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:I think I speak for most cautious admins...

[duffbeer703]

AS/400's are some of the lowest TCO systems on the planet. My wife worked at a place that used an AS/400 system bought in 1989... when she told me about it I laughed, until we realized that the machine had nearly a decade of uptime with about 30 users hitting it every day and no IT staff of any kind.

The machine eventually had to be rebooted when a hard disk died and the machine phoned home... an IBM guy showed up to replace it and nobody knew that there was a problem.

The system was replaced about 18 months ago (because spare parts were no longer available) by an Windows/Oracle system that is complete garbage. Bugs in the IBM eSeries lights-out-management card caused the system to reboot every 60 minutes. Things like restoring backups are also much more complicated and error prone. (On the AS/400, restoring the system from bare metal required you to insert the tape into the drive and holding down a function key)

Re:I think I speak for most cautious admins...

[iSeriesGuy]

Bill Gates even learned the lesson about screwing up an environment a while back whe he gave the order to replace Microsoft's 23 AS/400's with Wintel servers. He ended up with an environment of 1,250 servers that were still not as scalable as the 23 AS/400 machines. Eventually, they killed the project. In order to avoid being teased about owning AS/400's, Bill created a new company. He sold the AS/400's to the new company. He fired all of the AS/400 people working in that department, and hired them at the new company. Finally, he "outsourced" the AS/400 functions to the new company. Oh, and Microsoft threatened to sue IBM if their people ever repeated this information in public. Nope, I don't work for IBM, but I do make my living working with the iSeries product line. I don't need to go anywhere else, because IBM keeps coming up with enhancements that keep drawing customers to the platform. By the way, there are lots of ERP solutions that run on this system. Plus, it can have partitions that run guest operating systems, including the products from Microsoft.

Case for security and stability?

[Xunker]

You choice chould be swayed by security; I don't know about the new i5/OS generation, but back when it was called OS/400 it had one of the highest ratings for both security and stability of any mid-range system in its market. Whether this is because OS/400 really was more secure or just too obscure to exploit is up to personal opinion.

Qsecofr vs. root, eh?

I agree, iSeries all the way.

[cmdrbuzz]

I totally agree with you, I have been in a similar position at work, where our Group IT team were pushing for us to run exchange rather than PMDF. Thankfully our management felt that our zero downtime in 5 years with PMDF and OpenVMS in general was worth something and we got to watch as the rest of the Bank have been plagued with viruses, crashes, and the best, only 2 people on a team may access the workflow system at a time.
It got so bad that the processing teams actually created little pieces of card that they used as tickets to ensure that they could access workflow (web-based run on windows).

The users within SI (my dept) have told us that if we ever force them to do the same with our applications, which include DebtManager on AS/400, then we can expect to be very bruised.

To answer your question, I would point out the mass of windows problems and ask someone to show anything that has gone wrong with (insert midrange / mainframe platform here) that has caused the same effect.

Good luck.

AS/400

[green pizza]

You'd be certifiably crazy to think that a Windows server would be as stable or as reliable as an AS/400 server. AS/400 (iSeries) systems are almost as hardcore as they come, and much less expensive than S/390 (zSeries) or Tandem->Compaq->HP NonStop Himalaya.

However, if you have no AS/400 admins in house, but you have plenty of Windows Server gurus, well, then I think you would be better off with Windows. I've seen the same situation with Linux. Company decides to switch servers to Linux but the admins only know how to speak Windows, disaster ensues.

Re:AS/400

[iSeriesGuy]

You haven't checked in quite a while. Domino is very stable now. Patches are available via the web now. The Power 5 (soon to be 6) chips are much faster than the PC chips that are available. The product line was introduced in 1988 as a 48 bit processor. When the product line went to 64 bit and from CISC to RISC, the migrations were as simple as restoring your CISC programs and data files to the RISC box, and then running one command to convert the objects. How many Windows environments can say the same? When the 128 bit systems are available, the migrations will be just as simple.

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.

i'm no expert...

[blackcoot]

... but it seems pretty obvious to me that there's a pretty reasonable way to solve this in a rational manner with a trade study. obviously, the more money at stake, the more time you'll have to be willing to invest in the trade study. as a rough guide:

1) write down the features you need in an ERP

2) find ERP packages which fit the bill

3) define appropriate metrics (cost of administration, expected amount of down time, etc.) i realize that many of these will be fairly fuzzy, but you can still get a reasonable idea. metrics should include both costs (upfront and maintence / tco type estimates, whether you already have admins to do the job or will you have to hire, etc.) and benefits / utility

4) map out on a matrix how each ERP package performs overall

5) pick the best ERP in terms of cost/benefit

6) if the winning ERP runs on multiple hardware platforms, /then/ ask again whether the iSeries or a windows based solution is better. otherwise, your choice of platform is already made for you.

personally, as i spend more time in industry, i become increasingly agnostic: i don't care if it's linux, os x, solaris, windows, vxworks, etc. — if it's the right tool for the job, then that's what i'll use. which means os x at home, linux for work, and windows for administrivia, time sheets, presentations, etc. in my case.

Re:Nobody gets fired for buying Microsoft

[MLopat]

"Technically lesser" ? Could you point out how Microsoft and Intel solutions are technically lesser?

Re:don't paint yourself into a corner

[Knetzar]

Yup, if you buy an iSeries box you can run i5OS (the new OS/400), AIX, and Linux. In addition the virtualization allows you to set up multiple virtual machines that perform really well. As the parent said, this will allow you to (with a single piece of hardware) move from your current AS/400 solution to a Unix/Linux solution.
What this will not get you is a simple way to move to a windows solution.

I do want to know, are iSeries and Windows your only options?

Oh yeah, another benefit of having an iSeries is that IBM will support both your hardware and software. With windows you'll often get vendors arguing whose fault it is when a problem occurs. But I suppose that's your choice, vender lock-in can have (some) benefits.

Re:Downsides to 400s/iSeries

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Actually, commands on an AS/400 look like CRTUSRPRF, DLTPF, and so forth. If you can't figure out that's CreaTe USer PRoFile and DeLeTe Physical File, you need to study for maybe about 10 minutes.

Need to do an action? GO VERB. Need to do it to some thing? GO SUBJECT. There is no system simpler to figure out than OS/400.