Re: Midrange on IBM Cloud?

Also consider who/when will backups be done. Not for DR, most cloud providers have that covered, but when you run that SQL that suddenly destroys data that needs to be put back, or a program in a long running process stops in the middle, or even recovering that source member you mistakenly deleted this morning…. I could go on for a while on this one. How is that all handled? Do you have any control or input into it?

The other thing that we don’t yet understand completely is how the change to subscriptions for smaller systems is going to change the equation. Will the subscriptions for the larger systems suddenly be cost prohibitive? We simply don’t know, in spite of what the vendors will tell you. IBM has to fully roll out the program and make some announcements before that will become clear.

What other systems need to go with it, MS systems almost always stand side by side with IBM i. How will communications work? The providers will promise the moon, and the planets to get you in, since it’s really hard to get out, and potentially very expensive.

I have a customer with a large ERP that took over a year, just to get the ancillary systems some on premises and others in remote locations to connect without massive communications delays and problems.

The “cloud” is really just a location of the hardware. Is the maintenance of the physical location really costing that much? Think really hard before you go that route, since it’s not a one or three or even five year decision, it’s much longer than that.

I’d wait for a while to get some answers before making that jump, and I know there are several cloud providers that read this list that will have comment about my misgivings about the “cloud”. Think the old client/server days when the promise was lower costs and better service. Turned out in the end to be precisely the opposite, far more complex, and costly. That’s why we went back to centralized data centers. History is a great teacher if you let it be.


Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects

On Sep 26, 2023, at 4:18 PM, Diego E. KESSELMAN <diegokesselman@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hey Larry!

hope you are doing well!

We have been working on IBM i migrations to the cloud (IBM PowerVS and Skytap) and I think it is not for everyone, beyond the hype, but have a lot of good and interesting points:

1) *Cost*: Depends on your business. If you are running on certified Tier IV datacenters , can be less than a 3 year lease. For small shops with a tower box and/or less than 1 core could be more expensive. I can suggest you will pay an average of 10% variation on any direction. For big customers, there are some cloud providers reducing their costs when you power down your LPARs, so you can get an interesting cost cut.
I suggest to contact a couple of vendors to get different quotes (some of them use different algorithms). You can also reduce your operational costs when using less DC space.

2) *Benefits from going to IBM cloud:* I can mention a couple of them

* Flexible infrastructure : Need a PoC? Just provision your server in less than 2 hours, run your tests and destroy to stop paying for that instance. Need more CPU? Just add when required.
* Less DC space usage
* Spare servers (sometimes you get automatic HA at the same cost): If the box hosting your LPAR has trouble or maintenance you can start working on a different box at no extra-cost.
* APIs to manage your infrastructure and billing items: this can help you to control your project budgets.
* When you have workloads running on the cloud, migrating your midrange systems can help you reduce latency between your VMs-LPARs-Services-Instances.
* Server availability anytime: Don't wait for servers to be shipped to your locations.
* Almost unlimited and instant storage provisioning: You can add more storage whenever you want, without delivery times.
* Easy DR deployment: Most vendors include DR solutions to the cloud mix.

3) *Any other thoughts?*

* Running midrange on the cloud could be great and reduce operational costs. But same as the golden hammer , one size does not fit all needs.
* Most vendors provides only async replication, but latency prevents to use sync replicas.
* You need to think about the big picture. Latency won't take effects with your green screen programs, but could change the way you connect to old client/server systems or require a remediation project,and the side costs could change the budget for your project.
* You need proper communications
* I suggest to map external services to the LPARs.

This is just a small glimpse about this topic, hope that can help you

--
Saludos/Regards

Diego E. KESSELMAN

On 26/09/23 14:05, Ketzes, Larry via MIDRANGE-L wrote:
I'd like to ask if anyone would share their experience or thoughts on having migrated to IBM Cloud.


1. Cost
2. Benefits from going to IBM cloud?
3. Any other thoughts?

Thanks, Larry

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