RE: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch

Well, since we're playing the name game it's actually Oracle
EnterpriseOne.  :)

One thing I didn't mention below was another concern.  If WebSphere
moves off the iSeries, what's next?  When does the business logic leave
the platform?  At what point will we decide to move the database off?
At what point does the system get de-commissioned?  Personally, I fear
if WAS moves off the iSeries then we'll be on the slippery slope that
will lead to the eventual removal of the iSeries from our environment.

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 9:16 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch

   Lemme guess. JDE One World, right?
   -- 

   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: "Jones, John (US)" <John.Jones@xxxxxxxxxx>
     Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
     Date: 12/08/2006 10:06AM
     Subject: 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


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