iSeries Disk Pricing

Fritz
Here's your answer.
John
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John - thanks for listening to Kim's chat yesterday and forwarding the
question.  Since I can't see Fritz's email address, would you please
forward this to him?

 First of all,  the eServer platforms are sharing a large set of IBM's
innovative technology, including eLiza.  Examples abound - the p and i
Series now share the same POWER4 processors, i and p Series utilize the
same packaging technology as zSeries for the p690 and i890 servers, we all
share the same Secure Sockets Accelerator - the list goes on and on.  This
sharing will accelerate beginning this year with the  eLiza software
technologies like Enterprise Identity Mapping which is part of the iSeries
V5R2 announcement.  EIM will be delivered on the other eServer platforms
over the next 12 months, and you can look to the introduction of other
eLiza SW technologies to continue in next year's IBM eServer Series SW
announcements.

As to the specific question regarding disk, as part of this announcement we
are announcing significant price reductions on 18 and 35 GB drives  - in
effect providing them at or near the same price as pSeries and the Unix
competition including HP and Sun.  This provides Fritz with the ability to
purchase and configure a set of disks at nearly the same price as our
pSeries system, with the added advantage of our integrated storage
management to do all of the disk and volume management most Unix customers
have to hire administrators for or purchase additional software for.  Also,
with this announcement we are making it much more cost-effective to utilize
Storage Area Network Solutions like Shark.  With V5R2, we now support fibre
channel connectivity to a SAN switch fabric, requiring less FC connections
than before to utilize tape or disk attached via SAN.

Thanks,  Jim

Jim Herring
iSeries PDT Leader for 2002

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Kim
Thank you very much for a very informative web cast today.
The iSeries proposition has never been stronger.
Saw this and thought this question might have been missed today.
If the pSeries and xSeries have gained from our contributions to eLiza,
when can we be like them as the below post indicates?

Respectfully
John Carr

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What I really want, like many others, is some type of inexpensive,
reliable disk that the iSeries (i.e. IFS) can use, just like AIX, W2k
and other OS's.  Do you see any sign of it with v5r2 or the new
equipment?  Wouldn't it be wonderful to add storage to the iSeries at
the same cost as p or x Series?


Best Regards

Fritz Hayes
Atwater Associates