John,
Thanks for the info. I think its really cool that once you buy an IFL on
one machine, when you upgrade you don't have to pay for another one. I
don't think anyone else does that with hardware. Does that mean then that
IFLs are so useless that IBM can't even give them away? That's probably
worded a little too strong. Its a very strange market. I keep coming back
to the same point - why doesn't IBM just cut its prices instead of making
you jump through hoops to keep your costs down.
I can understand your frustration on having a paid for engine sitting
around, but not being able to use it. At least you don't have to pay
software costs for it.
In my job search, I have two good leads. Unfortuneatly, either would
require me to move. There doesn't seem to be anything in the Milwaukee
market at this time.
Eric Bielefeld
Sr. z/OS Systems Programmer
Milwaukee Wisconsin
414-475-7434
----- Original Message -----
From: "McKown, John" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I am the original poster. We have an IFL engine enable on our z890. We
got it because we had one on our z800. Our z890 is an "upgrade" to our
z800. It actually would have cost more in upgrade fees to upgrade to the
z890 and disable the IFL than to continue to have the IFL (weird!). We
had an IFL on the z800 because of good marketting and poor understanding
on our management's (ex management now) part. Management thought that we
could consolidate a number of MS SQL servers onto a z/Linux system. Not
migrate the data, but actually run MS SQL Server on z/Linux. They also
were told "Linux is free". They thought: No monetary cost. Nobody in IBM
marketting disabused them of this.
So I have an enabled IFL engine on my z890. Right now, it is running the
coupling facility code (in an LPAR, of course), but I can't get anybody
to want to bother using that either. Too much trouble! VSAM/RLS? Who
cares? <sigh>. I guess that I just hate to have a bought and paid for
engine "doing nothing". And I like the thought of doing some things in
Java (like XML and Web type processing) under CICS. But no real interest
in that either. I'm frustrated, I guess. If this were the 80s (IIRC),
then I'd just try to find a more "progressive" company.
I hope your job search is going well.
--
John McKown
Senior Systems Programmer
HealthMarkets
Keeping the Promise of Affordable Coverage
Administrative Services Group
Information Technology
-main.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
