WHY would I run Windows on my iSeries?

["Walden H. Leverich" <WaldenL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

OK, I mean this in all seriousness.

1) I understand why the iSeries is a stable machine -- it's got great
hardware and software that were married at the design stage and just plain
old doesn't crash.

2) I understand why you MIGHT want to combine multiple iSeries machines into
one physical footprint via lpar -- you can share cpu and memory across
multiple machines load balancing as needed. I don't always agree with this,
but I certainly understand it.

3) I understand why you might want to run Linux on the iSeries -- you're at
the mercy of Linux, but at least you get the stability of AS/400 disk AND
CPU AND Memory in one nice box. Hell, you can even telnet into the Linux
partition from a green screen to manage it.

4) But I can't understand the advantage of the integrated xSeries. Why would
I want to run W2K in an iSeries? The only advantage I can think of is a
smaller footprint in the computer room and given that I can fit 42 W2K
servers in a rack using 1U optimized servers I don't really accept that
reason. You don't get to use the CPU or Memory of the machine. You can't
manage it from the greenscreen. While you can use iSeries disk you can get
just as reliable disk on a PC in the form of Shark and the like. I doubt you
get any advantage from the io processors since there is no OS knowledge to
drive them. I don't see a stability or manageability advantage.

So... Why would I do this? Silly answers like "because windows crashes all
the time and putting it in an iSeries would help" aren't accepted. WHY would
it help?

-Walden

------------
Walden H Leverich III
President
Tech Software
(516)627-3800 x11
WaldenL@TechSoftInc.com
http://www.TechSoftInc.com