RE: Scalability -- MIDRANGE-L

Hi James

I really can't agree with your general premise that because you'r customers choose to use Windows systems then that is somehow an iSeries administration overhead.

You seem to have forgotten the number of clients and GUI's that many unix shops deploy to allow their applications and databases to be accessed from Windows PC's. SAP clients, Oracle applications, Powerbuilder applications.. etc etc the list is as endless as the list of applications that have to be glued together on a unix machine to provide an application in the first case. In my experience real users hardly ever just use a telnet screen from dumb terminal anymore, they mostly use a windows pc- this is as much a unix end user phenomenon as an iSeries one.

It might be tempting to see things this way but at least from what I have seen this is a flawed argument.

Regards
Evan Harris

I'll give a stab at answering this question.
I think it is important to remember that the iSeries doesn't necessarily require MS Windows PCs, though almost everyone does use them to work with their iSeries. You could continue to use stricly dumb terminals (though this is getting harder due to aging hardware). My shop and customers usage of MS Windows for iSeries connectivity ranges from 50% to 99% (i.e. 50% to 99% of the "green screens" are iSeries Access running on MS Windows). The remainder that isn't iSeries Access on MS Windows is either dumb terminals or tn5250 on linux. So I think it is fair to say that for me and all my customers the administration costs and burdens of an iSeries necessarily must include the administration costs and burdens of MS Windows (which is not very desirable). However, an iSeries shop could be set up that does not require the use of MS Windows and all it's attendant headaches and costs.

A unix shop is different. Or at least is potentially very different. While a unix shop could choose to have many MS Windows client (and why they would defies reason) it simply is not required. One of the great advantages of dumb terminal "green screens" is that they are very low maintenance and thus easy for one person to administer a large number. unix has the advantage of dumb terminals that are as feature rich as a full-blown PC. Each user doesn't need a PC to have all the applications they need to do their work.

But suppose a unix shop did decide to put a machine running unix on every desk instead of X terminals (the graphical, unix equivalent of dumb terminals). All those unix machines have synced passwords, shared filesystems, and simple remote administration. Because the filesystem is shared, upgrading applications means simply upgrading one machine and all the rest are instantly upgraded as well. Combine this with the password sync and that means any user can use any machine and the environment, files, settings, etc. are the same. The administration is increased because now you have more hardware to take care of, but the software part increases less than linearly.
A unix shop could use MS Windows, but why they would escapes me!
James Rich