On Fri, May 05, 2006 at 01:53:48PM +1000, Vic Cross wrote:
> On 05/05/2006, at 5:53am, Fargusson.Alan wrote:
> >A long time ago I read that they did TCO studies, and found it less
> >costly to buy lots of low cost hardware over buying fewer high cost
> >systems.
>
> "A long time ago" is the point. When I read similar, the server
> count was around 8000 -- it would seem that they've grown
> considerably beyond that now. I doubt they've updated their TCO
> analysis accordingly... :)
But on the other hand, most TCO studies also do not take upgradability fully
into account, although that becomes an important factor when dealing with the
low-end PC-based hardware. More so than with zSeries boxes.
In the end, consolidation may look like a better option in a TCO study, but the
value of the TCO study is largely limited by how well the options you are
comparing are actually representing solutions to the same problem.
E.g. if you take the typical TCO study used when comparing against zSeries
based solutions, you tend to neglect the cost differences incurred when you
need to add more capacity rapidly. Very easy (and low cost) when doing it with
a large fleet of low-end machine. More difficult (and higher cost) when you
need to do that with zSeries boxes.
As said before: Right tool for the job is an important factor. I have yet to
see a good argument for using zSeries boxes for something similar to the Google
search functionality (some of their other stuff could benefit, probably).
Kris
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