Help Migrating from Win2K to AS400

vasoov

Active Member
Good day folks,

I have been assigned the task of investigating a migration plan from a Windows 2K/TS/SQL2K to an AS400. I have never worked with an AS400. Any help is much appreciated.

We are currently using OW XE Update 7 with SP22 applied, with 5 Win2k Terminal Servers (no Citrix) and the database on SQL2K SP3. We currently have 300 users, but will have 500 users using a mix of Distribution (250 users), Financials(220 users) and Maufacturing (30 users). We expect to produce up to 1500 invoices (R42565) daily. This report is our performance benchmark which takes on average 12 seconds per report.

The enterprise server we are using are Quad Xeon 700Mhz/8GB memory. The SQL server has the same specs as the Ent server.

The database size is 55GB and grows at 30GB per year.

We are constantly developing new apps in JDE as we service around 40 companies. We have regular package builds.

Questions:
How do we maximise availability of the AS400?
Can we keep a mixed Win2K TS mode with the AS400 as the JDE foundation/Websphere costs additional bucks. If possible possible we would like to keep the Terminal Server/fat client setup.

Do developers need to learn new skills?
What skills would the CNC team need?
How much time would a migration of this sort take?
Do the application consultants need additional skills?

Any additional things to look out for?

Thanks
 
That's a different platform switch. Most people I
know are moving off 400 to the Windows because of cost
and performance. E1 is a much better performer on
Windows than 400. It was developed on Windows after
all.

Good Luck though!
 
Why are you moving to the AS/400 ?

It seems as if you are a part of the team that is involved in the administration of the enterprise - and yet you have no knowledge of that platform. The ONLY reason for a platform decision should be because of the knowledge of that platform - NO OTHER REASON AT ALL.

If Peoplesoft are pushing your company to AS/400 - then push back. Half the customers out there are running on SQL Server, and there are companies with 500 concurrent users out there.

If IBM are pushing you to AS/400 - then ignore them. Does your CIO listen to every sales man ? I have a bridge for sale if he's interested...

If your CIO is pushing because he "knows best" - he doesn't. Just because one company is successful on a specific platform - doesn't mean another will be unless he manages to bring along the entire IT department across.

There is no rational "better" platform out there - and the AS/400 in my opinion is only good for those companies that have the experience on that platform.

I can show companies that are going FROM AS/400 to SQL Server because of bad sales decisions and bad management decisions early in the process. I can show companies that have gone from SQL to AS/400 for the same reason - or from Oracle to DB2/UDB or SQL to Oracle. Sometimes they make good decisions, other times they end up in catastrophic business failures.

As far as the report benchmark is concerned - have you had someone actually look at that ? You do realize that there is a 5 second "lead in" time before OneWorld does anything ? One change in the .ini will drop the time therefore to 6-7 seconds.

Secondly, you're on old technology speedwise. 700MHz processors were fast 4 years ago - but today Intels are running 3.2GHz for much lower costs. Drive speeds are vastly different as well - and for the type of infrastructure you have to support I would highly recommend using a SAN to provide far more faster throughput than an AS/400 can provide.

Lastly - is everything sitting on one server ? Why ? Surely you've thought about going to an application server model - using the power of low-cost higher performance machines on the front end. That is the beauty of the SQL Server and Oracle solutions as opposed to the AS/400.

You will likely spend several million on an AS/400 solution to get anywhere near decent performance. I'm in the midst of converting one customer from AS/400 to SQL Server on a platform that will pay for itself in 8 months - and is completely state-of-the-art. That includes 9 Citrix servers, 3 application servers and a clustered database server on a SAN. All for less than $500k.

I'd be glad to help your company if you want to show one way or the other the right decision - but I strongly recommend using someone who has been on both sides, rather than listening to JDE and IBM...


Believe
 
Vasoov,

Do developers need to learn new skills? -- If you develop outside of the JDE toolset, then you will need to retrain your developer in the AS400 tools. More than likely that means hiring a different set of developers.

What skills would the CNC team need? They will need AS400 training. Based on the information you have listed, you will probably need to hire an AS400 CE to run this new system or use consultants extensively.

How much time would a migration of this sort take? Speaking only of the phyiscal migration of the date, the time required for the migration would depend on the source and destination system along with the tools. Best case would be an overnight migration worst case could take more than a week. You must add to this time, the EXTENSIVE testing of all of your application before the move.

Do the application consultants need additional skills? Do you intend to use 'green sceen' applications? Do your consultants currently use SQL tools to query/manipuate data? If the answer is yes to either question, then they will need additional skills.

As stated in another post... moving from SQL to AS400 is swimming against the current flow. It would probably be many $100k's less expensive to upgrade/tune your existing system to improve the performance than to migrate to an AS400 with enough processor and disk i/O horse power to actually improve your performance.

Best wishes with whatever you end of doing.
 
Duuuude...do you always shoot the messenger? As you stated, he appears to be someone that is not involved in the decision making process.

With that said, yes, I agree with my knowledgable friend Jon, however, there are specific reasons that would make sense for an organization to move from WIN/TEL or any platform for that matter to iSeries.

I will tell you too, that going from anything to iSeries is going to be a very large learning curve, much more from switching between any of the other platforms or going from iSeries to the others.

In answer to your questions though, which is what I'm sure my buddy Sr. Quark meant to do:

1. Availability on the iSeries. Two approaches off the top of me noggin', multiple LPAR's on one box. Advantages: backplane replication, only need one box; Disadvantages: One box, if the controlling LPAR goes south, the box and all other LPARS are dead in the water. Another approach is two machines. Advantages: Not stuck with single point of failure of an iSeries machine; Disadvantages: iSeries machines ain't cheap, only AltQuark and a select few can afford more than one these days! Other disadvantage, replicating software between the two. One note, if you are new to iSeries AND you want to implement LPARs, Clustering, Replication...you are going to need to get used to 1 - 2 hours of sleep per night, or LESS!

2. Can you continue to utilize the WTS and fat/thin clients. Absolutely! Just remember, with 8.11 fat/thin clients go the way of the dinosaur, all HTML with that release, so even though you can still make use of your existing WTS and fat clients, you should be moving towards at least experimenting with and using HTML at this point.

3. Development skills...not in OW itself, no difference. But if they want to do anything outside the box, then yes, retraining.

4. CNC folks will find much difference in installs and upgrades, troubleshooting server side issues, SP's are a bear on the iSeries compared to other platforms, OS/400 is updated with PTF's much more frequently than the OS's of other platforms.

5. Migration. Well, I'd suggest a very slow and steady approach. I'd add the iSeries to the system as a enterprise server, but not put any DB's on it. Build and deploy packages to it, test it at running UBE's, then make the switch to make it the UBE processor. Then, bring over the DB's in logical groups. OL or DD are good starters, that will allow you to test the transfer process, get your feet wet with a DB running off the iSeries, and then you can bring the rest over either in groups or all at once.

7. Application consultants...if by that you mean "functional" consultant, probably not affected from a OW standpoint. The apps will still run/look the same.

Don't be concerned with Jon, he is very helpful but you just happened to hit his "Unix rules/iSeries drools" button. ;)

But he is absolutely right, with the cost of the hardware itself you could equip a primary, backup, and hot backup site completely, including telcom costs, all with new state of the art stuff, take a week long vacation on an island and probably afford AltQuark's hourly rate for 1 or 2 days! But your big hit will be in all of the money you're going to have to spend to get up to speed on operating and configuring an iSeries.

As much as it pains me to do, if I were to be consulting your management, I'd agree with Jon and say unless there is some really huge business savings somewhere down the line, this is not usually a strategy that provides a quick ROI.

Regards,
 
I just wanted to clarify something here.

Although I am qualified to work on all of the supported platforms - I view myself as unbiased when it comes to platform choice.

If an AS/400 customer was looking to migrate to Oracle yet didn't have the internal knowledge for the Oracle/Unix platform - the message I'd give would be exactly the same - ie, whats the reason ?

If you're comfortable, technically, with the AS/400 - then its the RIGHT PLATFORM FOR YOU, if you're comfortable with Microsoft SQL Server - then ITS THE RIGHT PLATFORM FOR YOU.

None of the platforms realistically outperform or outscale any of the other platforms PROVIDING IT IS ARCHITECTED CORRECTLY and is SIZED for the job it was designed to perform. Sure, Unix has huge numbers of users at the very top end - but so does a 24 way AS/400 and a 32-way Intel machine running Datacenter.

Common sense rules the day when it comes to platform choice. Its usually an easy decision if the FACTS are placed in front of the team. What technical "pieces" are then put together afterwards is then a harder process to ensure that the platform chosen performs correctly.

Unfortunately, the second piece is usually done by sales reps or account managers with some sort of interest to protect.

Lastly - my rants certainly were not aimed at the messenger - I apologise if you thought that. They were aimed at the people in his company that make this decision, and to all CIO's and Implementation Professionals that often make these decisions based on some salesrep - whether its JDE / PSFT or the hardware / software company.

An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.
 
Jon,

I think you need a vacation, dude. If you failed to see the comments were tongue in cheek, and that I actually agreed with your comments and suggestions, you really need to get rid of some stress.

With that said, I know you have the experience and knowledge enough to realize that "decisions" in organizations are not made by the folks that need to support them, but by an individual or few that listen to the sales pitches. There could also be other organizational pressures to move to another platform, such as the iSeries. With the information in the original post, which didn't even touch on why the decision was made, you, I, and anyone else reading it simply knows that they are going from Wintel to iSeries.

I scattered the post with "I agree" and ";)", was that missed?

Let's face it, there are people in organizations that make decisions in vacuums every day, and people like the person asking for help here that needs to deal with the fallout. That's a fact of life. You and I could cite numerous examples of clients led down the wrong path, especially by sales people who wouldn't know how to spell iSeries if you spotted them 4 vowels and two S's, but once the decision is made, it's your and my job to sometimes help make it work...right?

In any case, sorry you took such offense at an response that indicated lightheartedness (";)" usage) and the fact that I came out many times and stated my agreement with your comments.

My point is simply, you or I don't have the facts. This person doesn't seem to be asking "is this a good direction?", but "this is the direction I've been given, answer these questions". I can agree with you until I'm blue, but the support staff in organizations are often not part of nor asked for input in platform or strategic IT direction, you know that, and so do I. For all you and I know, IBM gave them free i5's to be a reference client...you know?!? We just don't know.

In any case, I will not post anything but factual comments to your posts in the future. I'm sorry it caused you further ire, and I certainly didn't mean to cause the response that was received.

Regards,
 
I had a bad day yesterday - my apologies stooge dood. But its sometimes so freakin' hard to see who is getting offended and who isn't on here. It seems every time I react to something, someone takes it the wrong way or the other way or whatever.

It must be my accent...

By the way, ISERIES has an "R" in it and is 7 letters long...

:p
 
John

I concur with all that you say, but would also add, the Sales reps influence is not as great as the CIO's or CFO's personal bias.


regards
Sid Perkins
Independent IT Consultant
Tel: 01304 825003
Mobile: 07713158807
[email protected]
 
Thanks for everyones input. Actually, there is no fixed plan to move to an iSeries as yet, but rather a probe to see if it can fit into our setup as JDE is only part of the equation.

As someone previously mentioned, I am part of the CNC team, who deals with practically all technical feasability studies for the company.

We have 14 Windows Servers servicing JDE, 3 AIX boxes serving 1000 Lotus Notes users and 2 Linux boxes. One of the reasons of investigating iSeries is that it can be partitioned and IBM say that the speed will be as good as the latest Intel technology.

Our hardware maintenance+licensing charges yearly are USD$220,000 which in this part of the world (Mauritius) is a lot. We hope that this expense as well as others can be reduced if we migrate all the above to 2 clustered iSeries.

There are many companies in Mauritius using iSeries, namely banking, insurance, finace, logistics etc. and many hail the 'legendary' stability of their iSeries/AS400. I must say that I am very pleased with the MS platform. What annoys from time to time is the queues dying and TS client crashing.

Supposing that we do get CNC an iSeries administrator/course, what would be (if any?) the pros of moving to an iSeries in our case assuming that we develop using only JDE tools?
 
Vasoov,

Moving to an iSeries to save money is very much a sales pitch. The cost of an iSeries box large enough to replace your 19 servers while providing your same or higher level of performance will be very high. Even at that high cost, it physically incapable of replacing your deployment servers and terminal servers.

The one major advantage the iSeries running E1 has over the other platforms is the stability and features of its job queues. Unfortuantely "in my book" that is about its only advantage. In E1 8.9 and higher the job queues on the non-iSeries platforms have been reworked, hopefully that mean more stability for the queues???

Concerning stability, a system is only as stable as its most unstable component. On all platforms the most unstable componenet is the E1 product itself.

To be blunt: with the skillset set you have in house, you will probably end up with a more expensive, less stable system which has slower performance if you convert to an iSeries.
 
(Blatant commercial by vendor)

We can help later on...

My company has a tool that correlates user connections with the associated jobs on the iSeries. In cases where an end-user calls the help desk, it can identify the series of events that led to their problem. For proactive problem determination - policies can ve defined to automatically collect application information, SQL statements and route joblogs to a predefined queue to avoid searching for the right information.

Good Luck!
Jen
 
Deployment server and /or terminal servers can be installed inside your AS400 by buying a NetFinity Card from IBM. If you use this card as your deployment server, you will have very fast package build since both machines are almost on the same BUS architecture.

Kevin
 
In theory you are correct, Kevin. However, the processor speed of the netfinity card does not match what you can get in a windows 2000 server. And also, if you search the list, you will find that some people who have tried this have issues with backups also.
 
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