Re: First time buying System i5 -- MIDRANGE-L

   You will be very unhappy with a 3 disk Raid-5 set.  Spend the extra money
   and go with 4 disk drives.  

   Pete

   Wilt, Charles wrote:

 Aaron,

 Couple of things.  For 3 LPARs you only really need 3 disk drives as far
 as IBM is concerned, as you don't have to use mirroring or RAID.

 You might then be able to pick up some additional used drives.

 Another option, at my last employer, we purchased a 270 without any
 drives and then filled it with FAST technology drives from BCC, (now
 called eStorage: http://www.estorageinc.com/index.htm )


 HTH,

 Charles Wilt
 --
 iSeries Systems Administrator / Developer
 Mitsubishi Electric Automotive America
 ph: 513-573-4343
 fax: 513-398-1121
  

  

 -----Original Message-----
 From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
 [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of albartell
 Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 2:14 PM
 To: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
 Subject: RE: First time buying System i5

 Based on comments from this group I called back IBM and
 worked through what
 I think I will need for a configuration.  One area that I was
 surprised at,
 that is going to cost a boat load of money more, is that each
 LPAR needs to
 have it's own exclusive HD's.  So for a 3 LPAR machine I would need a
 minimum of 9 35GB HD's (optimally 12 so each LPAR could have
 4 each).  That
 means for HD's alone the cost is $14,388 (ouch).  Note though
 that memory
 can be shared across LPARS.
 
 So I may be back to looking at a single LPAR machine unless I
 can find a
 steal of a deal for some 4326 HD's.
 
 Question for the minds: If I go with a machine without
 separate LPARs to
 start with, how much "work" would it be on my end to upgrade
 to an HMC with
 multiple LPAR's in the future?
 
 
 Thanks,
 Aaron Bartell
 http://mowyourlawn.com
 
 

   _____ 

 From: albartell [mailto:albartell@xxxxxxxxx]
 Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 8:06 AM
 To: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
 Subject: First time buying System i5


 Hi Everyone,
 
 For a variety of details I wont dive into, I am now tasked with
 purchasing/leasing my first System i5.  I am actually quite
 excited because
 it is the same feeling I get when I buy a new PC, except this
 time I have
 next to zero knowledge on what I need to tell the friendly
 guy on the other
 end of the phone.  I am coming at this from an Partnerworld
 ISV standpoint
 where they give what seems to be pretty darned good deals for
 leasing or
 buying (i.e. 1% of list price per month or 50% off list
 price). Note that
 this is strictly going to be used for development and does
 not need to be
 HA.
 
 Here's what I need to be able to do on the machine:
 1. Develop RPGILE/CLLE/CLE/SQL code (need to be able to
 compile at V5R1)
 2. QShell environment.
 3. Ability to run Java natively AND in a servlet container
 (Tomcat is my app
 server of choice)
 4. Ability to have more than one LPAR (rep tells me I need an HMC to
 accomplish this. The HMC is some sort of Linux appliance that
 gives you
 control over your different LPARS)
 5. Backup code and files (talking less than 1 or 2GB). Do I need addtl
 hardware for this or can I back to a network device?
 6. Less than 5 profiles on 5250 at any give time.
 7. DB2 and Query and SQL capabilities
 8. WDSC and PDM (I already have WDSC 6.0)
 9. Apache and SSL capabilities
 
 My retail price range is $10k to $15k which from what I can
 tell will get me
 a solid entry level machine.
 
 Based on the "Quick Pricer PDF" emailed to me, here is what I
 THINK I need,
 but I am lost as to if I have everything covered.
 
 Model/Server Feature SW Tier: 520-0975 P05
 CPW: 600/30 cpw
 Edition Name: Value
 Processor Speed: 1.9 Ghz Power 5+ includes L3 cache on
 1200/60 cpw version
 Processor Feature: 8325
 Edition Featue and Price: 7350 $8,200
 ESA 24x7: $110
 
 Some things I don't understand or need clarification on:
 1. What are "feature codes"? (i.e. 8325, 7350, etc).  For instance, it
 appears as though feature 7350 is a package deal of some sort.
 2. From what I understand ESA gives me 24x7 access to support vs. just
 within business hours (seems like a good deal for only $110 more).
 3. What is "5250 CPW 30"?  Is that how much processing power
 is given to
 green screens?
 4. When they say "Disk Drive" on this page:
 http://tinyurl.com/pbpxa, what
 are they referring to? A harddrive? A backup drive of some sort?
 5. Do I need a "Twinax Adapater"?  Is that if I want to connect an old
 school console directly to the machine?
 6. What's the difference between the "Comm Adapter" and
 "Ethernet Lan" on
 this page: http://tinyurl.com/pbpxa
 7. Is 600/30 cpw enough horsepower to run a machine with less than 5
 developers on it at a given time?
 8. Is 1GB of memory enough to do general RPG development with
 some small
 Tomcat/Java and native Java mixed in there?
 
 Thanks to anyone that can help this lowly programmer buy his
 first iSeries
 :-)
 
 Aaron Bartell
 http://mowyourlawn.com
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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