We are in the eternal struggle - trying to get Management to try LINUX on the zSeries. However, we are continually faced with the costs of Mainframe against Unix and Windows Servers.
Does the note below make sense or is there a counter argument. Look forward to help form the team. Paul Tormey LAN Services Standard Bank of South Africa. 011 636 4103 083 252 5292 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 05 February, 2002 08:47 To: Lea Van Der Want Subject: Mainframes are More Expensive Than Racked Servers IT INSIGHTS FROM META GROUP --- February 05, 2002 Published in association with ITworld.com http://www.itworld.com/newsletters ____________________________________________________________________________ ____ RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS * Mainframes Are More Expensive Than Racked Servers for Presentation and Application Levels * Building the "Right" IT Organization * Managing the Middleware Portfolio IT RESOURCES * Operations Excellence Infusion Program * IT Portfolio Management Briefings ____________________________________________________________________________ ____ SPONSORED LINK WEBCAST: 4 WINNING E-COMMERCE STRATEGIES FOR A TURBULENT ECONOMY Learn how you can use e-commerce as a competitive advantage for your company by not following in their shaky footsteps, but by learning from their mistakes and improving upon them. Tune in now! http://www.itworld.com/jwc/ITWNL09B/GE_ecommerce ____________________________________________________________________________ __ Visit http://itw.itworld.com/GoNow/a14724a51924a75999756a7 for daily IT news analysis, analyst insights, and research reports. ________________________________________________________________________ FEATURED ARTICLE MAINFRAMES ARE MORE EXPENSIVE THAN RACKED SERVERS FOR PRESENTATION AND APPLICATION LEVELS IBM and Computer Associates have been arguing that partitioned mainframes running Linux are competitive with rack-mounted servers as platforms for Apache Web servers and other presentation-level and application-level uses. Some users, particularly in the financial industry, are listening, and argue that more mature operations processes and advanced staffing skills as well as the extra management features of the mainframe make it the logical server for all aspects of important Web sites. Although staff and process maturity are a valid issue for some mainframe-focused organizations, we believe Linux-based mainframe partitions will not be competitive with "scale out" strategies based on rack-mounted, low-end Intel server farms for "edge functions" long term. Therefore, we believe the mainframe is the wrong platform for edge functions such as Web presentation. Not only is the mainframe hardware much more expensive per MIPS -- even with IBM selling Linux partitions at half price -- but VM software adds additional expense and support considerations. Personnel costs, which are the largest portion of the cost of a data center, are fairly equal. However, new software and skill development in the Web presentation arena is clearly focused on scale-out approaches based on many blades of commodity servers and network load balancers. The mainframe's strengths are vital in large-scale DBMS server environments, but are of far less value for relatively stateless edge services. This is particularly true in the Web publish pattern, where information is being published outbound from a Web site. In a Web server farm, load balancing and redundancy is typically provided via the network. If a server develops problems, network load balancers simply fail-route traffic to another server in the rack that is running the same load, and the bad unit can be pulled out and replaced with, at most, minor interruption to processing. The peaks and valleys of Web demand also make load management difficult on a mainframe, where the goal is often to keep the entire system operating at high capacities, such as 80% or higher. While robust mainframe workload management enables management of fluctuating demand, reallocating peak MIPS capacity is more expensive than with commodity Wintel or Lintel server farms. On a server farm, on the other hand, hardware costs are so low that the only important concern is that adequate service be maintained to customers during peak times. The low hardware -- and particularly software -- cost makes idle time on the processors during low demand periods a minor concern. One potential advantage of running the application and presentation layers on the mainframe, with the database layer, is faster response times. Each step in each transaction is milliseconds faster. However, in most cases, this speed differential is unlikely to make enough difference to justify the order-of-magnitude extra cost of the mainframe solution. The largest potential benefit from running edge services on the mainframe is leveraging the most mature set of operations skill sets and processes, as well as any excess cycles that may be available. However, long term, we believe the momentum and focus of deploying edge services on commodity scale-out solutions outweigh these benefits. USER ACTION: Although the mainframe can generally be a more dependable platform, we do not believe the long-term challenges of maintaining management skills to run Web presentation services on the mainframe or the cost premium (vs. commodity servers) are justified for presentation- layer infrastructure. Furthermore, the lack of ISV enthusiasm and the decline in mainframe skills during the next five to seven years makes this a doubtful option long term for most shops. We recommend that organizations match the type of work being done and the service-level goals, such as availability and scalability, to the appropriate computing platform. A key consideration should also be existing operations process maturity and staff skill levels. However, workloads that easily scale out across multiple commodity servers should not be centralized onto more expensive platforms simply because of skill and process issues. In this case, the right answer is to improve the skills and processes associated with running scale-out environments. META Group analysts Rakesh Kumar, Val Sribar, Brian Richardson, Rob Schafer, Rich Evans, William Zachmann, and Philip Dawson contributed to this article. Read trend forecasts, cost-cutting ideas, and other information from META Group's Enterprise Data Center Strategies advisory service. http://itw.itworld.com/GoNow/a14724a51924a75999756a1 ________________________________________________________________________ BALANCE YOUR IT BUDGET! LISTEN TO PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT RESEARCH BRIEFINGS >From this series of free Portfolio Managment Research Briefings, presented by senior META Group analysts, you will learn how to ensure that IT cost-cutting -- and continued strategic spending -- are done with business precision. Choose from seven titles: Briefing 1. The Business of IT Portfolio Management Briefing 2. Architecture, Program Management, and Human Capital: Balancing People and Processes Briefing 3. Infrastructure and Operations: Delivering on the Promise Briefing 4. ROIghtsizing the Application Portfolio: From Commerce to Customers Briefing 5. Business Portfolios and the Sustainable Innovation Community Briefing 6. The Future of Portfolio Sourcing Briefing 7. Security, Trust, and Privacy: Balancing Internal and External Demand Click here to access these Portfolio Management Research Briefings. http://itw.itworld.com/GoNow/a14724a51924a75999756a6 ________________________________________________________________________ BUILDING THE "RIGHT" IT ORGANIZATION When modifying the IT organization, enterprises must consider existing performance and work activities -- including how they relate to one another -- as well as issues that the future organization intends to improve/solve. Cross-process integration and governance models should establish the baseline from which future directions may be mapped. Learn more by listening to "Building the 'Right' IT Organization," a series of three audio briefings presented by META Group analysts David Cearley and Dan Vogel. PART ONE: THE BASICS http://itw.itworld.com/GoNow/a14724a51924a75999756a3 PART TWO: EVOLVING PLAN/BUILD/RUN MODELS http://itw.itworld.com/GoNow/a14724a51924a75999756a4 PART THREE: GEOGRAPHIC IT ORGANIZATIONAL MODELS http://itw.itworld.com/GoNow/a14724a51924a75999756a5 ________________________________________________________________________ FEATURED RESEARCH MANAGING THE MIDDLEWARE PORTFOLIO Middleware supporting critical component models, application integration, data management, and other core application functions constitutes an increasing part of software expenditures. By 2003, most IT organizations will have amassed a diverse collection of platform components, including application servers, integration servers, data integration mechanisms, legacy connectivity adapters, content managers, commerce servers, and security apparatus. The convergence of e-business platform components, growing overlap of middleware products, and extensive availability of new e-business systems will create increasing redundancy in most organizations' middleware portfolio. During 2003/04, most Global 2000 IT organizations will struggle to reduce their middleware portfolio to manageable size and to implement controls on middleware investments. 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The program provides best practices, workshops and working sessions, and ongoing analyst support focused on the following areas: * Data center and distributed operations * Technical support/engineering * Distributed and desktop computing * Help desk and customer service * Sourcing of operational components * Service-level agreement management * Asset management (hardware, software negotiations, tracking, inventory) * Rapid assimilation of new technologies * Operational processes (change management, capacity management, asset management, etc.) For more information, please call 800-945-META (US) or 203-973-6700 (outside US), or click on the following link. http://itw.itworld.com/GoNow/a14724a51924a75999756a0 ____________________________________________________________________________ ____ CUSTOMER SERVICE SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE: - Go to: http://www.itworld.com/newsletters - Click on "View my newsletters" to log in and manage your account - To subscribe, check the box next to the newsletter - To unsubscribe, uncheck the box next to the newsletter - When finished, click submit Questions? 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