The best of 'Reader Comments': AS/400 fans fight back

Frank Coyle, IT director of John Menzies, said in the programme: "Changing your name is fine and it's a good start, but they require a scalable offering all the way through from low level to high-level servers. They don't have that. You have to keep changing your operating systems, and until they have a single operating system, they'll be continually playing catch-up."

Rene Carayol, the former IT director of IPC Magazines, agreed with Coyle's views, claiming he's had trouble scaling up from the AS/400 platform and had found it limited.

These comments provoked some impassioned response from AS/400 fans. Here are three of the best...

Misinformation!
By Dave Shaw
It's readily apparent that, despite Carayol's claim about once having managed an AS/400 shop, none of these people have any current knowledge of the capabilities of the iSeries (nee AS/400). It scales from a tiny 3-10 user system to a huge 24-CPU machine that is very competitive performance-wise with Sun's biggest 64-CPU monster. I have no idea what Carayol means by the AS/400 being `limited`, unless perhaps his experience was 10 years ago and his people didn't know what they were doing back then.

Is my AS/400 really limited? I dont think so!
By Bleddyn
The people who have given you the quotes I am afraid to say represent a lot of AS/400 users here in the UK. They just do not know what the AS/400 (now the iSeries) can do. The line

Carayol said: "I used to run a site running on AS/400. We were so limited in what we could do."

That's just not true.

Together with a colleague in the US, I run a site... on the AS/400 (IGNITe/400), and it most certainly is not limited, as to what it can do...

We deal with all sorts of companies across all sorts of industries, the common bond is they use AS/400s. Once they have been shown what an AS/400 can do they love all the new features, it's just half the time they don't know they are there. The AS/400 is not like a PC which goes wrong so you end up playing with it and find out what it can do. It works and it runs and runs, most people therefore never really play with it and see what's inside.

Anyway thanks for the time it may have taken you to read this - you managed to upset several hundred people on the mailing list at IGNITe/400 when this was posted!

Setting the record straight...
By Bob Larkin, consulting systems analyst

As a long time user of the IBM AS/400 line (now e-Server iSeries 400), I must take exception to the slanted comments made in the Oct. 9th article and interview.

Mr Carayol's comment about being "limited" baffles me. There was no mention as to how long ago these "limitations" were discovered. There are also no details. Here are some factoids:
* 64 bit processing. The iServer 400 is on the sixth generation of 64 bit microprocessors. Is anyone else?
* Fastest TPC-C benchmarks in its class.
* World class database management included with the operating system.
* Backup and recovery software included with the operating system.
* Job Scheduler included with the operating system.
* Java support included with the operating system.
* File and Print sharing... included
* Audit functions ...... included
* HTTP server ..... included
* POP support ... included
* Supports COBOL, C, C++, Websphere, RPG, Java.

Upgrades to the iSeries 400 are significantly easier, in that compiled programs run on all machines, without recompiling. When the AS/400 went from 48bit to 64bit, all 48bit programs would be automatically converted to 64bit, the first time it was executed.

Proven scalability from a single processor machine for a few users, (256M memory, 8G DASD) to a 12-way processor supporting thousands of users and functions (up to 98G main store, 1.8TB DASD). And a compiled program from the smallest will run on the largest system. Need more...? Easy clustering of systems, as well as partitioning of systems in multiple virtual systems. Oh, by the way, these functions are also included in the operating system.

Reliability, over 99.4% uptime. With hot swap components in the current models. Need higher reliability? Clustering and third party software will quickly bring the system to the five nines.

Much of the benefit comes from the integration of the iSeries 400 operating system (OS/400) with all of the utilities. Each AS/400 will have the same database manager, communications support, HTTP server, etc. This results in much more stability, without the problems associated with integrating these components on your own.

The list goes on. I am not a salesman, nor do I represent IBM, or any of their Business Partners. your organization needs to take a look at the iSeries 400 before you propagate more falsehoods...