>We were hoping to downgrade our z900 from a 105 to 104 >in January of 2007. IBM has told us that the announcement >[....] means we have to have the conversion complete by >Oct 2, 2006, not just the purchase. Has anyone >encountered a different opinion? I had assumed we could >buy the downgrade and install it at a later time. Has >anyone looked at buying an upgrade for installation after >10/2/2006? Any advice?
In theory you could buy a used z900 Model 104 on the secondary market then trade in your 105 if you really wanted to stay "in the family." You'd have to locate a -104 at the time you need it, but I suppose it's possible. But then you'd have to do a physical migration which would take a little work effort. I agree that the System z9 (probably BC) would be worth looking into. It has much more precise capacity settings than the z900, and you can add some speedy and affordable IFLs, zAAPs, and/or zIIPs. (At least three engines are reserved for that purpose.) It also has 19% fewer MSUs for the same average transactional throughput as your z900. In other words, for the same capacity you'll have lower software charges, at least for IBM software. It's very roughly like getting z900-105 performance for close to the monthly software charges of a z900-104. (Very roughly. Your mileage may vary.) The z9 BC is also about half the physical footprint of the z900, and I think it uses less electricity. As to why this z900 situation is as it is, it might have something to do with new European environmental rules. In fact, after a certain date IBM cannot ship any new pre-z9 mainframes to most of Europe. The other possible reason is that it no longer makes sense (given total costs) to change an engine configuration on a z900, at least in the upward direction. The newer models have significantly lower ownership costs. - - - - - Timothy F. Sipples Consulting Enterprise Software Architect, z9/zSeries IBM Japan, Ltd. 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
