100% uptime (was iSeries vs. Unix et al)

We currently have a sign posted on the Data Center door that reads "Number of 
days since last unscheduled IPL - 102, Previous Record 307"  This sign refers 
to our Sysplexed 390 Mainframe.  We have an Unscheduled System Outage email 
that is supposed to be sent out with every outage that affects any user.  I see 
an average of at least one of these a day from the Network group, Proxy, 
E-mail, firewall, etc.  Usually there is not even an attempt at PD, it states 
that the system was blue-screened or locked up and a reboot fixed it.

I have had to send out exactly one of these notices, due to one user who was 
unable to receive a request through MQ series(on a Saturday,) this scheduled 
outage had been communicated to the user's manager who did not forward it to 
his group.

I have been with my current company about four years, during which the only 
AS/400 downtime was due to an IPL that would not complete due to a bad PTF that 
was set to apply.  We were able to IPL to the A side and run normally until the 
next weekend when we scheduled an IPL to fix the problem.

I have been fighting anti-iSeries attitudes the whole time that I've worked 
here, but I'm finally making some headway.  For the last two years the plan was 
to migrate out Content Manager application to our mainframe, but it was finally 
decided (as we rolled out CM to a new group of users) that the MF licensing 
costs were just too high.  Not to mention that our MF is stressed now and an 
upgrade would put it into a higher tier, meaning higher costs for all software 
on the system.  Meanwhile we were able to consolidate a 620(P30) and a 720(P20) 
into one new 810(P10)  You should have seen the looks on mgmt faces when they 
found that we could "upgrade" to a system with lower maintenance costs.

-----Original Message-----
From: Nathan M. Andelin [mailto:nandelin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 1:33 PM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: iSeries vs. Unix vs. SQL Server vs. Oracle
 
Multiple iSeries boxes?  Why not use just one?  Is 100% uptime, backed by
failover support a requirement?

I'd suggest that running one iSeries server in most cases is cheaper and
more reliable than running two clustered SQL Servers.  And if I understand
clustering correctly, the secondary server remains inactive until the
primary fails, so it does nothing for performance or scalability.

Nathan M. Andelin
www.relational-data.com



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