RE: IxS adapters (was IBM Linux Ad during Super Bowl - slim shady ?)

But if you already have a 400, and you don't already have a SAN, an IxS
can make sense.  SANs aren't cheap.

Really, it's very dependent on your environment.  IBM will freely admit
it's not the right fit for every situation.  That's partly why the IxA's
exist as well.
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Walden H. Leverich III [mailto:WaldenL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2004 10:57 AM
To: 'Non-Technical Discussion about the AS400 / iSeries'
Subject: RE: IxS adapters (was IBM Linux Ad during Super Bowl - slim
shady ?)

>Of course your mileage may vary but my IXS data spread across 30 some 
>drives will out perform a much larger Dell system with 2 or 4 drives.

I've heard this several times, and while I don't disagree with the facts
stated, I think that you're comparing apples to sewing machines. 

I'm torn on the IXS/IXA issue, but I would point out that to be fair to
the non-IXS side of the world, you have to add in a SAN to the mix.
After all, that's basically what you're doing with the IXS, you're using
the iSeries as a SAN. 

If I have 30 dell machines hooked into a SAN I have many of the same
advantages that have been mentioned for the IXS. These include a common
pool of DASD so I'm not wasting 40Gig on each machine, the ability to
associate a different physical machine with the storage of a machine
(vary on/off), a common backup platform, increased performance due to an
increased number of disk arms, etc.

I'm not saying that there isn't a reason to go with the IXS/IXA idea,
I'm just saying that we need to be at least comparing fruits.

-Walden