Upgrading The 170 To An i515 A No Brainer

In our previous newsletter we wrote about IBM’s new i515 and i525 machines that are licensed per user rather then per CPW.

Success Story

Well the i515 proved to be a life saver for one organisation recently when their 9406-170 almost ground to a halt.

The interactive workload on the 170-2291 model had increased ever so slightly which pushed the machine over the edge of its capabilities. The result of this was a significant decrease in performance causing unacceptable delays for the company’s external customers who were trying to access the machine to conduct business transactions.

The business had not budgeted to upgrade their 170 as it had a reputation to just work. Even though it was critical to the organization it was not considered one of the main production servers therefore there was a reluctance to spend any money on it.

As it turned out the i515 justified itself as a suitable replacement for the following reasons:

• The i515 has 3800 cpw available for interactive and/or batch workload which is a huge increase on the 170-2291(25/115 CPW).
• The customer only required a license for 10 internal users to access the system as the rest of the users were external customers.
• The i515 belongs in the P05 software tier meaning the on-going costs are minimal and the customers 170 software could transfer across to it.
• It is rack mountable which meant that the costs to house the machine in the third party data centre were significantly reduced.

A business case with all the above points was put together and presented to the board who very quickly gave the approval to spend the sub $25,000 ex. to upgrade to the i515.

Quick Specs on i515 and i525

Model: 515
N-Way {1}: 1
Server Feature: 4901
Edition/Configuration Feature: Base Prod-1 6018, Express-1 6010, Express-2 6011
Processor Feature: 8327, 1.9GHz, L2 & L3 cache
Processor CPW: Up to 3800*
5250 CPW: Max
SW Tier: P05

Model: 515
N-Way {1}: 2
Server Feature: 4903
Edition/Configuration Feature: Base Prod-2 6028, Express-3 6021
Processor Feature: 8330, 1.9GHz, L2 & L3 cache
Processor CPW: Up to 7100*
5250 CPW: Max
SW Tier: P05

Model: 525
N-Way {1}: 1/2
Server Feature: 0909
Edition/Configuration Feature: Express-1 7790, Express-2 7791, Express-3 7792
Processor Feature: 8330, 1.9GHz, L2 & L3 cache
Processor CPW: 3800/7100
5250 CPW: Max
SW Tier: P10