RE: HMC Cost?

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What sort of longevity is to be expected from a HMC?
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That one is easy.  When the HMC was introduced into the mainframe and 
RS/6000 environments, it quickly became a significant portion of systems 
management.  Since all three of the major system lines, System z, System 
p, and of course our System i family of systems are going to merge into 
one hardware platform when the P6 chip is introduced, and all use the HMC 
now you can count on it being around for a long time. 

Just ignoring the superior methods of managing the systems, and as you 
have already pointed out, a very robust console ability, the hardware 
management attributes are enough to keep it around.

At COMMON we had an HMC  BOF (Birds of a Feather).  The discussions there 
where largely surrounding additional or slightly changed functionality we 
wanted, not quality.  That says the quality issues have turned the corner 
and they are on the right track with the HMC development.

Just make sure when your partner orders the HMC, they include RPQ 8A1471. 
That is the RPQ that will have dual power supplies on the rack mount 
version of the HMC, (field installed)  which of course is important if 
everything else has dual power.

Bottom line, it's here to stay for some time. 

Jim