I was in a webcast last week from our ERP vendor about a new release and
future direction. Once of the things mentioned briefly is that in terms of
the OS, and beginning w V7R1, IBM's intention is:
1) 3 currently supported releases.
2) Individual releases supported for a minimum of 7 years.
I think that explains why v7r1 is still supported.
I have not read the articles yet. But I have to admit that I see vendors
charging for things that just seem over the top. If I am current on my
maintenance, there is no reason I should be charged for software migration,
I have heard that this happens. Charging for cores and lpars is like double
dipping. I know we learned the last time we paid our annual maintenance for
our ERP that they are increasing an annual amount of 6% (compounded) .
Looking forward to reading the articles.
Regards,
Jim Hawkins
Programmer Analyst
Interkal LLC
Kalamazoo, MI
------------------------------------------------------
date: Wed, 1 Feb 2017 12:57:36 +0000
from: Pete Massiello - ML <pmassiello-ml@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: Two good articles to read
I saw two good articles this morning in IT jungle, by long time
Midrange-L'ers.
Larry Bolhuis on customers being raked over the coals on vendor charges for
software migration (going to new hardware):
https://www.itjungle.com/2017/02/01/see-something-say-something/
Rob Berendt on Lack of Ciphers on the old IBM i 7.1 operating system:
https://www.itjungle.com/2017/02/01/lack-ciphers-ibm-7-1-raises-concern/
Good points in both articles, and I think IBM i 7.1 is ready to be retired.
Why hasn't IBM come out with an End of regular Support for 7.1? This is a 6
year old operating system. IBM should have come out with this last fall, and
provided 18 months then. If they give the normal 18 months, and made the
announcement today then it will still be supported in the late summer of
2018. Come on, we need to get people to the latest release (7.2 or 7.3),
but off of 7.1 now (certainly off of V5R4 and 6.1 as well). You might not
believe this, but we are still getting clients contacting us to upgrade them
from V5R4. We had 2 just in the last 7 days !!!
How do you combat the saying when people say "That AS/400 is old", well when
you are on V5R4, 6.1, or 7.1 those releases of IBM i are old. Move up and
see all the new stuff that IBM Rochester has been putting into the new
releases.
Great articles to both Rob and Larry.
Pete
Pete Massiello
iTech Solutions
http://www.itechsol.com<
http://www.itechsol.com/>
http://www.iInTheCloud.com<
http://www.iinthecloud.com/>
Office: 203-744-7854
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