iSeries Hosting Service Announced by Optimus Solutions

Published: November 28, 2006

by Alex Woodie

OS/400 and i5/OS shops that are looking for additional AS/400, iSeries, or System i capacity, but don't have the budget to justify buying a new or used box, may want to check out the new managed hosting service announced last week by Optimus Solutions, an IBM value-added reseller.

As part of its new iSeries hosting business, Optimus Solutions will provide professional technicians to manage organizations' i5/OS boxes. The company is offering service level agreements that guarantee a 99.9 percent uptime rating for its managed iSeries servers, which corresponds to a little less than nine hours of unplanned downtime per year. Customers can run their choice of applications with the Optimus managed hosting service, or utilize the service for testing, high availability, or disaster recovery purposes.

Several name-brand clients in the retail, manufacturing, and services industries are already taking advantage of the new service, and the offering is particularly beneficial to mid size companies, Optimus says.

Mark Metz, CEO of the Norcross, Georgia, company, says it's all about saving money. "Managed hosting enables customers to achieve faster time-to-value and greater return on investment [ROI] on projects by eliminating the need to purchase an otherwise costly capital asset. Customers can now take advantage of the benefits of IBM System i architecture at a much lower price point."