Hi Ranga,
You say your customer is spending $100K/yr on hardware. Question: how much
do they spend building, buying and supporting their
applications? Certainly, they are spending much more than that on
staff. Cost of ownership for computer systems usually has little to do
with purchase costs. Even administration costs, especially for server
systems, are usually not a deciding factor.
The 64,000 pound gorilla (to mix a metaphor) is application costs:
purchase, development, training, administration, maintenance, etc.,
etc. Of course, this is where _all_ the benefits are derived as
well. _Everything_ else is overhead.
So, the best way to convince anyone that a migration to platform X is a
good idea is to demonstrate that their application costs will be
substantially lower and that their application benefits will either be
improved or, at worst, unaffected.
Chances are the customer has existing applications running on these
mainframes of theirs. You would have to demonstrate that they could
continue to run the same applications or easily convert to new, equivalent
applications on Linux. The availability of SAP, Peoplesoft, DB2,
Websphere, Oracle, etc., etc. will probably drive your selection of a
particular Linux distribution.
Another big factor is runtime support. For example, Digex hosting
facilities still do not support Linux. In order to get 24/7 support from
Digex, you have to use a "vetted" hw/sw platform such as Sun/Solaris 7/8,
HP-UX, IBM/AIX, etc. That said, there are many Linux-friendly hosting
services. Again, they may limit your choices of Linux/Unix version.
At the end of the day, you'll need to estimate all of the conversion costs,
double them (both in time and $$) and estimate the future cost savings and
calculate a payback period. If it takes more than 2 years, I think you
will have difficulty making the sale. Personally, I would aim for
break-even after 1 year.
Good luck with your efforts. I really doubt the big iron is still
justified anymore. Is it still the I/O king?
Hope this helps,
Charlie
At 03:30 PM 6/11/2002 -0400, Ranga Nathan wrote:
>[forwarded submission from a non-member address -- rjk]
>
>
>From: "Ranga Nathan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 14:03:33 -0700
>Subject: Seeking recommendations on Unix platform
>To: "boston-pm \(E-mail\)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>A customer is interested in migrating from mainframe to unix platform. I
>am trying to steer them towards open/free software. I need to propose a
>robust unix implementation (net BSD has been suggested, Linux on HP or IBM
>is fine too, I in fact like that) that can take the workload of the
>mainframes. Not that I doubt it, but I should be able to convince the
>customer of it!
>
>I also need to recommend a robust relational DBMS (Postgres has been
>suggested, MySQL now seems to have transaction logic ) that can handle a
>large number of concurrent connections and full ACID compliance.
>
>A rapid application development tool would be nice for simple
>applications. Zope? Of course a powerful, easy to use language - Perl is
>my favourite but mainframe guys would be intimidated by the { }.
>
>If someone can point me to articles or whitepapers I would be grateful. In
>fact that is one thing I want to prepare too.
>
>This customer is currently spending in excesss of $100K on mainframe
>hardware alone ( it is a college with some 35,000 students) and an equal
>amount on software. They have a staff of 12 including a DBA and system
>programmer.
>
>I am thinking of helping them migrate to unix/linux first with the
>proprietary software that runs on these and concurrently begin
>redevelopment on open/free systems.
>
>All kinds of opinions and suggestions are welcome. If there is a better
>forum, please direct me to it. Thanks
>
>any2XML-any2XML-any2XML-any2XML-any2XML
>Ranga Nathan
>Reliance Technology - www.goreliance.com
>Home of Any2XML www.any2xml.com and
>COBOL Explorer www.cobolexplorer.com
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