Re: Development box is back online

[Pete Helgren <pete@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Actually, I'd never recommend skipping HW maintenance *unless* you are a 
single person *development* shop (or very small).  If I can't get to my 
box for a day, it wouldn't be an emergency.  Yeah, my web site would be 
down and there might be some stuff I'd have to work around, but it 
wouldn't be a big deal.   I can get plenty of programming done in Java, 
Ruby or PHP without my IBM i for a day or two.  As long as I could fully 
restore (living without a backup/recovery plan would be foolhardy) even 
a few days of downtime wouldn't kill me.

BUT!  Every customer I have had has been on HW maintenance.  I always 
want them to be able to get immediate HW/SW help from IBM because there 
just ain't anything better than IBM HW/SW support. Nothing!  Just 
because I like to DIY it and get my hands dirty so I get to know my i in 
a more intimate fashion, doesn't mean I want to do that for my 
customers.  I want my customers to keep on keepin on.  So they all have 
SW/HW maintenance in the very rare chance that they might need it.

Pete Helgren
www.petesworkshop.com
GIAC Secure Software Programmer-Java

On 5/9/2013 2:30 PM, DrFranken wrote:
> Pete,
>
> 	Your record is amazing! Now before a lot of people read that and decide
> to cancel maintenance do consider how important the machine is to your
> business.  This stuff IS reliable but it does still fail. I HAVE seen
> processor failures, memory failures, controller failures, DASD
> Back-plane failures, and the usual DASD, Tape Drive, Tape, etc failures
> too. I've see it caused by fire, flood, lightning, fork-lift and almost
> by a roll of conveyor belt (That one got hung up just before it landed
> on the system!)
> 	
> 	All I'm saying is eventuality everyone's luck runs out and if you fail
> at 5:01 on Friday with no contract, "Next Business Day" is Tuesday!
> Think about that......
>
>           - Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis
>
> www.frankeni.com
> www.iDevCloud.com
> www.iInTheCloud.com