Reader Feedback On Can My Power 520 Run IBM i 7.1

September 24, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Hi, Tim:

Looking at the iSeries 515 option you mentioned in Can My Power 520 Run IBM i 7.1, And Do It Well? Don’t forget that unless it has V7R1 with it, you have an after-license fee and a year’s Software Maintenance to buy to get it to V7R1. The existing system can be used as a donor to transfer across licensed programs, but if it has Software Maintenance then it can get to V7R1 for just the hardware cost. If the maintenance is about to expire then order the upgrade before it does!

–Richard

P.S. 515s are good boxes; you get a lot of bang for your P05 bucks.

You are right, Richard. Those after-license fees are bad. I hadn’t realized that it applied to second-hand machines that were sitting in the barn at dealers. I imagine that you get a sweeter deal on the V5R4 license if you buy the same used box for a lot more money from IBM Global Services.

–TPM

I’m in the same case like the customer you mentioned, but we have a 3,000 CPW machine with 16GB of memory.

Just after the upgrade (foreseen for Q4 2012), I will analyze the following case: Offset the actual hardware and software maintenance costs versus the cost of a new Power7 or Power7+ machine and the maintenance costs.

I made the exercise about a year ago and we should be break even after three years.

–PDW

Yeah, everything hinges on the Power7+ launch. When a new line of machines comes out, there is generally a big price/performance improvement that makes each successively older generation look that much less attractive–unless you are not paying for hardware and software maintenance and basically running around naked in the data center.

I suspect that a very large number of shops do just that.

To be honest, I have done it with my own X86 iron and Windows 2000 and then Windows 2003 operating systems in years gone by, when we ran our own data center because, as a small business owner, any spare money I could keep in the company during two different recessions meant I might make the next round of paychecks for the employees in a slightly easier fashion. It is hard to choose between food and rent and paying maintenance. OK, so actually it is not hard at all. And the ProLiant and then homegrown machines we had, generally speaking, worked like draft horses and didn’t give us much trouble.

I ran risks, I had spare machines and a smart IT guy helping me, I got lucky, and I damned well know it. IBM midrange shops are richer than I am and should behave better. HA!

–TPM

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