>>I think the GP engines generally are priced at around twice the price of >>the specialty engines. >And add to the MSU cost of IBM and third party software....
Not necessarily nowadays, and it's a very important point to understand. The world has changed. If you're on IBM VWLC (Variable Workload License Charge), then if you add CP hardware capacity the only way you would pay more for software is if you raise your (soft)caps (assuming you were hitting your softcaps prior to the upgrade). How much "excess" hardware capacity you have is irrelevant now for VWLC software charges. In fact, since workload can spill above a softcap (for less than 4 hours rolling average), it's quite possible for a hardware capacity increase to give you more throughput without any change in your software bill. This means it may be advantageous to have some CP capacity above softcaps, depending on the profile of your workloads. (Examples: a 9:00 a.m. login spike, or a 9:30 a.m. market open spike. Temporary spikes like these could be software-free.) If you do raise your (soft)caps, it depends on how you raise them. If you raise them on an LPAR that runs DB2 but not on any of the IMS LPARs then your IMS charge stays the same and your DB2 charge increases (on a volume discount curve: additional MSUs cost less). And you might only be raising them for seasonal reasons (e.g. end of year reporting, Christmas shopping, annual benefits enrollment, conversion project to import data for a merger, etc.), so this might be temporary above baseline. Previously you had to pay for the whole capacity for the whole year and beyond. Another problem businesses had were the boom-bust cycles. That is, previously if you bought CP capacity to handle a surge in your business (strong economy), you were in pain when your business contracted during the next recession because you were still paying full capacity. Not any more -- now you just reduce your softcaps, and that extra CP capacity isn't incurring monthly software charges during the lean times, but it's ready to go when the economy recovers. There are some exceptions. Some of the biggest exceptions are third party software contracts. It depends on the vendor, and some of them are introducing variable charges of at least some flavor. (There's also more choice now, so you can comparison shop for better contract terms.) Also, there are a small number of IBM products, typically "vintage" products, that are charged at full capacity. A lot of businesses don't have any of these products, but a few do. As a generalization, net net, you are in control with the caps, and the CP hardware capacity is only the ceiling, not also the floor. This is a Good Thing. - - - - - 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
