RE: Joe's V5R1 upgrade

["Mark Phippard" <MarkP@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Joe,

You raise a valid point in favor of IBM in that they do offer quality
support and as long as you contact them soon enough the general
architecture of the hardware and software allow most any problem to be
resolved.

That being said, IMHO, the whole PTF process has become a nightmare on the
iSeries.  Does anyone understand it anymore?  Do apply Group PTF's before
or after CUME's?  Do the CUME's include fixes for things like Java and
WebSphere?

The larger problem is the downtime.  Too many fixes require IPL's.  Look at
WebSphere.  To get its PTF's applied, you also have to apply all of the
PTF's for the database, Java and HTTP server.  Somewhere in there will
always be at least one fix that requires an IPL.  However, how many of
those fixes did WebSphere actually need?  Was an IPL absolutely necessary?
This does not even get into the fact that often times these fixes
inevitably break something else.

As Walden and others have pointed out, with a cluster of Linux or Windows
systems you can take a system out of the cluster to apply fixes without
bringing down the cluster and your application.

I think the iSeries really needs to improve in this area.  As it stands, I
would have a real hard time recommending the iSeries for someone with high
availability needs in a "connected world".  The iSeries rocks when it comes
to unscheduled downtime, but it is not so great in the area of planned
downtime.

Mark