IT system and hardware upgrades are a critical function in any company. Virtually every upgrade has a major sense of urgency attached. Although some upgrades can be suspended for some period of time, server upgrades tend to be essential from a business growth standpoint.
Different server versions have features that are in line with evolving market shifts and emerging technology demands. For instance, servers today have to support virtual applications and broad storage capacity. They also need to be built to handle large application workloads. If your server doesn’t have these capabilities already built in, you are going to end up with the short end of the stick.
Take for example IBM Power Servers. When it comes to upgrading from IBM Power 5 to an IBM Power 750 running IBM i, the proof really is in the pudding—or in this case, first-hand customer accounts. In The Edison Group white paper report, two prominent institutions—an Aerospace Consumables Distributor and Appvion, Inc.—shared the true benefits they gained from upgrading their hardware to support their JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications.
Some of those immediate benefits included eliminating previous costs associated with maintenance and software, lowering lease rates, and adding IBM PowerHA high availability and disaster recovery. One of the biggest gains, at least for the Aerospace distributor, was that the entire upgrade took just four weeks from time of delivery to deployment.
Prior to upgrading their servers, Aerospace and Appvion, Inc. struggled with these IBM Power 5 challenges:
- Capital expenditures that increased over time
- Lack of virtualization capability to run multiple workloads
- Production disruptions that occurred due to downtime
One key takeaway from this report is that IT businesses running JD Edwards should strongly consider sticking with IBM Power Systems as their platform of choice. The cost of transitioning to a new platform, while missing out on the benefits that DB2 for IBM i on Power Systems brings, is simply not worth the time or effort.
Reach out to our team to find out how we can help you with your IBM Power upgrade.
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