On 12/16/2011 04:06 PM, DKM wrote:
Just over seven years ago, I was hired as the Financial System Administrator at
my place of emplacement. In my first interview, I was told how they were
getting ready to pick a new ERP and get off their “archaic” mainframe. After I
was hired, the IT director at the time told me with glee how they would be
shutting down the mainframe in six months. This shocked me a bit it was going
to take at least a year to go live with the new ERP solution.
It turned out maintenance on the 20-year-old software was going to end in six
months. The mainframe was actually scheduled for shutdown six months after we
went live on the new software and platform. Well we did go live on the new ERP
within a year, but the mainframe at one time had run the entire business of the
company and while the financial suite was the last large part to go off it,
there were still several “smaller” but just as important systems still running
on it.
Consequently, it took seven years, and two other IT directors, before access to
the now 11-year-old System/390 was finally cut this week. At some point after
the New Year, a ceremony is being planned to let the Chairman flip the final
switch to turn off the system. He has been a “Champion of Modernization” to get
us off the mainframe for almost 10 years. I’m sure speeches will be made about
how far we have come. Yet, as I look around at the countless servers, real and
virtual, and think about the major software platforms hosted by outside vendors,
all to replace the one S/390 that was divided in to four virtual systems I can’t
help but wonder if we are really better off.
DKM
Since this sounds like management by ideology and 1990's airplane mags,
I don't suppose they were honest enough to compare their current total
IT costs now with their prior mainframe IT costs, which could likely
have been reduced by simply upgrading to modern z boxes and DASD and a
more modest migration strategy.
--
Joel C. Ewing, Bentonville, AR jcew...@acm.org
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