RE: Sizing modern machines to replace 720's on V4R5

["Pete Massiello" <pmassiello-ml@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Phil,

	I think you are better off with Two 520 one-core boxes, that will be
much quicker than your tested box, and be in the P05 software tier.  The
controller in the 520 you tested is too small on the Cache, and you will get
much better performance on a larger disk controller, like the one on the
power6.  Also, if you can afford it, increase the memory to 16GB.  You
obvisiously keep a machine for a while, so I think my suggestion will last
you way into the future.

	Pete

Pete Massiello
iTech Solutions
http://www.itechsol.com

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-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of phil.seay@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 10:39 AM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Sizing modern machines to replace 720's on V4R5

My company is running JDE 7.3 on old equipment and an old release of the OS.
We are finding this situation increasingly expensive  and risky.  Hardware
support is very expensive and software support is either expensive because
of our software tier or not available.  We want to move the application to
modern machines running V5R4.

What approach should I take for getting a pair of machines sized and priced?
We have a big enough budget for two 520 P10's.  Any recommendations for
hardware vendors are greatly appreciated.

We have (basically) two of the following set up as a replication pair:
  9406-720-2063 w/ 1503 interactive feature  (P30, 800 CPW, 'Enterprise
Edition' I think)
  3 GB memory
  5x2748 RAID w/ 26MB write cache
  1 TB at 40% usage (4X6713 9GB, 60X6718 17.5GB 10kRPM)
  OS/400 V4R5

I gathered disk-busy percentage statistics at 5 minute intervals for a month
and found that we exceeded 15% on any given arm only 30 times (to a max of
23% once).  Our peak user count was 51.

We rented a 520 for an initial feasibility study and have found the
performance very satisfactory at least for batch jobs.  We ran the biggest
batch jobs we have against our production data on this machine and found run
times decreased significantly in spite of far fewer arms (which blows my
mind).
  9406-520-8953 (P10 2400 CPW)
  8 GB memory
  1x5709 RAID w/ 16MB write cache
  0.5 TB (8x4327 70GB 15kRPM)
  OS/400 V5R4

If we buy used machines, how do we acquire the LPP's beyond the OS?  What
else should I consider?  Many thanks!

Phil