RE: Help me Justify iSeries

["Ingvaldson, Scott" <SIngvaldson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ron -

I should add that we've just finished migrating our test and production
Lotus Notes environments from old (needing raplacement) NT servers to
our 810 iSeries at basically no cost other than my time. 

Regards,
 
Scott Ingvaldson
iSeries System Administrator
GuideOne Insurance Group

-----Original Message-----
date: Fri, 27 May 2005 09:58:38 -0500
from: ron_adams@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
subject: RE: Help me Justify iSeries

Thanks everybody for some great comments. Unfortunately, I haven't seen 
anything really that I haven't already said to my boss.

I've been on the midrange platform since '89 and happen to think it's 
solid and would not even dream of running a business class app on
Wintel. 
But, the impression here by upper management is that this platform is 
costly in hardware, software and maintenance. And for the most part
their 
right. I know that it's a solid and secure platform and maintaining it
is 
a piece of cake. But, I just can't convince management that the money 
spent is worth it.

For the record we're a "smallish" shop. We have 5 Wintel (Dell) servers
at 
HQ running Win2K and 2003. We run Lotus Notes here and at each of our 
remote sites on Wintel (Dell) servers that also serve as file servers
for 
each of those locations. Total of 11 Wintel servers which were probably 
around $4500 each ($49500). The staff is comprised of myself, and
another 
guy. I handle midrange ERP systems which includes the i5 and an older 
HP3000. The other guy handles the Wintel servers and network/pc support 
(he stays very busy), but I back him up sometimes as does my boss. We've

loaded SQL server on a couple of the Wintel machines as well as ESSbase.

If you look at the figures from a 3-year standpoint, the Wintel servers,

which have been solid for the most part with very minimal down-time over

the last year, the Wintel server(s) win. 

I know that if we switch to a Wintel platform for our business ERP, the 
costs are going to go up, as we'll need some more servers with more
disk, 
CPU and memory but still it won't equal the cost of the iSeries and all
of 
its apps and hardware, plus maintenance.

Sorry guys, but from a cost (only) standpoint the iSeries just can't 
compete, and that's where my boss and upper management are.

Ron Adams