RE: Planning for an iSeries future

[** KSB **] Ken,
 
Your passion and desire to keep up-to-date with iSeries technology is 
commendable and understandable, but I seriously doubt that in three years your 
present iSeries will become "hopelessly obsolete".  You're only talking about a 
span of 3-4 years.  And, just because new technology becomes available doesn't 
mean it has to be implemented.  I realize that's heresy to marketers of the 
iSeries and to us technical folk who want to keep our skills from becoming 
obsolete.  IBM's only made this anxiety worse by how frequently they keep 
announcing upgrades/enhancements while at the same time announcing shorter 
windows of support for OS/400 releases.
 
Consider, though, you're not planning for an iSeries future - you're planning 
for your COMPANY's future.
 
Having said that, understand that you're arguing with people who are the 
conservators of (and competitors for, most likely) the capital funds of your 
company.  They do this on behalf of the shareholders (and, yes, you have 
shareholders even if your company isn't publicly-held!)   From that 
perspective, it makes business sense to consider the financial question: Is it 
cheaper to continually upgrade the present system or to (in your case) 
re-purchase it every x number of years?  
 
The point is, there's a cost of continually upgrading the equipment and 
software - you just need to estimate the money you'll spend each year.  And 
then, there's a cost associated with having to purchase (or lease) a new system 
AND convert your present system to it.  This latter activity probably won't 
need to occur if you were to continually stay current.  If you can't predict 
what the cost of the "replacement" system will be in 3-6 years, simply have 
someone tell you what it would cost purchase your present system TODAY and then 
increase that by some percentage over 3-6 years.  You could even do a little 
homework and try to guess at IBM's historic price increases!  And, who knows, 
maybe prices will even come down!
 
You're trying to model what costs you'd incur to keep the system able to meet 
the needs of your business and for any anticipated growth   Don't forget, in 
your modeling, the upgrade costs for any third-party software you may be 
licensing.  As you go to newer models, these can have large upgrade fees.
 
There certainly subjective, non-financial reasons to keep a computer system 
current.  For example, who's to say that next year the iSeries won't 
incorporate some neat new software or hardware feature that would enable your 
company to dramatically increase it's revenues if you exploited it?   Or save 
some currently huge outlay of expense.  These kinds of arguments tend to have 
less impact on non-technical people and people who are intent on controlling 
the purse strings.  So, keep that in mind.  I firmly believe that planning for 
the future MUST have an tangible rationale first, and intangible appeal second.
 
You also asked about quantifying uptime, etc.   Actually, I think you want to 
ask the question differently: what will it cost us (in lost profit, 
opportunity, and customers) if we are down 2% of the time?   For example, 
assuming your iSeries is your main commercial business system, what would 
happen (what would you lose) if you were unable to operate for a day?  Two 
days?  A week?  Two Weeks?   Your finance people should be able to tell you 
that.  These are the same kinds of questions you ask when you decide how you're 
going to handle disaster recovery.
 
Sometimes the answers are pretty radical!  In my previous company, Finance 
responded that we could be down a month!!! before we'd begin to feel the 
financial impact of the (then) AS/400 being unavailable.  They argued that they 
had adequate manual procedures to continue manufacturing, shipping, collecting 
accounts receivable and paying employees.  Since these were the ESSENTIAL 
processes of the company, the company could survive a disaster involving the 
loss of the AS/400 for a month.  As an IT person I didn't necessarily like that 
answer, but I understood it!
==Kevin Brunk
 
 
[** KSB **]  Message: 4 
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 15:56:34 -0700 
From: "Graap, Ken" <keg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
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 

**************************************** 
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 
****************************************