IBM has announced more System i Capacity BackUp (CBU) Editions to
target small and mid-sized businesses that seek disaster recovery
and high availability.
The new editions, like the ones announced in July, are meant to
help companies run backup systems in case their primary iSeries box
fails or undergoes testing. The idea is that you buy a primary
system, and then you buy a CBU edition that has i5/OS on it and
minimal processing activated. When a disaster strikes or you need
to take the primary system offline, the CBU can ramp up its dormant
processors and take over. Then, when the primary system is ready to
be the primary system again, the CBU reverts back to its
semidormant state.
In July, IBM announced the backup servers for the System i570 two-
to 16-way machine and the System i595 four- to 32-way machine. Now
customers can buy as small as a System i550 one- to four-way backup
server. There are now also smaller versions of the i570 and i595
backups.
The new i570 and i595 CBU editions are available now, while the
i550 backup will be available later this month. Prices start at
$59,000 for the i550 standard backup edition and range up to
$680,000 for the highest end i595 backup.
Danny Lujan, vice president of enterprise technology at
Pharmavite, a vitamin manufacturer, said his company has five
iSeries boxes, consolidated down from nine when he started at the
job about four years ago. Its main box, an i570, runs the company's
JD Edwards applications, while older AS400 s20 and 720 models are
there for development and legacy applications, respectively.
Meanwhile, Pharmavite has two more iSeries boxes, an i570 and
i530, which are out of state at its disaster recovery site. The
company also runs about 80 System x servers.
"Our goal here is to consolidate our AS400 iSeries," Lujan said.
"Our goal here is to consolidate and run everything on one box,
because that makes it simpler for us to manage. It lowers total
cost of ownership [TCO] and allows us to simplify the disaster
recovery process."
Lujan said as that consolidation stretches on, he'll be looking
at the possibility of using a CBU edition at the disaster recovery
site to save money. The company hopes to get down to two System i
boxes by the end of next year: one primary and one backup.
"When you go into disaster recovery or high-availability mode,
you can turn on those processors," he said. "That would be a big
cost savings."
The datacentre runs Mimix mirroring software from Lakeview
Technology, and Lujan is concerned about making sure the CBU
edition can handle the replication from the primary system. He said
he wouldn't want to underestimate the number of processors he would
need and then not be able to handle the mirroring process. In that
respect, he questioned how valuable the feature of having dormant
processors on the CBU edition would be if he needed a lot of them
to run Mimix.
IBM announced that customers can save money by temporarily
transferring their i5/OS licences from their primary system to the
CBU edition when doing testing, or when the primary system is down.
With licences doled out per processor costing as much as $59,000
each, it could add up.
Lujan wondered if the processor flexibility in the CBU edition
would allow him to save money on third-party software licences, as
well as i5/OS licences.
Maria DeGiglio, principal analyst for Maria DeGiglio &
Associates, said the IBM announcement signifies a concession to
smaller businesses because "they hadn't been so flexible before
with regard to the CBU."
She also said that IBM could continue the momentum by putting
together packages, with or without business partners, to make
buying the CBU even more attractive.
"It presents IBM and their partners with the opportunity to do
more bundling," she said. "That could be a future direction. I
could see where that could be an offering for midsized
companies."
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Mark Fontecchio, News
Writer. This article originally appeared on
Search400.com.