Intel Application Servers and i5 Database Server

We currently run Enterprise One on an iSeries 570. The i5 servers as both the App server and the database server. I have been asked to evaluate moving the app server and business functions to Intel servers and using the i5 only as the database server. Does anyone have experience doing this? If so what are the pros and cons? Cost is the driving factor.

Nothing difficult here. All it takes is the install of the JDE Windows app server and some OCM and INI changes to point all processing to it.

I'm confused what you would be saving since you would still be using the i5 for a database though?

I wouldn't do it for so many reasons and I'm sure some will disagree but I'll start you off with some info from JDE

Go to the following URL:

http://www.peoplesoft.com/corp/en/iou/red_papers/index.jsp

Down load the JDE UBE and Performance Tuning White Paper

Turn to page 13/14 and review the section "Data Close To Processing"

You're better off adding a CPU and memory to the iSeries or just moving EVERYTHING over to Windows/SQL or Windows/Oracle.

I'm not 100% sure. This was one of my old WWAT whitepapers that was smartened up recently. The original whitepaper dates back to about 1998 or so. I'll have to find the original.

Back then, Client Access was a horrid overhead on an AS/400 system. These days, Client Access has improved somewhat.

The easiest way to test, however, is just to run a report on the AS/400 and watch the time - then run the report on a WORKSTATION and watch the time. The workstation communicates in the same way as an intel server - so if you see a performance improvement, you'd see a performance improvement on an intel server too.

Before you make the decision to go with intel application servers - try out this situation. There are reasons to go with Intel application servers if you're implementing JAS for callobject - or for XPi or some other interoperability - but JUST for UBE's its not usually necessary nor recommended.

The thinking, right or wrong, is that we could avoid a potential upgrade to the iSeries at some point.