RE: New Power 7 - Building a Case -- MIDRANGE-L

What backup device do you have? Would the media be readable on a newer system?

What happens when, not if, IBM drops hardware support for the box and something does break? Maybe twinax controller, just throwing out stuff.

Old story: Company had an IBM 1401. All software was written in Autocoder (assembler). IBM discontinued hardware support. Company did not want to spend he money to rewrite the code, so they migrated to a System/360 that had hardware emulation of the IBM1401. Support was discontinued for the S/360. Company moved to S/370. Surprise! - no emulation support for IBM 1401. Programmer who understood Autocoder had retired. He was brought back, at a higher cost to the company, to do what he wanted to do years earlier as a simple employee.

Moral of the story than and now is the same as the oil filter commercial - You can pay me now (to change oil and filter) or you can pay me later (rebuild the engine). Whether that concept can be communicated to decision makers is another story.

John McKee
-----Original message-----
From: "Jerry C. Adams" midrange@xxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2011 10:09:42 -0500
To: "'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'" midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: New Power 7 - Building a Case

Disk space alone won't cut it. I tried that as part of my argument. The
final decision was to add a couple of drives (mirrored).

Performance improvements are hard to estimate. Years ago at another company
we were on a Model 720 (Power4?). We were one of the firsts on our block to
get the new Model 520 (Power5). I never did a performance analysis except
on one job, which ran dedicated at the end of each business day. On the 720
that job took 1-1.25 hours. On the 520 it went to .25 hours (no joke).

Many moons ago at another company, we went from a Baby/36 to the new AS/236
(Risc) model. Improvements were, of course, anticipated, but for the first
week users were having trouble keeping up. I.e., the screens went by so
fast that they thought they hadn't entered the data so they double-entered
it!

Getting back to my previous employer, the owner was reluctant to make the
upgrade (I wasn't part of the team making the proposal). What finally
pushed him was the auditors who said that development should not be done on
the same box as production - so we got two [2] 520s. Dollars and cents are
a primary driver in any business decision, especially for those that pay the
bills (and own the company in that case).

I have never found nor seen a magic answer to this question that works in
every case. Our BP and I tried using the Lease option, for the reasons Rob
suggested earlier, plus costs. Didn't fly so I'm left with a 250 running
V5R1. On the upside things were in such a state here that anything I do
seems like a miracle. On the downside if I can squeeze that kind of
"production" out of this old box, why do we need a new one? I am aware of a
medium-sized company in the area that still runs their business on a S/36;
it gets the job done, so why upgrade?

I know, I'm a pessimist.

Jerry C. Adams
IBM i Programmer/Analyst
Who said, "Losers are important - without them there would be no winners"?
A loser.
--
A&K Wholesale
Murfreesboro, TN
615-867-5070

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John Jones
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2011 9:40 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: New Power 7 - Building a Case

Well, I would include in your justification that disk space is starting to
run low. You're at 85% and, I assume, slowly growing.

As to the high CPU utilization, I would openly acknowledge that running an i
at or near 100% all the time is fine from a hardware/architecture
perspective. However, what you need to also mention is whether or not there
is a backlog or latency building up because the system might not be fast
enough to keep up with the workload. Are jobs waiting in queue longer than
they ought to? Is user productivity being impacted? If you can demonstrate
that an upgrade will improve user response/productivity in a meaningful way,
then you've provided a business case that management will be better able to
understand and accept. Even if the boost is only during a 2 hour/day peak
window.

CPWs/core doesn't seem to be improving that much with recent upgrades; the
more bang-per-buck seems to be in more cores in a given footprint. So be
cautious in statements about performance gains if your jobs aren't
multi-thread capable. I phrase it as "while a single job won't necessarily
be faster we'll be able to run more jobs concurrently" and supplement that
with "which means that a single job is more more likely to get a CPU's
undivided attention which will lead to modest gains in individual
single-threaded job performance" though I phrase it in business-speak
instead of tech talk.

You might also find out what the server replacement cycle is for x86 systems
(Windows/Linux/VMware) at your company and compare your 5 year old i to
that.

Another thought would be, if you don't have one already, to add to your
business case that the existing i could be repurposed as a BC/DR system.

On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 12:14 PM, Brian Piotrowski <
bpiotrowski@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Re: system performance. Must be nice...here's a snapshot of my system as
it stands right now:

% CPU used . . . . . . . : 98.3 Auxiliary storage:
% DB capability . . . . : 69.6 System ASP . . . . . . :
881.4 G
Elapsed time . . . . . . : 03:24:24 % system ASP used . . :
85.7558
Jobs in system . . . . . : 6331 Total . . . . . . . . :
881.4 G
% perm addresses . . . . : .056 Current unprotect used :
19246 M
% temp addresses . . . . : 4.475 Maximum unprotect . . :
20333 M

/b;

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of rob@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 10:40 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: New Power 7 - Building a Case

Maintenance
Power
Ancient IBM paper on the economic value of rapid response time.
Current technology. Compare to how many of them would run an IBM AT with
a text based word processor. They both produce documents. Current
hardware allows current software. This allows you to keep pace with fixes
and patches to improve security and reliability.

Some managers groove on 90+% utilization. If they had factories with
lower than that they would close plants, merge them together, plan
multiple shifts and have x people do their work by going module to module
as others go to the restroom - practically what we do here. However our
busiest lpar: % CPU used . . . . . . . : 8.1. That's eight point
one.

Rob Berendt
--
Group Dekko
Dept 1600
Mail to: 2505 Dekko Drive
Garrett, IN 46738
Ship to: Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com

From: Luis Rodriguez <luisro58@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 08/31/2011 09:42 AM
Subject: Re: New Power 7 - Building a Case
Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx

Brian,

Ask your BP about the maintenance HDW fees for a Power 7 box against your
current system. IIRC, they tend to be lower for equivalent systems.

Also, maybe IBM's site has some papers and so.

Regards,

Luis Rodriguez
IBM Certified Systems Expert - eServer i5 iSeries
--

On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 8:54 AM, Brian Piotrowski <
bpiotrowski@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi All,

We're in the process of getting quotes, etc. for a new Power-7 box (to
replace our 520 - Power 4/5? - we purchased new in 2006). I'm trying to
build a case for our senior management group as to why we need it.

Our current system (which is about 1200CPW pooled) is always running in

the

99% cpu utilization - I can't recall really seeing it in anything lower

than

high 80s. We're also doing major improvements to our codebase so having

the

extra horsepower to run it will be a benefit.

Does anyone have any resources that can help me in my cause? I don't

think

management will buy the argument of the CPU utilization on it's own.

I did receive an article earlier this week on the benefits of upgrading.
Maybe I'll raid that article as well to see what useful information I

can

harvest.

BTW - I did Google various phrases, but nothing really came up to give

me a

sound argument.

Thankee-sai!

/b;

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Brian Piotrowski
Assistant Mgr. - I.T.
Simcoe Parts Service, Inc.
Ph: 705-435-7814 x343
Fx: 705-435-5029
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
http://www.simcoeparts.com

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