I keep on wanting to add something to this great conversation - but IMHO the important points are being made - so, to satisfy my desire, I'll just comment a bit on the fringe -
On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 6:25 PM, David Boyes <dbo...@sinenomine.net> wrote: > > OK, dumb question of the day. It's linux right? Why would you keep > one of > > those machines for Linux when you could go down to best buy and get > > something with more horsepower? > > Unless you lost the source code or something... > > Short answer: by now, the H30/H50 is almost always completely paid for, > doesn't require any additional extra space or power, doesn't imply > increases to MLC and software charges, and adding Linux applications to it > adds value to the machine, and is another reason to prevent/avoid an > expensive migration process that likely as not won't improve their business > or operations (in almost every case, the non-IBM replacements for their VM > or VSE-based systems are less reliable and less functional). Many of these > customers have long term 3rd party hardware support contracts, and any > change in the hardware to modern IBM gear would be dramatically more > expensive. Many of these customers also still have internal DASD in the > MP3Ks, and can't afford moving to external disk. IBM also really doesn't > have much to offer these customers; was trying to help a IBMer with a > customer like this in rural Louisiana who wanted to migrate of a H50, but > couldn't -- every option IBM possessed cost at least 3 times what they were > paying in MLC charges, even hosting the whole mess on IBM-owned gear in a > SO center. A zPDT would have been an awesome solution for them -- but they > couldn't qualify. > > These are SMALL customers (obviously, if they can continue to live on > H30/H50 hardware) -- school districts, little manufacturing companies, > small cities/towns, that kind of customer. I've dealt with some of these - small and outside major metropolitan areas - where skilled personnel are rare and really hard to find, let alone afford. Worse than that, the need may be for only 1 FTE, but consistingof hardware, OS, communication, infrastructure and application software, ..., skills that seldom, if ever can be found in one person. > They have zero margins, and zero upgrade money. If they can continue to > get more out of what they have (and improve services -- example case: the > z/VM 4.4 SSL server could only serve 200 connections. Period. A Linux-based > SSL server could handle close to 900 on the same iron), then they win AND > they stay on IBM technology and keep paying those MLC bills month after > month. > So even though a few bare linux servers (one can put together an awesome linux box from under $500 in parts from Newegg - whoops - that requires a few more skills) could give a fantastic cost/benefit ratio from that piece of the puzzle, David and others are rightly looking at the entire puzzle in a real context. --henry schaffer ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/
