As long as the system works, and there's no
driving business need to replace it,
I've found most business will let it carry on it's merry way.
There is a driving business need to replace it. An 8 year old machine
cannot, by any means, be considered "reliable". That doesn't mean that
the machine could run four more years without a single hitch. But that
the chance of a failure of the machine becomes higher with each minute
it is still in operation.
Replacing a system in a planned procedure can be done within a single
day (Small Businesses). I've done this dozen of times. Sometimes there
were a few hiccups, but not much worth mentioning.
Replacing a system in an unplanned procedure because there was a
critical failure however is completely different. So far I've had
several such cases, and each one was a disaster. Backups were missing.
Backups were improperly made. Backups were never tested. The save format
of the old machine was incompatible with the new machines (As it later
turned out, this was due to the customer running a prerelease of an
ancient OS/400 version).
ISV should educate their customers about the risk of having old
machines.
IBM sells machines. If IBM tells their customers, they should buy a new
machine every three years, even a five your old can tell you WHY they
say this.
ISVs usually don't sell machines (My Employer does, though) - a customer
is more likely to believe them instead of IBM.
A System i needs regular maintenance, just like any other computer.
You'll need to check PTF levels, apply fixes, check ESA functionality,
check backups, etc. etc.
Yes, a System i can work for years without any attention. So can a
Windows machine, as long as it is not connected to the internet. But
it's bad, very bad practice to do so.
-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Gibbs
Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 3:58 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: New redpaper: i5/OS Program Conversion: Getting readyfor
i5/OSV6R1
Lukas Beeler wrote:
One of the larger problems here is that ISVs still support outdated
releases. If ISVs would act reasonably and stop supporting older
versions of the software running on unsupported operating systems,
less problems would be had.
As a developer for an ISV, I would like to throw in my two cents on this
...
Do you know how many times I would have LOVED to be able to drop support
for an older release, so we could take advantage of the latest &
greatest Rochester & Markham had to offer? Countless times.
Problem is ... not all our customers ARE on the latest release ... we
have to consider what releases our customers are and ... and, since our
product has features specifically designed for software vendors, we also
have to consider what releases our customers customers are on.
Suffice it to say ... the fact that IBM no longer supports a release,
doesn't mean businesses aren't using it.
This is exactly how it works on other platforms - and those don't
have 8 year old servers running critical business infrastructure.
Really? What ever happened to the old adage ... 'if it ain't broke,
don't fix it'? I think you'll find a larger number of critical business
functions using on old applications running on old servers. As long as
the system works, and there's no driving business need to replace it,
I've found most business will let it carry on it's merry way.
david
midrange.com
