot of pointers.  On Unix and NT machines, C pointers are very efficient -
modifying a pointer is a very light-weight operation.  On the AS/400,
pointer manipulation requires considerably more CPU cycles.  The obvious
throughput difference makes the AS/400 look bad compared to Unix and NT.

6. Performance monitoring has not kept up with client server applications.
For example, have any of you ever used SQL over ODBC (Client Access Express)
and tried to figure out which QZDASOINIT job belonged to you?  The
higher-level tools are still focused on green-screen and RPG/CL batch jobs
and there is no training or support for lower-level tools.  There are no
tools (that I know of) to measure the time required to perform the pointer
manipulation described in the paragraph 5.  Well, there is a tool called
Flasher that might help but I can't find any documentation for it.

Questions? Comments?  War stories?

Richard Jackson
mailto:richardjackson@richardjackson.net
http://www.richardjacksonltd.com
Voice: (303) 808 8058

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
[mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Rob Berendt
Sent: Monday, July 24, 2000 7:38 AM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: RE: Ready to scrap an AS/400


And scrap any other C/S system you're thinking of.  Stick only with
green screen.  And when you have to find a new job because they replaced
all of your hardware with NT just smile smugly because you know how badly
they've screwed up.





bvstone@taylorcorp.com on 07/21/2000 02:44:25 PM
Please respond to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com@Internet
To:     MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com@Internet
cc:
Fax to:
Subject:        RE: Ready to scrap an AS/400

Daniel,

Your problem should be with domino, not the AS/400.  It's a pig.  I've hard
IBM reccomends a minimum of a 720 with mucho disk arms and memory.

Scrap Domino.  Not the AS/400.  And ask for your money back.  They sold it
to you so you'd buy a bigger machine.

Brad

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Daniel Wesloskie [mailto:dwesloskie@altatennis.org]
> Sent: Friday, July 21, 2000 12:29 PM
> To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Subject: Ready to scrap an AS/400
>
>
> Right now, my perception IS reality!  I'm about ready to
> scrap this piece
> of junk AS/400 for something else.  It just plain can't do
> the job!  We
> have a 170 (V4R4M0)that is running Domino(5.0.4) and a voice
> response system
> (VRS) as
> the main applications along with the backend applications.
> So there isn't
> much to the system and it still can't handle it.  Domino
> locks up and causes
> problems for the VRS as the http server consumes more of the
> cpu %.  This
> means
> members who are calling in to the VRS are either getting
> kicked out of the
> system halfway through their process, or they can't even get
> in.  It also
> means
> that anyone who is trying to pay for memberships get locked
> out.  I can only
> imagine what these people think, but I'm almost sure it's not
> good.  Since
> many
> of the membership include people who would be influential in
> the decisions
> to
> their own companies systems, I would ask, How is this for an
> advertisement
> for
> the AS/400? or How long can my business afford to be down with AS/400?
>
> Ticked off with the AS/400.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
> [mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Rob Berendt
> Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2000 11:24 AM
> To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Subject: RE: So if there is no Hardware specific Advertising
> then???????
>
>
> I used to have a boss - different sort of fellow - anyways he
> used to quote
> John Lennon.
> "Perception is 99% of reality."
>
>
>
> Nina,
>
> You've hit the nail on the head here. It is not that the 400
> *can't* do
> these things. The problem is the *Perception* is that it
> can't do these
> things.
>
>
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