RE: Planning for an iSeries future

["Andy Nolen-Parkhouse" <aparkhouse@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ken,

Your situation sounds harsh, but not uncommon.  Can you think of some
specific reasons why you should upgrade your current box now?  If you can
only come up with things like "We may be obsolete at some unknown point
in the future" or "We won't be able to implement a partial-processor
partition, although we don't need one now", then I can understand why
your management isn't rushing to upgrade.  This also sounds harsh, but it
is certainly a legitimate reality.  Money talks, so you, as a supporter
of upgrading, need to learn the vocabulary.

I would start with some ballpark pricing.  Get hold of a quote from a
business partner on what it would take to get you into an 825 package (or
whatever is appropriate) as an upgrade and as a new purchase.  Look at
the software tiers (they'll probably go down) and see what impact that
will have on your software pricing, particularly your major non-IBM
packages.  Is there an impact on your financial relationship with your
vendors if your system serial number changes.  Your only immediate
leverage between now and next year is that you're about to lose your
ability to do a hardware upgrade and maintain your system serial number.
What is the difference in price between the two in current dollars?  You
will be able to transfer your IBM software in the future when you buy a
new machine.

Coming from a 7xx is rough because you may end up discarding the entire
machine, including the disk drives.

As a money guy, you also need to factor in maintenance and support.  How
will these change over time?  On a new purchase you would avoid
maintenance charges for a year, this argues against the upgrade.  On the
new machines you will probably pay less in maintenance over time, and
because the new machine may use higher-density drives, you will have
fewer disk enclosures, which will also lead to lower maintenance.

It is very complex stuff and you may be able to construct a financial
argument in favor of an immediate upgrade.  Both IBM and the business
partners want you to upgrade now, this quarter.  They are motivated and
are also capable of doing the kind of analysis described above.  There is
a lot of tedium involved in getting the information and there are a lot
of hidden gotchas in figuring upgrade costs.

Good Luck and Regards,
Andy Nolen-Parkhouse



> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Graap, Ken
> Subject: Planning for an iSeries future
>