[Info-vax] Kittson question

[Kerry Main]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Info-vax [mailto:info-vax-bounces at info-vax.com] On Behalf Of
> Stanley F. Quayle
> Sent: 02-Jan-15 12:46 PM
> To: info-vax at info-vax.com
> Subject: Re: [New Info-vax] Kittson question
> 
> On Friday, January 2, 2015 12:00:10 AM UTC-5, Kerry Main wrote:
> > the pricing for an environment that wants to save $'s on VAX HW
> power/space makes it more difficult to justify.
> 
> No, it doesn't. Check out www.stanq.com/wf1.html  They saved floor
> space, power, and air conditioning. They improved performance greatly.
> 
> They called me about 6 months after installation, and wanted to know
> which hardware contracts they had to renew. I crossed out the pieces
> they didn't need anymore, and it saved them money -- $100,000 per
> year.
> 
> So, the up-front might be big, but the tail-end costs can justify the whole
> project.
> 

Agree maint cost savings can be significant. Course, this assumes 
they are still paying maint. contracts.

This is no different from any other platform i.e. maint contracts of old
systems is always expensive. The challenge with older DEC/Compaq 
HW is that they were designed to last and they do. Hence, Cust's 
often drop the maint contracts on HW they have not had any issues 
with for a long time.  

They may stock pile drives etc off the grey market to address the
occasional drive issue.

Virtualization onto commodity OS platforms certainly has some 
benefits, but all too often the financials (incl all up front HW/SW 
& associated (expensive) licensing, support costs + risk of having 
an additional support vendor in the mix and security patching of 
hosts) is not as good as it is often made out.  

Course, each Cust needs to make their own decision.

Regards,

Kerry Main
Back to the Future IT Inc.
 .. Learning from the past to plan the future

Kerry dot main at backtothefutureit dot com