Replacement for AS400?

Juergen Martens

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Apr 9, 2003, 11:05:15 AM4/9/03

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I hope that I am not offtopic in this newsgroup:

We have in our company an old AS400 (smaller modell, about 8 years old) and
our IBM dealer/programmers is suggesting to replace this unit with an
iSeries 800, processor 2464 with "300 CPW" (whatever that may be) or even
the bigger version with "950 CPW". The reason he is giving is that the
operating system of the old AS400 is out of date and the unit is by now too
small, especially the hard disk.

The problem is, that I have virtually no knowledge of the AS400 or the new
iSeries (I only know a bit about PCs) and my fear is that such a decision
might be a stupid one.

Can anyone advise based on this meagre information?

Regards

Juergen

Bill

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Apr 9, 2003, 12:17:57 PM4/9/03

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You are missing a whole bunch of information here. In order to be able to
make an informed decision we need to know what apps you run on the 400? how
critcal are these apps? Just to say "replace it" would be niave.

Yes by the sounds of it your AS/400 is very old. and yes if I were selling
you one I'd say "you need a new one" too. But hardware is only a small part
of the equation.

Good Luck
Bill

"Juergen Martens" <bis...@juergenmartens.de> wrote in message
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Gil

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Apr 9, 2003, 2:37:41 PM4/9/03

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I agree with Bill -

Any one from IBM business partner will inform you that you need a new system. As Bill indicated, you need to do an internal review of the AS/400 system such as what business application are you running for your company. Is it critical, who is the software vendor for the business application? Does the version of the business application is "outdated" do the vendor have a most recent "upgrade" of the business application?

Today's AS/400 have changed so much over the past 8 years (comparing to your 8 yr old model). Now, you can have a more robust AS/400 that can be configure to your company needs and requirement (current) and have the ability to meet your future growth.

But first thing first...find out what your AS/400 is doing, hardware and software. Then "plan" a road map of what you want the AS/400 do for your company and the future of the company. Always plan and have a good understanding about the capabilities of the AS/400 (today) and your Business Application that you require to operate on a daily basis. A good understand of both areas will allow you to take advantage of what the newer AS/400 today has to offer.

Gil

Bill

Gregor Schumacher

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Apr 9, 2003, 4:12:13 PM4/9/03

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Was willst Du mit der AS/400 anfangen? Wir haben 4 Stück im Einsatz. Wenn Du
fragen hast dann stell Sie.
Gruß Gregor

"Juergen Martens" <bis...@juergenmartens.de> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
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R.Schreiber

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Apr 10, 2003, 1:38:07 AM4/10/03

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> I hope that I am not offtopic in this newsgroup:
>

Juergen,
come to the german forum at http://www.as400-forum.de/ - there we can
have a follow up if you want.
Reinhold

(Looking for iSeries Freeware? http://www.help400.de/Eng )

walter

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Apr 10, 2003, 3:15:39 AM4/10/03

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> We have in our company an old AS400 (smaller modell, about 8 years old) and
> our IBM dealer/programmers is suggesting to replace this unit with an
> iSeries 800, processor 2464 with "300 CPW" (whatever that may be) or even
> the bigger version with "950 CPW".

Model 800 with 300CPW is the smallest one, but has endless more power
than any 8 year old smaller model.

CPW describes the system power to compare the AS/400 models. Includes
much more than the stupid Gigahertz fetish of intel PCs.

If you do not plan huge growths during the next 1-2 years, a model 800
with 300 CPW is a reasonable recommendation. And 8 years are certainly
a good time of live for a computer.

Walter
<The manual said "Windows 2000 or better". So I bought an Apple
Macintosh.>

Juergen Martens

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Apr 10, 2003, 4:04:34 AM4/10/03

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Thank you for all the answers received so far. I was afraid that they would
be like this because I realised that my information was too meagre.
Allegedly all the programmes that are running on the existing AS400
(9402-200, OS V3R2M0) are especially written for us over the last 20 years
(AS36 etc.) - there is no standard programme. I can only see that the HD is
running at around 83% utilisation and that the unit is "slow".

Another reason given by the dealer/programmer is that with the new Release 5
it will be extremely difficult (implying too expensive) to maintain our
system if it stays like this.

Perhaps I was a bit naive hoping for nice and simple answers like "Forget
the iSeries 800, that is the lousiest model IBM ever built" or "Stick to
your old AS400, just plug in a new CPU and a bigger HD".

Regards

Juergen

Gil

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Apr 10, 2003, 11:04:14 AM4/10/03

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Juergen -

In order to "stay" with current technology sort of speak, it would be
best to get the "simpliest" AS/400 that you can get today and then
yes...it will last another 8yrs or more. To take advantage of more
robust features in the iSeries 400's, you should or the whole company
should sit together and discuss the features and future possiblities of
the 800 series. However, if there are no plans to add applications to
the 800 after you "upgrade" from the 9402-200 model, then you will be
getting the best for a simple machine and see the dramtic difference in
speed and response time on the 800 series.

Belive me your CPW on the 9402-200 is probaby around 15 or something and
you are being advised for a 800 series with cpw of 300, you will see a
huge improvement in speed and response time. The only thing I would
like to remind you is to "add" 50% more Disk capacity that they
recommend and double up the memory capacity that they recommend. This
way, you are given breathing room to grow if you or your company decides
to develop other use for the AS/400.

Juergen, if you have doubts about the recomendation you are receiving,
go to another IBM business partner and solict their recommendation. It
is good to have more than 1 recommendation to compare whether or not
they are not bias.

Good Luck.

Gil

Matt Haas

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Apr 11, 2003, 9:40:45 AM4/11/03

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Juergen,

I wouldn't worry too much about the custom programs. Chances are, they
will run unchanged on a new version of OS/400. Backwards compatability
is one of the fundamentals of OS/400 architecture. The other big one
is being technology independant. Both of these really help in
situations like yours.

If your programs have not had observability removed, there is a very
good chance that all you will have to do is save everything off of the
existing system and restore it to the new one. Observability lets the
OS recompile objects as needed.

The common areas where you may run into problems are if observability
is turned off (these programs will need to be manually recompiled),
there are programs that do lots of API calls (some API's have changed
over time), or if there are MI (machine interface) programs.

Matt

"Juergen Martens" <bis...@juergenmartens.de> wrote in message news:<b738ij$affpm$1...@ID-66820.news.dfncis.de>...

KP

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Apr 24, 2003, 12:26:48 PM4/24/03

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There is of course the issue of CISC to RISC migration.

You need to be sure you have all the relevant source - if not at least that
the objects are observable.

Just my 2 penneth worth.

Good luck

KP
"Matt Haas" <matt...@thomsonlearning.com> wrote in message
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JohnNehls

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May 16, 2003, 12:15:17 PM5/16/03

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A bit late in the day to post this, but I've only just joined the
Google usergroup.

If your apps are 10+ yrs old were they developed under S36 S38 and
using the SSP options (S/36/38 emulator), because if they are yo may
have problems. V5 doesn't support SSP anymore.

John

JHLMSS

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May 16, 2003, 10:35:22 PM5/16/03

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V5 DOES have the s/36 environment. only the guest machine 36 went away at
v4r4.

http://www.michsoft.com
j...@michsoft.com
Joseph H. Le Blanc, CCP