Dave Day writes: >Does IBM give trade-ins on old equipment sort of like a car dealer?
Sure, you can do that. We'll frequently offer trade-in credit for and haul out your non-IBM equipment, too. Just ask your friendly IBM representative. Better yet (or in addition), we offer machine upgrades. You can upgrade your N-1 or N-2 model generation z System to the latest (N) model generation. We remove older parts (such as main processors) and replace them with the new technology parts, and you then have a new model. Your machine retains its same serial number. The IBM term of art for this offering is an "MES." It's much simpler than moving whole machines in/out of your data centers. Cabling, for example, is much easier. We ask you to plan for an 8 hour upgrade window for your MES, and we'll start the upgrade when you wish, after you've applied toleration maintenance (if any) to your software products. If that's 1:00 a.m. on a Sunday, for example, we can handle that. Coffee for our engineer is optional but might be appreciated, served a safe distance away from your machines. :-) If you already have a Parallel Sysplex or GDPS Active Sites solution you most likely will not need to take any application service interruption during the upgrade. If you don't yet have either you have the option to order another machine to "swing into" a Parallel Sysplex, either on a temporary or ongoing basis, in order to reduce or eliminate your planned downtime for the model upgrade(s). We also offer Capacity for Planned Events (CPE), a type of temporary capacity, if for some reason you cannot tolerate the temporary capacity reduction associated with a machine upgrade. Car model upgrades don't seem to be common. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Sipples IT Architect Executive, Industry Solutions, IBM z Systems, 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
