RE: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch

[pnelson@xxxxxxxxxx]

   Touche'
    
   Last I heard, Prime Group Realty Trust had a ring of Wintel boxes around
   the System i to run OneWorld (or name du jour), but the real data sits on
   the i.
   -- 

   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 10:23AM
     Subject: 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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