iSCSI on Power -- MIDRANGE-L

Hey all,

I posted earlier about running jspwiki on the i, and this has really snowballed. The wiki we're getting up and going on the i, however I had the bright idea of seeing about getting all of our servers here running as reliably as our Power system, and now I'm tasked to investigate. My expertise is RPG, and while I have some system knowledge, that is definitely not my forte. My train of thought was to get our other servers onto a Power box, although what I'm finding is slightly different.

Currently the software we develop for Windows uses SQLServer (2005 and 2008). To switch to another database would be an immense undertaking, so we're currently working with the idea of keeping SQLServer for that software.

I had thought that the IBM i could be partitioned (if that's the right word) to run the Windows operating system, but everything I'm reading in regard to the Power system's support for Windows is to purchase either System x Servers or a IBM Blade Center and to connect via iSCSI.

It sounds like there is no real performance increase in doing this (according to the faq). Presumably the cross platform (SQLServer to IBM i) data access will be faster since they'll be connected via a gigabit line - although we don't do much of that today, it's nice to know in case that changes.

The big advertised benefits seem to be (from their brochure):

1. Flexible Server Deployment

a. The 'hot spare' sounds like a really slick server recovery method

2. Simplified Storage Management

a. Easily and dynamically assign disk storage for each server. Less 'wasted' hard drive space per server.

3. Synchronized Security

a. I guess I do like the idea of having the same sign-on to all servers, not a big selling point.

4. Innovative Integration

a. Reducing administration and maintenance costs is nice, though I need to research our end to see what kind of savings we'd expect

b. "Run applications you need using resources and skills already in place" - except we need to buy new System x Servers or Bladecenter servers - I'm sure the cost of these varies with the number of cores and memory, but I really have no clue if these are in general cheaper or more expensive than a comparable windows server.

5. Streamlined Communications

a. I do like the 'fewer points of potential failure'

6. Improves Windows server uptime through consistent implementations

Given all of that, I'm wondering what people's experiences are with iSCSI. Are there any benefits you see/saw that I don't have listed. Are there things I've listed that you don't see as much of a benefit?

Is the only difference between the Blade and the System x the size of the hardware?

Random fyi: I do have the IBM I iSCSI Solution Guide, so I've been perusing that as well.

Btw - I find it funny that the course number for System I Integration with BladeCenter and System x is AS300 (not quite AS400).

I appreciate your input,

Kurt Anderson
Sr. Programmer/Analyst
CustomCall Data Systems