Re: Upgrade existing machine or buy new?

On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 19:20, James Rich <james@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I have a customer that has a 9406-170 with 256MB main storage and 25.770GB
disk storage. ÂThis system is fine for the 25 or so concurrent users most
of the time.

You must have strange definitions of "fine" since a Model 170 can't
even run currently supported releases of the IBM i operating system.

ÂNow we are going to install a web application using Zend.
When we run our web app on that system, it is too slow. ÂThe customer is
considering a new System i for this reason. ÂWhat would be the best use of
their money, buy a new System i or upgrade the RAM and add more disk?

Buy a new system. From a technical standpoint, the reason why Zend is
so slow is that it's limited by the CPU, which is something you can't
upgrade.

Other reasons include: Be able to run a supported OS. Pay less
maintenenance fees. Bump down to a lower Pxx tier which brings lower
SWMA and lower application maintenance fees. Higher speed and more
reliability - for example, the 170 didn't support redundant power
supplies or hot spare disks.

An important software factor when considering
v6 and beyond is that they are heavy users of WRKQRY and that isn't going
to change.

QU1 still works on V6R1 and is still supported. However, you will need
to purchase QU2 and exercise your rights to use the previous version.

From a technical standpoint, there is no need to even install QU2,

though. It's just a licensing and sales thing, so that IBM can report
xx IBM i users bought QU2.