RE: Help me Justify iSeries

[JOberholtzer@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

While I can accept Joe's points regarding the pricing of equipment, keep in
mind the disk drive on that user class PC is not built for 24/hr/365 day
spin time.  It is engineered to only spin for 8 hours/day 5 days a week,
because lets face it , that is good enough for most PCs.    Are the
documents you are going to be storing in a position to be recovered easily
if that non-raid, non-mirrored drive fails?  What about the cost of
recovery and replacement equipment, cheezed off users and bosses, etc.

To cut back on the storage cost for my customers I have been configuring an
0595 chassis, (5095 stand alone) with an IOP/Raid card and full of the
largest disk drives IBM sells for that machine.  Put the disk up on an
independent Aux. Storage Pool (iASP) and you have an relatively inexpensive
SAN for the documents.  Since I can now have an IFS in the iASP, it works
great, and it is fast enough for most applications.  You can back it up as
needed with iSeries backup reliability and all is good.    If you need more
that an 0595 gives you, get a used 5074 with the 5101 disk expansion and go
for it.  (put it on a separate HSL loop so you don't slow down the high
speed RIO)

When doing a cost comparison, it is the total cost of ownership that
counts, not the initial buy in.  The justification for an iSeries vs.
Wintell just doesn't add up for Wintel......... especially in an HA
environment.

Jim Oberholtzer
Senior Solutions Architect
Computech Resources, Inc.