Architecture options for centralised 9.1 system

earthdog

earthdog

Active Member
Hi All!

Currently i have 4 separate AS400 systems that serve 4 countries with JDEdwards ERP 8.0. This solution has been serving us for 10 years now.

My BI tool of choice is IBM Cognos and ETL tool is SSIS. data Warehouse is on SQL Server.

We want to move to a centralised 9.1 system that will serve all 4 countries in one installation. Languages involved are Greek,Cyrillic and Latin, so Unicode is a requirement,

I want to know what are my architectural options for going there..

I know the question is vague but i am not looking right now for details. Rather i am looking where to start.

In my mind i see these options:

Infrastructure:
AS400
Microsoft based solution (Windows OS, SQL Server)
Unix OS - Oracle DB
Windows OS - Oracle DB

Presentation/ User Delivery:
We are currently using Citrix metaframe to deliver JDE to all of our users (total : ~500)

Personally i dont really like staying to AS400 mainly because its limiting factor to cost saving and disaster recovery is limited to mainly on-premises solution.

What are your opinions? Are there any documents for someone to have an informed decision about how to start this?
 
How do you figure 'mainly because its limiting factor to cost saving and disaster recovery is limited to mainly on-premises solution?' We currently mirror from Wisconsin to the UK and have tested that we can failover.

If you currently have 400s (IBM i's) I personally would suggest that you keep them as you already have that skill set in house. Since you apparently keep your systems forever, I'd do a 10 year TCO on your old systems vrs what it would have cost if you'd gone with another platform. Don't forget to include the cost of the staff to keep everything going and you may be surprised.

We currently run 3 instances on our IBM i's one 8.12, 9.0, and 9.1 with a total max concurrent load of about 500 users, and are unicode. We think we can at least increase the concurrent users by at least 300% before we need to upgrade anything.

I certainly would suggest you go citrix and present IE or FireFox as a published app. The main reason is that by doing this you control the desktop, and as experience has shown a large percentage of issues are actually caused by things the user has loaded on his/her desktop. Think toolbars, plug-ins, etc. By using Citrix you can lock down it's desktop, while still allowing the user to do whatever they please to their local PC.

I personally prefer Unix to Windows where possible, as I have found Unix to be much more stable and I don't get the support calls I used to get with Windows. You will still obviously need Windows for the deployment server.

Just One Mans Opinion.

Tom
 
Tom,

Thank you for your time invested for your answer.

I could not keep the AS400s that i have now because none of these 4 can take over the role to be the central system for all 4 countries in one E1 installation. If i keep them they can serve maybe secondary roles in JDE architecture.

We already utilizing for everything else VM technology with IBM Blade centers.

Regarding cost saving my concern is about the quantity of the disaster recovery options that i have and the price for them. One cannot argue that you can find equally easy and equally priced solutions for Disaster recovery between AS400 architectures and other platforms (WinOS/SQL SERVER or Linux/Oracle).

I will be flexible enough to make hybrid solutions or on premises solutions ..thats what i mean with the phrase you quoted.

On the other hand AS400 have proven their stability and value for the past 10 years. Remarkable stability with limited in-house iSeries expertise.

Regarding Citrix i personally see the use if you go the VDI way. I agree that a user can easily destroy his browser, but as he easily destroys it, its also very easy to reinstall to him or better yet, use windows domain policies and dont let him destroy anything.

With present days networking and hardware capabilities, i find it awkward to serve Firefox from Citrix. Next 10/15 years is the era of the Browser OS..

The time comes very fast that Firefox / Chrome could replace Windows in SOME cases. So you boot up your machine go into Firefox and start working....

I am not trying to push my opinion through, just speaking out loud.

I would like to to go with full MS stack as far as OS nad DB goes but i see people that are relactant to do so in a JDE installation.

Why is that? I think that Latest SQL Server editions are not as SQL Server 2005/2008 was.

I would like to keep my back end there cause my Dara Warehouses are already in SQL Server (with IBM Cognos)...

So i think i will end up either in:

1.Linux / Unix - Oracle

2.Windows Server / SQL Server..

any opinions for #2?
 
I would like to to go with full MS stack as far as OS nad DB goes but i see people that are relactant to do so in a JDE installation.

Why is that? I think that Latest SQL Server editions are not as SQL Server 2005/2008 was.

Uhhh ... I don't think you'll find very many people concerned about stability or performance of the MS Platforms.
That may have been true 10+ years ago - but not in recent years. Windows server and SQL Server are generally rock solid for JDE. Those Windows Updates can be annoying though (we apply once a month).

We switched from HPUX to Windows Server about 10 years ago. Never regretted it. Cost savings were significant on the hardware side.
We've stayed with Oracle DB since we started. However - when we need to renegotiate our DB License (currently using Std Edition) there's a good chance we'll move to SQL Server then based on bang for the buck. That's the great thing about JDE - you CAN switch horses!
 
Uhhh ... I don't think you'll find very many people concerned about stability or performance of the MS Platforms.
That may have been true 10+ years ago - but not in recent years. Windows server and SQL Server are generally rock solid for JDE. Those Windows Updates can be annoying though (we apply once a month).

We switched from HPUX to Windows Server about 10 years ago. Never regretted it. Cost savings were significant on the hardware side.
We've stayed with Oracle DB since we started. However - when we need to renegotiate our DB License (currently using Std Edition) there's a good chance we'll move to SQL Server then based on bang for the buck. That's the great thing about JDE - you CAN switch horses!

Thank you Larry for verifying my sense of things today. I cannot accept these monolithic approaches "Oracle with Unix feels good , not with Windows. Or SQL Server is not for big environments.....
 
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