About SAP support....
Power 9's were a disaster for Domino and SAP. Bad enough that it was the only time I've ever opened a "crit sit" with IBM. Bad enough that we rapidly migrated email from Domino to O365. I was getting nowhere with IBM on fixing it for Domino until SAP customers were having the same issue.
None of this was early ship code or early ship hardware.
Note: The Power 9 situation was eventually remedied with improved firmware and OS patches.
Do not confuse 'crit sit' with a level 1 system down ticket with IBM. 'crit sit' is much more severe.
I'm betting SAP will be testing the ever loving hell out of those machines. And, judging by the many means that vendors use to put off upgrading hardware and OS so as to save all that maintenance money to pay off their next buy out many won't get the latest hardware until long after it's GA. Too few show any interest in participating in IBM's early programs.
https://www-01.ibm.com/marketing/iwm/iwmdocs/web/cc/earlyprograms/
I partially blame myself. Our test sandbox machine is still a Power 8. I put new versions of the OS on that and shake it down there. It just does not have the workloads nor the commitment to testing that it deserves. For example, shutting down all Domino servers other than it to load test it was not done. Not that it would have found the P9 situation.
I have a lot of concerns about the future of that Power 8. Think of this, the last OS supported on the P7 was 7.3. Interpret what you will from that. Now think what that means to vendors and their test machines. I wonder what percentage of them are even planning that upgrade? I bet their bean counters will find every means necessary to delay that expenditure, thus delaying any vendor support for any new version of IBM i.
Oh well, I've dropped multiple vendors for dragging their feet on supporting new versions of OS and I'll do it again.
You can bet your bottom dollar that I'm going to load the next version of OS the second I can get my hands on it.
Sure would be nice if P10's were available on a scale out server so I could replace an existing P9 and use the old P9 for my new sandbox.
I may have to spin up my test lpars on to an existing P9.
Rob Berendt
midrange.com
