Off and on, we have had this type of discussion on this list for months, perhaps years.
It all depends. I believe that Websphere will cost you the same, whether you are on a NT platform, or on the 390. It is based on the number of engines it can run on. If you have an IFL engine, you can just run over there. If you have 10 IFL engines, then you get charged a lot without ever needing those engines for Websphere. Same for NT. However, if you are considering a single engine on either platform, what about your test systems? On NT, you buy another box and license all the software over again. On the S/390, as long as you don't add engines, just run another copy. and another copy and another, until you run out of main memory (Websphere likes memory). Until recently, I have been leary of running cpu intensive workloads on the mainframe, as with Linux, it can be ported to a cheaper hardware platform fairly easily. But the software costs are basically the same. And the people costs seem to be less on the mainframe. And of course, the I/O subsystems, when being hit by multiple different requests, can't be beat. I'm not a NT type, but the NT types still seem to be telling me that when you size a NT server, you size it for 10% utilization. 20% is the maximum they want to see a NT server go before considering additional copies. When NT spikes to 50%, you really see the performance degration. I'll leave it up to you if that what your people are telling you. But when we had a quote for a Websphere application, they quoted 10 NT servers plus 1 for backup, 11 NT licenses, 11 licenses of Websphere, 11 licenses of DB2/UDB and 11 copies of their application software. Est cost $750K. That was laughable. The application vender didn't support Linux/390 at that time, but I said we could put in on our mainframe, for under $100K (basically software charges and additional dasd), and, perhaps, we would need $125K for an IFL engine. Then buget cuts came, and we are not going to do this application this or next FY. One of my proof of concept tasks is to put Websphere on the mainframe, just to prove that it works and is available. Maybe 3rd quarter, I can get to it. Tom Duerbusch THD Consulting >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/23 11:06 AM >>> Hello all, a customer of mine in Germany is faced with a choice: Run a Webserver on a MS NT/W2K platform (Websphere) or the same, but on a z/Linux platform running under z/VM (IFL). The application is (will be) CPU intensive with extensive Java usage. I do not have MIPS rating for the IFL engine. I am hearing a lot of "it will run better on the MS/Intel platform because the application will be CPU bound" ... etc. Could anyone give me a "rule of thumb" as to what would be the performance considerations vis a vis the two platforms. Regards, John Cassidy (Dipl.-ing) Informatique Schleswigstr. 7 51065 Cologne Germany / Allemagne / BRD / Duitsland Tel. : +49 (0) 221 61 60 777 Mob. : +49 (0) 177 799 58 56 E-Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] HTTP : www.JDCassidy.net
