Do you happen to know what release of VSE/ESA? I could take a look at that particular part of the equation also.
Obviously they run a particular combination (z/VM 4.2 and z9 BC) that IBM probably never supported, even with a z/VM 4.2 Lifecycle Extension. So that opens up another machine model option (z9 BC) that would presumably involve approximately equal risk compared to their status quo, and perhaps that's a risk level they'd find acceptable in the circumstances, hopefully for a minimum further possible period of time. You'll also probably want to choose a machine that at least comes close to their capacity requirements, and the z990 would not be the immediately obvious choice in such a role given that they have a z9 BC. Anyway, add that all up and I'd be looking for a z800, z890 (with a caveat), or (with more caveats) z9 BC as the initial machine for hosting that workload if you have to lift and shift the workload quickly to meet some aggressive deadline (for whatever reason). Alternatively, you could perform an in-place upgrade on their existing z9 BC equipment from z/VM 4.2 to z/VM 5.4 -- with an associated VSE upgrade that I can get back to you on pending further information on their current VSE release -- then lift and shift the updated (and IBM supported) z/VM 5.4-based workload to any current machine model. I'd prefer that latter approach if their current machine has enough free capacity to support the upgrade migration work, and it probably wouldn't need much. (It's usually a question of how much memory they can make available.) Or you can blend the two approaches, and that might be the "best" approach of all: stand up a z/VM 6.3 (preferably) environment on your new machine, also stand up their z/VM 4.2-based workload (perhaps as a second level z/VM guest) in a strictly non-production role (and assuming it even starts up), and then perform the upgrade migration work on your new machine to bring the updated z/VM 6.3-based environment into production. You might call that the "big bang/one step" upgrade, and maybe that's best approach in the circumstances. "It depends." These various upgrade scenarios have licensing implications, so just make sure IBM (and any other vendors, if applicable) are OK with what you/they are doing before you/they do it. Substantial bonus points are often awarded if you can offer new/interesting/relevant capabilities to their business that the upgrade migration makes possible. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Sipples IT Architect Executive, zEnterprise Industry Solutions, AP/GCG/MEA E-Mail: [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
