RE: Upgrade PATH/options - from 170

Hi Don

Your best bet right now is probably to look for an upgrade to a 515 or 525
depending on how many users you need - maybe even a 520. Any of these
machines will significantly outperform a 170.

There's no real good reason to go down the LPAR road if you don't have them
already (IMO) unless you have been dying to get a second machine for some
specific reason. You must plan for this up front if it's in your future to
avoid disappointment later, but if you're currently running on a 170 I think
it unlikely you will need to worry about this. At the lower end it is easier
and cheaper to get a second machine.

Software Maintenance is or was included for 3 years as part of the 515/525
costs I believe - it can financially justify the upgrade from a 170 by
itself if you are under any kind of maintenance. Your BP should be able to
give you the details.

An upgrade to current equipment is probably going to kill the idea of the
170 as a HA machine, as the minimum OS level you will need is V5R4M5. You
could conceivably replicate back to the 170 but I wouldn't go down that road
for a few reasons:

- It has a different OS so if you get anything at all that's V5r4* only it
won't support it
- It makes it even harder if not impossible to go to V6R1
- If it doesn't run your business now how will it run it in 12 months or
more on unsupported OS ?

If you need twinax support (excluding the console) this will likely add
significant dollars to your upgrade, so if possible ditch the twinax
devices. I guess you go to older equipment that still supported twinax via a
broker or something.

If you are using SNADS at all you should review your setup as the hardware
that supports whatever your configuration is may need some thinking about.

Upgrade to the machine using the Previous to Current Release migration
method (described in the backup and Recovery Guide). It's a bit different to
a standard upgrade but works fine. It is possible to upgrade by saving and
restoring specific items/libraries (despite what Rob will say) but you
simply have to understand what can, can't and shouldn't and must be
transferred, and where everything lives. It takes a bit more knowledge and
planning to do.

For the console prepare to go down the road of LAN console. On V5R4 it's
improved a lot - not quite a HMC but way more than good enough. Have it is a
standalone machine and apply Windows update in a managed rather than
automatic fashion.

Hope this helps.

Regards
Evan Harris


-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Don Cavaiani
Sent: Wednesday, 7 January 2009 4:35 a.m.
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Upgrade PATH/options - from 170

Greetings,

Currently we are on a model 170, V5R3, 100GB disk (55% used), BPCS v. 405CD,
and Lansa for the (SYSTEM i) WEB - v.11.5; everything just running in one
partition - Hardware maint., but NO software subscription..

We are starting to see slowdowns, and are beginning to investigate an
upgrade to a new System i Model - which should have 4-8 times the processing
power of our model 170.

Would V5R3 be able to run on the new model? Would it be beneficial to set
up LPARs? Do you have to get a software subscription for a certain period?


We would like to also look into the possibility of using the 170 as a
Disaster Recovery/Hot Site option, but I know that V5R3 is as high as you
can go on the model 170, and I'm wondering what kind of "backward"
compatibility issues there may be between the newly selected model and the
170, and their respective O/S levels?

Any associated "ball park" costs would be very helpful to guide us going
forward.

Thanks,
Don C.