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)

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.