I added a couple words to your subject line to be more descriptive. One has to be a little more precise here. Some MESes (Miscellaneous Equipment Specifications) are available for a very long time. You *can* MES a z10BC or even still (as I write this) a z9BC. You would MES them to a zBC12 or z114. Those are MESes, too. In other words, capacity is available via MES for a very long time, but IBM might have to deliver that capacity to you in the form of a machine model upgrade. (Which is fine -- that works, too.)
Past IBM practice has been to offer MESes on an "N-2" basis. That is, assuming no change to that practice (not guaranteed), you can MES machine model X to machine model X+2 (two generations forward) as long as hardware MESes are available for X+2. Are you asking about MESes *within* a particular model generation? Those are available for some period of time for machine X after the introduction of machine X+1. IBM will give ample advance notice of the ordering deadline. Note my chosen words carefully: ordering deadline. Installation date can vary a lot. Specifically, Capacity On Demand features may be ordered and contracted as far ahead as 5 years depending on your country and other factors. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Sipples GMU VCT Architect Executive (Based in Singapore) E-Mail: sipp...@sg.ibm.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
