RE: IXA/IXS/ISCSI RE: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch -- MIDRANGE-L


Our WINTEL person is still pretty amazed at how robust the backup recovery
strategy on the IXS setup is!  The main thing we've found is watching your
system dependencies to make sure your IXS/IXA/iSCSI servers/apps can be
brought up/down with their corresponding i5 boxes... just takes more
planning and awareness.

                                                                       
             "Crump, Mike"                                             
             <Mike.Crump@saint                                       
             -gobain.com>                                               To
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             12/14/2006 09:33                                      Subject
             AM                        RE: IXA/IXS/ISCSI RE: Saving the
                                       System i: Fight Rather Than Switch
                                                                       
             Please respond to                                         
             Midrange Systems                                          
                 Technical                                             
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             <midrange-l@midra                                         
                 nge.com>                                            
                                                                       
                                                                       




In a lot of ways the IXA/IXS/ISCSI solution is nothing to scoff at.  I
know Group Dekko has done a lot of great things with this.  We have had
some successes but effectively there are a few gotchas that tend to make
the traditional WINTEL weenie squeamish.  That being said we do plan on
moving towards an ISCSI solution because I think that is actually the
right way to make this thing work.

Generally speaking my attitude is that if that application is related to
an application on the System i I look for an IXA/IXS/ISCSI solution
first.  Application/operations integration, saves that are highly
concurrent, simplified recovery, etc.

Michael Crump

Manager, Computing Services
Saint-Gobain Containers, Inc.
1509 S. Macedonia Ave.
Muncie, IN  47302

765.741.7696
765.741.7012 f



Always remember your weapon was made by the lowest contract.
-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of rob@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2006 9:20 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: IXA/IXS/ISCSI RE: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch

Some people scoff at the whole ixa/ixs/iscsi realm.  Granted, they do
use
expensive iSeries disk.  But having had to restore a whole PC when it
was
on these versus on independent platforms it makes a huge difference.
And,
iscsi helps get around the limited processor and memory available in IXS

cards.  Although I was led to believe that IBM did pick up the process
of
getting newer stuff to market on these.

Rob Berendt
--
Group Dekko Services, LLC
Dept 01.073
PO Box 2000
Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com





"Wilt, Charles" <CWilt@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
12/13/2006 05:59 PM
Please respond to
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Subject
RE: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch






Two points..

1) Websphere isn't your only option if you're not running UI layer on
iSeries, you could of course use Oracle's Application Server (OAS) on
Windows/Linux/UNIX.

2) Have you considered IxA attached boxes for WAS?  You get most of the
iSeries backup/recovery benefits yet the performance of the Intel boxes
for WAS. Plus management of IxA boxes is less since the iSeries does
part of it.

Just a thought,

Charles Wilt
--
iSeries Systems Administrator / Developer
Mitsubishi Electric Automotive America
ph: 513-573-4343
fax: 513-398-1121

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jones, John (US)
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 3:33 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch

Joe, you might have missed a couple of my recent posts on this so I'll
recap my problem.  We're running Oracle EnterpriseOne (E1) a.k.a. JDE
OneWorld.  End of recap.  ..  Well, for clarity I'll
continue. The main
E1 layers are:

- Deployment Server.  Manages object development activities, pushes
updates to other layers.  Only available for Windows; we run it on an
IxS.
- Database.  DB2/400 or just about any other major database out there.
- Application.  Can run on i5/OS, Windows, or *nix.
- UI.  While Citrix was an option, it's been EOLed.  The preferred UI,
i.e. the one that is supported and is seeing enhancements, runs on
WebSphere App Server.  Supported OSes include i5/OS, Windows,
and a few
flavors of Unix.  There's also a Windows fat client but it's
really fat
(4+GB client footprint) and isn't suitable for non-LAN
deployment (it's
what the developers use).

So while we have choices they are somewhat limited.  First preference,
and what we're doing today, is to run everything possible on the
iSeries.  However, we'll run out of gas shortly and are facing a huge
expense to upgrade to boxes (prod + DR) to handle the
workload that the
app will see over the next 12-15 months.  Huge as in potentially 7
figures.  Management is balking and rightfully so.

Now, running consolidated has some nice advantages.  Besides simpler
admin there are resource benefits: CPU that's not needed for one layer
(say, the UI) can be used for another layer (batch work).  And all of
the other traditional iSeries work management stuff that you know
already.

So one thought is to move WAS off the iSeries.  This reduces costs
nicely but also adds complexity and starts to eat away at the
advantages
to running on a single system image.

To directly address your points:
- Can't use Tomcat as WAS is the supported app server.
- Linux itself isn't ruled out but as a firm our first choice is
Windows.  We are a mostly MS-centric shop for things non-iSeries.
- As to licensing, WAS is 'free' with E1 so the only licensing that
matters is the OS and Windows Server 2003 Enterprise (needed for >4 GB
RAM support) costs 5% of a single i5/OS core license.
- The Dell wouldn't really need to be backed up as it wouldn't be
running business logic or storing data; it would only be
running the UI.
A fresh WAS server from OS install to running WAS server
would only take
a couple of hours.  Or we could back it up to the SAN.  Our
WAN backbone
is now GigaMAN so bandwidth is not a concern.
- Database will stay iSeries.  Numbers have not yet been run to see if
the existing box can handle it; this has to be investigated.
- Business logic will stay iSeries; same caveat as above.
- The apps are a mix of C and Java and is generated by the deployment
server directly or by submitting compiles to the iSeries.
- Appliances and whatnot are out; we can only run vendor-supported
devices and in fact have an Oracle-certified installation.

I agree that WAS isn't really a great app for the iSeries to run.  My
personal fear (which can be at odds with what's best for the firm) is
that if WAS moves off, what's to keep the app logic and/or
database from
moving off when the system needs the next upgrade and management balks
again?

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 Joe Pluta
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 1:28 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch

From: Jones, John (US)

So for under $25K I'd have 16 cores, 32GB RAM, and all the

trimmings.

Can the iSeries compete with that?  Because like it or not, iSeries
iNtegration advantages or not, like the platform or not,

this is what

it boils down to.


Nope.  This is NOT a workload for an iSeries.  You are better served
with a dedicated web appliance.  Personally, though, I'd go with Linux
or FreeBSD running Apache/Tomcat rather than WebSphere on Windows
because the licensing would be much cheaper.

You know I'm one of the biggest iSeries evangelists out
there, John, and
I'm saying specifically that this is the WRONG JOB for that box.
Unless, of course, you're worried about backup and data
security.  Which
you can get on the Dell, but it will cost a bit more than the $25K
you've mentioned, especially if you have separate, redundant database
which require mirroring.

On the other hand, what is your business logic?  Are you
running RPG and
using DB2?  Because if you are you can have the business logic on the
iSeries, along with the database, and then have a very
reliable easy to
backup solution which probably wouldn't require data mirroring because
of the added reliability of the box.  You could do this on a very
low-cost iSeries.

Then you could in turn reduce the size of the web appliance
and get two,
for failover purposes, and maybe even invest in another Internet
connection (and redundant switches and so on).

The problem is not the iSeries, it's the business requirement.  If you
don't need data security, the web appliance is a great option.  But if
you want both data security and relatively low-cost web serving, a
combination solution might be the best.

Joe


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