It would be helpful if you clarified your needs. There are multiple
levels of outsourcing:
Machine is moved, but both systems programming and application
programming remain in-house.
Machine is moved, including systems programming but the applications
remain in-house
Everything is moved.
I work for an outsourcer who specializes in Mainframe Hospice. We work
mainly with the under 200 mips, although we can go higher. We really
don't want the applications support, but we do like, but don't require,
the systems programming support.
We have found that the reason we do so well is that we usually can take
a really old 'static' system, put it on our floor, then reduce the mips
requirements to save the customer money. Many of these systems have
already had some of their systems moved off-platform, but nobody reduced
the mips requirements so all systems software is still being paid for
based on the big mips box that is not being used more than 50% of it's
capacity.
Also, most other outsourcers want to nickel and dime people with a bunch
of small fees that really add up. For example, a little over a year ago
we took over a machine that was in another outsourcer shop. We found
that they had left the customer on 3490's (Yes, 3490's) and were
charging them a per-mount charge. They were being charged for 500+
mounts a day. Almost 300 just for nightly backups. We put them on a 3590
and now they only are using 10-15 mounts a night. (Which is below our
'included in base cost' number.) Also, 25% of the disk space used was
for 'historical' files that were really not needed. Who needs 3 copies
of 5 years of SMF data on disk? (Another 2 copies were on tape.) We
found 100's of generations of some nightly batch application files.
The main reason we get the systems programming work is because the
company was 'getting off the mainframe in 3 years' 5 years ago and the
systems programmer left.
With todays networking capibilities, it is not longer cost-effective to
build your own computer room because it can now be located anywhere
where several systems can utilized the same UPS, Cooling, Disk and Tape
units as other systems.
Tony Thigpen
Mark Wilson wrote on 02/24/2016 05:31 AM:
I am working with a client in Europe that is being requested by his senior
management team to look at outsourcing their IT systems, including their system
z platform.
Would anyone be willing to share any war stories of their experiences with
Outsourcing good or bad?
Offline from the list via email or for anyone attending Share in Texas willing
to have a coffee/beer and discuss face to face.
Mark
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