I may have pointed this out before, but, for perspective (and oversimplifying only slightly) the entire rest of the IT world makes big OS jumps *every* time they upgrade. The rigorous, vendor-supported coexistence/fallback regimes available with z/OS release N to release N+1 or N+2 (and its middleware) has no direct analog elsewhere.
For example, Mac OS X is the world's most popular UNIX operating system, at least when measured by the number of installations. Even a point release installation, such as Mac OS X 10.6.2 to 10.6.3, is an irrevocable one-way trip. Got a problem with 10.6.3? You've got two choices: (1) reinstall 10.6 then 10.6.2 from scratch, then restore; (2) tough it out. Granted, Mac OS X probably isn't serving the business critical functions that z/OS often does, but even so Apple just doesn't offer coexistence/fallback. And they're not alone. Anyway, the upgrade is well worth doing, and sometimes the "big jump" is the best available option. Of course, please keep moving forward at a reasonable pace. That doesn't mean you have to install the newest z/OS release on the same day it's generally available (although that'd be just fine), but "reasonably soon" is good. - - - - - Timothy Sipples Resident Architect (Based in Singapore) STG Value Creation and Complex Deals Team IBM Growth Markets 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
