Re: Planning for an iSeries future

Get your IBM salesperson on board whether it's an IBMer or a business
partner.  Answering the question you are asking is their only mission in
life and they are good at it. 
 
 
 
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Booth Martin   http://www.MartinVT.com
Booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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-------Original Message-------
 
From: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Date: Thursday, April 17, 2003 21:07:27
To: 'Midrange'
Subject: Planning for an iSeries future
 
Geesh! I consider myself an implementer and problem solver... That is why
I'm a Systems Administrator! 
 
Now I'm finding myself being nudged into a additional role... The role of
project manager and having to show a positive return on investment value for
keeping current on the AS/400 / iSeries platform.
 
We currently have an AS/400 model 730... It was upgraded from an 530 about 3
years ago. This year we made a fatal mistake! 
 
We let ourselves get talked into owning this machine after the lease was up
taking our hardware cost to ZERO, except for ongoing maintenance costs.
 
We became the owners of the 730 on 1/1/03. We figured we would coast for a
year and then upgrade. 
 
As you all know IBM has decided to remove our upgrade path in October....
Needless to say we didn't budget for this but even worst, the people in our
company who hand out the money for this stuff now want to know why we can't
just keep this machine we own until about 2006... They like hardware costs
of ZERO...
 
I've discussed with them the idea that this machine will probably become
hopelessly obsolete by 2006 and that we would have to purchase a new one
because nothing about the model 730 would be upgradeable that far in the
future. Of course they ask "how much will that cost?" I tell them I don't
have any idea! I don't even know what IBM will be selling us then. 
 
I have always worked with AS/400 savvy managers who have understood that in
order to get the most out of an AS/400 investment you budgeted to keep
current on the hardware figuring that you would upgrade every 3-4 years.
This has served me well since 1988. We had invested in this server and
planned to continue to add new function to it so we kept it current.
 
In my environment today this perception of investing in a platform (except
WinTel, because it is the only desktop game in town) doesn't exist...
Management is now saying, if nothing is broke, why do we have to spend any
money at all? 
 
I'm now struggling to come up with an argument against this philosophy... 
 
My gut feeling is that if we do nothing, the machine will become more and
more obsolete and when we do want to provide some new software function,
like a Linux based processing or some other new state of the art process, we
will have to tell the planners that our old system can't do that unless we
invest a million dollars to bring it current! In other words, by doing
nothing now, we are creating a self fulfilling prophecy where we won't be
able to do anything new later either. 
 
Is anyone else finding themselves in this situation? If so, would you mind
sharing how you justified a continuing investment in an iSeries platform? 
 
Like: 
 
How do you quantify in dollars, things like 98% uptime 7/24 and 100% uptime
during prime working hours? Save while active backups? The ability to
actually restore a system in an emergency instead of rebuilding it? ?????
 
Kenneth
 
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Kenneth E. Graap
IBM Certified Specialist 
AS/400e Professional System Administrator
NW Natural (Gas Services)
keg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Phone: 503-226-4211 x5537
FAX: 603-849-0591
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