Sam Knutson writes: >GP = $$$ >ICF = $$ >IFL or IFA = $ Even in reference exclusively to hardware pricing, it's a little more complicated.
First of all, the hardware price for a zIIP is the same as an IFL is the same as a zAAP (seen as "IFA" in RMF reports). So you can add zIIP to that list. But here's the twist: you cannot buy a zIIP or a zAAP without at least some CP capacity. Moreover, you can only configure a maximum of one zIIP and one zAAP -- it can be one of each -- per full or fractional (subcapacity) CP engine. So because the configurations are interdependent, the hardware pricing is also (quite arguably) interdependent. To use an analogy, is the price to play a round of golf at a country club only the greens fee, or is it also some pro-rata share of the membership fee? To use another analogy, can you go to your local car dealer and order just the parking assist sensor option, separately? Or do you have to buy a car and then add that option for an extra fee? (OK, yes, in theory you could go to the parts window and buy the parking assist sensor separately, but it wouldn't do anything without a car to attach it to.) That said, you can buy an IFL-only mainframe (or for that matter a CF-only mainframe), so those are different yet again. But in general I think of business computing (regardless of platform) more in terms of capital expense accounting than, say, buying a hamburger to consume right now. For capital equipment, prices and costs have time dimensions and multiple interdependent factors. To use my car analogy again, does anyone here buy the cheapest car? (That would be a beater Yugo I guess.) What car(s) do you own? But there is some simple advice, at least for zIIPs and zAAPs: if you have a "non-trivial" amount of work that is eligible to run on zIIP and/or zAAP engines, buy as much zIIP and/or zAAP as you can until either you cannot configure any more zIIP/zAAP capacity or you have reduced the amount of eligible work running on the CPs back to "trivial." The definition of "trivial" will vary a bit but usually it'll be obvious. - - - - - Timothy Sipples IBM Consulting Enterprise Software Architect Specializing in Software Architectures Related to System z Based in Tokyo, Serving IBM Japan and IBM Asia-Pacific E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
