Can you control/share resources on multiple pizza boxes like I believe
you
can on the iSeries?
Depends on what you're looking to do. As a general rule, it's the same a
System i. Same _physical_ box, you can share/move. Different physical
box, you can't. However, you can share disk between PC server much
simpler than you can between System i. I know there's IASPs, but from
what I've heard (yes, hearsay), I'd much rather run a SAN.
LPAR is _roughly_ the same as VMWare, and in that setup you can
slide/move/share stuff. While you can buy some darn big PC boxes, I
won't argue you could buy a larger System i. But in that case (nice 2TB
memory, 100TB disk, model 595) are you really sliding 2TB of memory
around?
As for power, I can't speak definitively w/out looking at the specs for
an actual machine on both sides, but if you really care about power can
you get the System i with a DC power supply? Really large savings in
power there, both in the actual power consumed by the unit and in the
cooling savings by not having to go from DC to AC to DC. :)
I guess I would like to ask you the same question as you seem to like
the
multiple pizza box approach - what is it that you feel makes them
better
than System i other than price?
Price is definitely part of it. As is the separation/redundancy offered
by different hardware. If I blow a web server I (and my users) don't
care at all. If I blow a database server I (and my users) lose very
little. No one buys expensive disks with ultra-high MTBF, it makes more
sense to run cheaper disk in a RAID configuration. Why are we looking to
do anything different w/servers? A modern server will be just as stable
as a System i, and if it's not, you can put two together for a fraction
of the price.
-Walden
midrange.com
