RE: Another iSeries bites the dust

Evan,


You are preaching to the choir. I am merely the "consultant" that fixes
it when it fails. You can't force a company to move forward. Too many
companies don't want to look forward and yet they continue to prosper.

As to the auto parts company, they can run for days without it if
necessary. Paying the bills is what would hold them up. Taking care of
the customers would be easy.

Sharon

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Evan Harris
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 2:35 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: Another iSeries bites the dust

Hi Sharon

I'd almost make a bet that this company has fire insurance. How can they
not
"insure" their IT assets ?

I understand what drives companies not to upgrade, and once that
decision is
made it gets even harder to justify as it becomes progressively more
expensive to do the upgrade, but my opinion is that it displays
extremely
poor judgement or poor management.

How long can the company run without a computer system ? What is the
plan if
something as simple as a fan decides to die ? Everything in the machine
that
is mechanical will fail at some point in time

If you don't have a complete replacement MACHINE on hand, with a
compatible
tape drive, or know where to get one, then the chances of being able to
continue your operations in the event of a problem you didn't anticipate
are
fairly remote. What is your disaster recovery plan and what does it
cover.?
Have you rehearsed it ?

I say this from first hand experience having seen a couple of machines
in
this situation literally stop working, dead. One took 3 days to cobble
together a solution, one never worked again.

I know how this stuff comes about and it's almost always the cost of
maintenance or upgrade for the application software, but regardless of
that,
it simply does not make any sense to run unsupported. If you do that you
should be accruing or accounting for the savings somewhere to buy your
replacement machine. You're going to need the money sooner or later.

Regards
Evan Harris