RE: System i5 first boot -- MIDRANGE-L

Good morning, Joe. 

Folks seemed to be implying that the HMC was expensive and complicated.
Compared to a PC-based console I don't think the argument holds water.
Compared to twinax, yes, but twinax consoles have limitations (that may
or may not be relevant to a company).  And while twinax works today I
don't think anyone on the list can argue that it's a technology with a
long-term future outside of the installed base.

All company's needs are different.  The HMC offers the most
comprehensive functionality and will work for all shops.  It may be
overkill in some (or many) cases but from a functionality and
integration standpoint it has no equal.  That said, for the small shop
with no partitions or plans for them in the mid-term future, a non-HMC
console is probably fine.  I would not spend money on a LAN or Ops
console; over the useful life it will not prove cheaper than the HMC.


If someone does get overtime pay and can work from home, they can
typically log their time and still get paid.  But they incurred no
commute costs and didn't have to spend (personal) time going to/from the
data center.  If your employer is so tight as to not pay hourly folks
for off-hours work when necessary, you need a new employer.  Personally,
I've been salaried for around 15 years so I architect environments that
let me minimize the above-40 hours each week.

John A. Jones, CISSP
Americas Information Security Officer
Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.
V: +1-630-455-2787 F: +1-312-601-1782
john.jones@xxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe Pluta
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 8:13 AM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: System i5 first boot

John, I don't think anybody is saying the HMC is a bad decision.  Just
that it's not a slam-dunk either.  For $1300, you get remote access to
your machine.  Interestingly enough, this is something we never had
before and yet we got by.  I'm just interested to know how often this
particular feature gets used.

For me, the answer would be "never".  As Rob points out, I have a SOHO
configuration, but even so I'm on the road a lot and the issue of access
never comes up.  I've also got a lot of clients, and to my knowledge
none of them are using HMC (with the possible exception of Rob).  On the
other end of the spectrum, at SSA we always had at least one operator
24x7 so that wasn't an issue.

Here's an interesting twist: does the presence of an HMC now mean that
you get to do backups from home when you would have had to drive in to
work?
Back in the day, if I had to drive in to work to do something like an
overnight mass compile, I got paid for it.  With an HMC, it seems like
you can tell people to do things at 3AM without having to pay them for
it.

Not sure this is a good thing...

Joe

From: Jones, John (US)

Windows PC: $500ish (could be less, could be a lot more).  Twinax

card:

Haven't used them in at least a decade; the closest thing I see online

after a brief search is a PCCard for notebooks at $370.  pcAnywhere 
license for host & remote: $100.  Anti-Virus software at $30.  So 
you're at $1000 street price or thereabouts.  That's marginally 
cheaper than the $1300 mentioned below for an HMC.  KVM and LAN 
connections are the same for either setup so I omitted those costs.  
Cheaper if you use used/low-end stuff but do you really want to 
cheap-out when it comes to controlling your main production server?  
Is the 4-year old used PC going to be reliable over the useful life of

the i5?

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