>this we have done. The customer is in a difficult economical situation and >the z9BC would have been three times as expensive as the used z800 which is >already ordered. You can believe me that we have discussed all variations >with the customer and there was no way to sell a z9, which also IBM had to >accept with bruxism.
I'd echo Bruce's comments and (politely) suggest pricing out everything, including the maintenance, software charges, etc. The z9 BC has a 19% lower MSU rating for the same LSPR performance so, quite simply, software charges are lower every month. But that wasn't enough for me to reply, since I assume you checked that with your customer. What could really have a dramatic effect is that you said the customer runs DB2 in support of SAP. I assume that SAP access is "external" (either from SAP running on a distributed server or, what I often recommend, SAP running on mainframe Linux and connecting via HiperSocket). If they can get at least to DB2 V8 within a reasonable period of time they're likely going to benefit quite nicely from the zIIP engine. Please be sure to toss that into your financial calculations -- it could be quite significant, especially if DB2 dominates their workload. Crypto might be a factor, too, although that just got better if their needs can be satisfied with the new encrypting TS1120 drive. If the customer has a cash flow problem there's an excellent credit market. IBM is certainly one of those IT finance companies, and it's a good business arrangement for everyone involved. Another thing people sometimes forget is that buying older technology advances the date of replacement, and replacement itself has costs, mainly of the labor sort, for installation, migration, etc. Most customers don't like to change stuff if they can avoid it, so one of the things I try to recommend is finding ways of minimizing "transition events" (or building "durable" architectures). A System z9 BC is probably going to have about four years' more useful service life than a z800. There are a couple ways to look at that. One way is to calculate the cost of one additional upgrade, an extra upgrade that would not have to take place going straight to the newer model. The other viewpoint is to calculate the net present value of deferring an upgrade by four years. (In other words, what's the cost of money paid now versus paid in four years?) Some accounting types also calculate opportunity costs, which is to say that IT staff who have to deal with an extra upgrade aren't able to do something else more valuable to the business, like create some Web services with CICS or get the SAP functional upgrade on mainframe Linux online sooner. It's also worth noting that the z9 BC has far more precise capacity settings (and more of them) than the z800, so depending on their workload and their workload growth trajectory they could have some avoidable expense. And if they're at the upper reaches of the z800 capacity that might not be a good place to be. And you can run the numbers for the z890, too. The z890 has 10% lower MSUs for the same LSPR capacity, and no doubt the z890 acquisition price is somewhere in between the z800's and z9 BC's. I heard something about new European environmental regulations coming online which prevent cross-border shipment of older mainframes (and other older servers), but you've just learned all that I know about this. I saw something about that buried in the z9 BC specification list, so maybe you know what impact that has (if any). All that said, the z800 is a wonderful z/Architecture system and is technically compatible with all mainframe code presently available. It is perhaps the most visually beautiful mainframe ever built. I keep asking for somebody to ship me their old one, but neither Fedex nor UPS have delivered one to me yet. Although I just learned one of my teammates has a z900 in his personal basement data center. I have no idea how he managed to get one, but I must admit I'm jealous. :-) I'll also toss in one argument in favor of doing a z800 upgrade. In certain circumstances they might be able to do the z800 upgrade now then (especially coincident with a DB2 V8 upgrade), buy a second mainframe which is zIIP capable. Repurpose the z800 as a DR system on cold standby, and bring DR in-house to potentially save some money there and improve their business service availability. Older models make excellent DR systems. All depends on the timing, of course. - - - - - 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
