Sadly the numbering seems to be "toss everything into the air and let the
wind toss them around. What falls down face up is a usable number, else
not." OK that's just the appearance the truth is only slightly less
messy.
IBM ran out of usable feature codes in the 9402/04/06 numbering scheme,
not absolutely but in usable ranges. (i.e. disks were
6602/03/04/05/06/07/13 for a long time and later 4326/27/28 ...) As new
features came out they needed to jump all over and this drives guys like
Pete and I nuts. I mean really, a 10Mb card was a 4723 and the 10/100 was
a 4838 while a 10/100/1000 was a 5701 or something and the dual ported
10/100/1000 was a 5706. Yeah that makes sense. Toss a TOE on the card and
now it's an 8713. No logic and no way to fix it. And they needed to
merge the i and p.
So do you pick i numbers or p numbers? Both contain thousands of old
features that have been gone for years but the feature codes can't be
re-used. Add to this the fact that in the p space there are MANY more
feature codes! For example in the i world if you ordered a multiple CEC
570 machine you automatically got all the connecting cables and parts but
they didn't have any feature codes - they were part of the configuration.
In the p space they are all individual feature codes that must be
specified and ordered. IBM's systems include these things for us but they
use up a lot of numbers and add a lot of 'mess' to the configuration. So
without enough numbers on either side for the merge new numbers were
selected.
Since this can't be done overnight (ever done a part number was-is at your
company? I have. Fun it was not - and we were 'somewhat' smaller than
IBM... :-) ) This gave us some temporarily holding numbers like the 9408
which we'll have to deal with on the next set up upgrade.
So they picked a new set of numbers, or multiples actually, and we get the
8203 and 8204 series as well as the larger 9117 and 9119 for those of you
with seven figure budgets :-)
For most customers the biggest issues are getting keys from various
software vendors that work on their systems. For the business partners we
are dealing with the 'Mess' that Lucas refers to. GOOD technical people
understand what features on a 9406 are what features on an 8204 and can be
used/migrated. IT'S NOT SIMPLE for example some cards have as many as SIX
different feature codes depending on how used and where placed. :-(
This note doesn't fix anything but hopefully you have a little bit of
understanding of how we got to where we are in the POWER systems world.
- Larry
Larry Bolhuis IBM Certified Advanced Technical Expert:
Vice President System i Solutions
Arbor Solutions, Inc. IBM Certified Systems Expert:
1345 Monroe NW Suite 259 System i Technical Design and Implementation
V6R1
Grand Rapids, MI 49505
(616) 451-2500
(616) 451-2571 - Fax
(616) 260-4746 - Cell
Power = i + p What's your Power equation?
If you can read this, thank a teacher....and since it's in English,
thank a soldier.
Trevor Perry <trevor@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
03/30/2009 12:13 PM
Please respond to
Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To
Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
cc
Subject
Re: Serial Numbers beginning with 06-xxxxx
Rob,
It has nothing to do with branding. It is a configurator question, I would
think - it has to do with the servers that IBM is selling. From what I
have
seen, 9408 was a short-lived numbering.
I am sure someone who is more familiar with the configurator may be able
to
answer the details of the numbering. Maybe Larry B or Pete M?
Trevor
On 3/30/09 10:49 AM, "rob@xxxxxxxxx" <rob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Is this a "Trevor" question? Because I am running an i on power and I
have two 9408-M25's and one 9406-MMA. An "I series" may be different.
:-)
Rob Berendt
midrange.com
