IBM iSeries or Windows server?

Rabid Cougar asks: "I am the network administrator for a small manufacturing company. Our current ERP system has outlived its usefulness and we are in the process of selecting another package. Our present ERP system runs on an IBM AS/400, but there are those in the company who believe we should switch to something that only runs on Windows. My position is this: if we can find software that will meet our needs that runs on an IBM iSeries (new name for the AS/400) then we'd be certifiably crazy to move over to the Windows platform. A co-worker insists there are a ton of reasons to avoid the iSeries like the plague. I'm not trying to start a flamewar, but if you were to bet your career on this issue, which side would you choose and why?"

Comments

I think I speak for most cautious admins...

[Frumious Wombat]

If it currently works on AS/400, and you really need to upgrade the system, then I'd change one variable (the hardware), and keep running the current ERP. If they later wish to transition to a Windows-only solution, make sure that you get a generous time-table and enough technical support to ensure that it's running smoothly before the old system is turned off.

I'm sure that's being done, but sometimes executives get bit by a buzzword-compliant vendor, and lose sight of what's actually at risk; your entire business. Remember when Hershey shot itself in the foot over a several-month period when their SAP upgrade didn't work as well as it should have.

Note, I have no particular love for AS/400s, but I do believe in being cautious when potentially screwing up my entire environment and calling months of unpleasant work down on my head.

Re:AS/400

[mrsbrisby]

Our system is zero non-maintenance downtime in the 6 months since I was hired and installed it. Total uptime is above 99.95%.

That's the problem. AS/400 systems frequently have zero downtime over the course of over 15 years.

I don't quite understand why everyone always comes down so hard on Windows

Because Microsoft believes that 99.5% uptime over the course of a year, or almost a full month of downtime over the course of 15 years is acceptable.

In practice, that 99.5% uptime is only maintained with the efforts of continuous IT monitoring and maintenance- something that isn't needed when you buy a proper server.

Linux confuses the hell out of me.

Its your other inadequecies that are the problem right now: While Linux can run on many pieces of "Big Iron" (where Windows doesn't run at all, by the way), most people still use things like CMS on these things.

I realize you might not know what that is, but shit, my four year old can use Linux very well, and can't manage to use CMS at all, so maybe you're trying to say that you are confused by something as simple as Linux?

I don't really understand.

In my opinion, why use something that is stuck in the past?

Because it works?

You see, a large number of people actually value getting work done, and do not care at all whether or not it's the latest and greatest.

That's part of the appeal of businesses that switch to Linux- it's based on a technology that first matured in the late 1960's or early 1970's (depending on who you ask). That technology is extremely well understood and as a result, it's very easy for a company to deliver a platform based on it that "just works".

Meanwhile, the Windows platform is a moving target- it's changed fundementally no less frequently than every 5 years, and many can argue significant changes even more frequently.

The result? It's harder to deliver a platform that a solution-provider can guarantee a certain level of productivity with: Consider this: If we have AS/400 systems or UNIX systems that can be up for 15 years under heavy load, and along comes something else that says they can stay up for "most of a year" under "some load" with "constant maintenece" - how is it anyone is expected to take them seriously?

GUI is so, like, 1995.

This makes no sense.

Are you saying that everything's been graphical since 1995? Or anything's been graphical since 1995? Or perhaps that computers have been usefully graphical since 1995?

I don't understand.

Are you suggesting AS/400's aren't graphical? That Linux isn't? That UNIX isn't? That CMS isn't?

I don't understand.

Are you suggesting that a graphical system leads to greater productivity? Greater performance? Greater stability? Greater uptime?

I don't understand.

I have no idea what this has to do with anything else in your thread.

I have no idea why you think that other people make decisions on their business, their platform, and their hardware, based on your own inadequecies.

I have no idea what you could be possibly thinking, and am beginning to suspect you don't.