RE: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch

I've trained myself to call it iSeries all of the time.  I personally
feel System i is a horrible name.  I do occasionally have to call it the
AS/400 or 'the 400' to some of the people around here who haven't
modernized their marketology.


Name games aside, the earlier commenter who mentioned the system's price
is dead-on.  We are right now looking at drastically raising the number
of users of our main app, which in part relies on WebSphere App Server.
We're on a 2-way 1.6GHz 570 but need to move to a 4/8-way 2.2GHz 570 to
handle the workload.  No changes to DASD, tape, and other things outside
the CEC are required.  The WAS license comes from the app so there's no
add'l charge there.  However, we have to re-buy our RAM (the 1.6GHz
chips used DDR while the 2.2s use DDR2) + buy additional.  We have to
replace the existing CPUs with new & add more of them.  We have to pay
the P30/P40 processor tier jump.  We have to add a 2nd CEC to hold CPUs
5-8 which we won't activate initially.  We have to add OS licenses for
the additional activated CPUs.  All said and done it's a hefty 6-figure
upgrade.

Or we can by a few dual-Xeon Windows boxes for under $5K each and run
WAS in a cluster/distributed workload environment and gain redundancy.

Over 3 or 5 years, as it stands Windows is the cheaper option despite
higher admin costs and the added complexity in the environment.

And, BTW, costs are actually closer to double the above as we have to
update the BCDR environment as well.  

I'm doing what I can to make the iSeries the 'winner' in the battle, but
the plain truth is at the end of the day my responsibility is to my
employer and not to IBM or the iSeries community.  At the moment the
cost of the pure iSeries solution makes is too far out of line, even
when comparing the 5 year TCO.  If the price premium was 20 or even 30%
it'd still be a fairly easy sell as our IT management does understand
the iSeries value proposition to some degree.  However, we're talking
about well over an order of magnitude's difference.

John A. Jones, CISSP
Americas Information Security Officer
Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.
V: +1-630-455-2787 F: +1-312-601-1782
john.jones@xxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of pnelson@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 8:35 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch

   Just yesterday, I overheard the kid (under 30) in the next cubicle
talking
   about the AS/400's in the server room. When he got off the phone, I
asked
   him where I could find the AS/400's in that room. He said "Those big
black
   machines in there". I told him that there have been zero AS/400's
produced
   in this century, so he must be mistaken about the equipment in there.
    
   As he sat with a puzzled look on his face, I gently explained "The
Truth"
   to him. I also pointed him to several IBM links, but most
importantly, to
   the Angus link. I heard him chuckling for thenext couple of hours.
    
   Score one for the good guys.
   -- 

   Paul Nelson
   Arbor Solutions, Inc.
   708-670-6978  Cell
   pnelson@xxxxxxxxxx
   -----midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: -----

     To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion"
<midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
     From: "Trevor Perry" <tperry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
     Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
     Date: 12/08/2006 09:27AM
     Subject: Re: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch

     And one more...

     You said:
     >  The many name changes are just adding insult to injury.  But
since
     > they're not marketing it properly, positive brand recognition is
not
     > there anyway.

     There have been NO name changes since January 2006. There were
     ultimately
     only 3 names - AS/400, iSeries (part of eServer family) and System
i5.
     And
     that was over EIGHTEEN years - IT changes its diapers much faster
than
     that.
     Now we have the System i family to cover all three platforms and
bring
     the
     community together.

     So, collectively, we must:
     1) stop whining about ~ALL~ the name changes -
     2) start calling this platform by its CURRENT family name - System
i

     It seems such a simple simple thing. Why is it that other IT
developers
     can
     change and adapt fast, and we cannot. And it is just a brand name
to
     change!! Maybe because we are dinosaurs at IT, we will become
extinct
     soon?

     As for brand recognition.. while we collectively call it AS/400,
there
     will
     be ~no~ brand recognition. IBM has given us a name for the
platform, and
     until WE recognize the branding, there is no future.

     AS/400 is our heritage.
     System i is our future.

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