RE: Help me Justify iSeries -- MIDRANGE-L

Things that would justify an iSeries include its stability, its history,
its support, its interoperability, and in the case of a company that
already has one, like you do, the fact that it has systems and data that
currently support your business (squatters rights, if you will). <G>

However, to counter some of the statements that others have made about
the windows alternative. 

1) You may not need Enterprise edition of SQL. Planning on more than 4
processors or 2 gig or memory? Those are the big differences between
Standard and Enterprise edition. Standard edition is only 5K/processor
(less with VLP).  

2) Virii. Yes, Windows has virii. However, a well configured _server_
shouldn't get infected, ever! Yes, it could _host_ an infection, just
like the IFS can host an infection on the iSeries, but why would you
ever run something on your server that could infect it. This is a
server, leave it alone! In fact, Microsoft has said, publicly, that they
are not aware of _ANY_ properly configured Windows Server 2003 box that
has been infected by a virus, none! 

3) Disk price - I can't go as far as Joe here. Disk is cheaper on PCs,
yes, but _good disk_ will still cost you. However, PC servers play much
nicer in a SAN environment than the iSeries does so you can spread your
usage, usage spikes, and cost over a number of servers.

4) TCO - OK, I've seen lots of TCO numbers, and many show the iSeries
and cheaper. However, what I've also seen in those TCO numbers is a
belief that you'll loose the cost of the windows support people if you
go with an iSeries. Unless you're planning on deploying 5250 twinax
green screens you're going to have windows support people, so when you
look at your TCOs you can't take them out of the mix.

5) Uptime - Everything crashes! I'm aware of a large iSeries shop that
lost their entire development box for nearly a week because of a problem
during an upgrade. Did they do stupid things, probably, but then again,
most of the windows problems I've seen come from people doing stupid
things -- how many of us are running as an administrator-level user on
our own PCs? 

6) Old Facts - OK, so what, the iSeries was 64-bit first. And MS runs,
ran, whatever their distribution on iSeries, and old Lan-Manager-style
passwords are a joke. Who cares? These are old issues. Windows is now
64-bit, has been for a while on the server side of the world if you want
to include datacenter. I don't really care what another company uses for
their business, what works best for mine, and if you're still using
lan-manager passwords then you've not read what Microsoft and NSA have
had to say about password security for years! Look, Ford had a car long
before Porsche, but I'd still like a Porsche today!

7) One box vs. many - Yes, you can jam more under a single iSeries
"roof" than a windows roof. But why would you want to? I'm having a
problem at one client site testing massive data changes because there
are hard-coded library names in programs, so testing is a bitch. If I
had a second machine it would be a breeze. Plus, if it's all under one
roof I have a single point of failure! I don't care how stable something
is, it goes down! I can do rolling upgrades on windows boxes because I
have many of them, the application is never down because there are other
machines to take it's load. How do you upgrade your single iSeries?

8) Software to "avoid" the interactive tax -- sorry, not going there.
Windows is cheaper too if you don't license it. <G>


-Walden

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

Quiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
(Whatever is said in Latin seems profound.)