Hi,
The problem i see with such a service are multiple:
a) "Production use"?
If IBM offers this as a very low cost option, they will probably forbid
any productive use, which can kill this offer. Most of the it
professionals in my age bracket have started with their own
Windows/Linux machines in their basement, experimenting on it, running
their email, domains, webhosting, central authentication, filesharing on
it. In the case of Windows, licenses were obtained through "different"
means.
If IBM doesn't allow productive use, nobody will want to play with a
system they can't use for nothing except programming exercises that
aren't used by anything else.
If IBM DOES allow productive use, they'll open another can of worms. Why
should a very small company purchase a 515 for 10k, pay for maintenance,
etc. instead of just getting access to a much better machine for 30$ a
month?
b) "I want to own it"-Problem
You don't have your own machine, you're just renting space on someone
elses. Maybe this mentality is different in the US, but if a have my own
machine in which I've invented time to setup and get it working, this is
something else than writing an email and getting an IP and u:pw back.
This is not directly related to IBM itself, it's just a general problem
with hosted services.
c) What about admins?
I'm not a developer, and I want to play with other stuff than developers
do. I don't care much about WDSC. It's an application for developers. I
want to play with a HMC. I want to play with the hardware. I want to see
what happens when you fuck something up. I want to know how professional
backup software works (like BRMS).
In the x86 world, I can get a halfway decent pc server from HP or IBM
for $1000-1500, including an iLO or RSA card. I can get an older LTO
drive from ebay and play with professional backupsoftware.
You can't make an admin happy with a virtualized machine. Half of the
funny games are missing.
-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe Pluta
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2007 4:23 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: i5OS running as a VM on PC
From: Jones, John (US)
The idea is that each user (or student class or other grouping) gets
their own LPAR. They are free to IPL and do other things as they
wish.
If they royally much it up IBM will restore from the last backups (1
free restore per year; additional ones cost some marginal fee).
<snipping a lot of other relevant details>
John, this is a great idea. It would cost IBM one big honking server
(some
of which they could mark as a charitable expense if they did it right,
but I
digress). The support costs would be offset by the fees. A base price
of
less than your monthly DSL or cable service would put it in the right
ballpark.
Anyone see why this wouldn't work?
Joe
midrange.com
