In less than three weeks, the first eServer i5 models will leave IBM's shipping docks for their journeys to customer sites. That fact has thousands of iSeries owners getting out their calculators and sharpening their pencils to determine whether upgrading to an i5 makes financial sense for them. Thanks to IBM's attractive pricing, many of them will find that it does.

While upgrading to the i5 will be a shrewd move for most iSeries customers, it will not be the best course of action for all of them. Unfortunately, identifying those cases where an i5 upgrade does not make sense takes a lot of studying. Over the next two weeks, I'll give you the facts that you need to shave hours of time off your number-crunching sessions. In this week's article, I'll examine upgrade options for owners of iSeries 810 and 820 servers. Next week, I'll study the alternatives for owners of larger iSeries models.

Understanding Upgrade Paths

Before we start, let's get a few things straight about the upgrade paths that IBM is offering. Here are some simple rules you can follow as you consider your options:

• The iSeries 270 cannot be upgraded to an i5 model. However, you can upgrade the largest Model 270--the 270-2434 with the 1520 interactive feature code--to the largest Model 810 Enterprise Edition. From there, you can upgrade to an i5 model.
• You cannot upgrade any iSeries 800 to an i5 model. Indeed, you can only upgrade an iSeries 800 to a larger iSeries 800. If you need the greater performance or expanded capabilities of the i5, your best option is to purchase an i5 outright.
• The iSeries 810 and 820 can be upgraded to either the i5 Model 520 or 570. It is important to decide whether to upgrade these iSeries models to the i5 520 or 570, as you cannot upgrade a 520 to a 570. If you anticipate needing the greater performance or expanded capabilities of the Model 570 in the near future, consider upgrading to it now.

With these upgrade paths in mind, let's take a closer look at the options that are available to iSeries 810 owners. After that, we'll examine the alternatives for Model 820 users.

Upgrade Options for the iSeries 810

With the advent of the i5 server family, iSeries 810 customers gain something that they never had before: the ability to upgrade to high-end servers with more than two processors. Gone are the days when iSeries 810 owners could only upgrade within their model number. By upgrading to an i5 Model 570, 810 owners gain an upgrade path that will let them scale their server to as many as 16 processors later this year.

Still, this does not mean that an i5 upgrade is the right choice for every iSeries 810 owner. As the following table shows, some upgrades within the 810 lineup still make sense for certain customers. The table shows the list prices for each upgrade option as well as the cost per CPW of each option. To determine the cost per CPW of each upgrade, I divided its list price by the number of processor CPWs it adds to the upgraded server.

As you study this table, please note that because of space considerations, I have not included prices for upgrades from the 810-2466, -2467, and -2469 to the 2/4-way i5 570-0920. These upgrades are available for the handful of Model 810 owners who need such a large server. Also, please note that prices for upgrades from Standard to Enterprise Editions reflect the costs to get unlimited interactive workload capacity. They do not include costs for the software, service vouchers, and additional hardware included in the Enterprise Editions.

¹ List prices and costs per CPW for upgrades to the 570-0919 are based on running a single activated processor at 3300 CPW.

A few things about the above table deserve discussion. First, note that the cost per CPW of upgrading an iSeries 810 Standard Edition to an i5 520 Standard Edition is equal to or slightly greater than the cost per CPW of upgrading to a comparable 810 Standard Edition. While this may seem to make an i5 upgrade financially unattractive, remember that maintenance contracts for the i5 520 cost significantly less than those for comparable iSeries models. A 520 upgrade also provides a growth path to a server with up to 6,000 CPWs and capabilities that are unique to the i5, such as support for AIX within logical partitions (LPARs). These facts may tip the scales in favor of upgrading an 810 Standard Edition to a 520 Standard Edition.

As for the "Enterprise Edition-to-Enterprise Edition" upgrades, it costs much less on a per CPW basis to upgrade a Model 810 to a Model 520 than to upgrade to another 810 with comparable performance. This reflects a decision on IBM's part to significantly reduce what it charges for Enterprise Editions of all i5 servers. In effect, IBM removed a big chunk of the price premium that it charges for the unlimited 5250 interactive performance of the Enterprise Edition. That's good news for customers who have felt penalized for running 5250 applications.

While IBM's prices for upgrades to the i5 Enterprise Edition are attractive, they come with a warning. If you are upgrading from a Model 810-2465 or 810-2466, you can upgrade in smaller CPW increments within the 810 product family than you can if you upgrade to a Model 520. For instance, if you own an 810-2465 Enterprise Edition running at 750 CPW, you could upgrade it to an 810-2466 Enterprise Edition running at 1,020 CPW at a cost of $23,100. By contrast, the smallest i5 server that you could upgrade to is a 520-0903 Enterprise Edition that costs $78,000. As the table shows, the 520 upgrade costs much less on a per CPW basis. From an absolute dollar perspective, however, upgrading to the 810-2466 would put less of a dent in your budget. I hope that IBM notices this problem and offers upgrades from the Model 810 to the 520-0902 (a 1,000 CPW server) in the near future.

Note as well that if you upgrade a Model 810 to an i5 570, you will pay significantly more per CPW for the upgrade than if you upgrade to an i5 520. While the Model 570 provides iSeries 810 customers with capabilities that they could not get through an 810 upgrade, IBM is putting a hefty premium on those capabilities. In addition, Big Blue is charging high prices on upgrades from the 810-2469 Standard and Enterprise Editions to the i5 models. If you are considering these upgrade paths, discuss them with your IBM sales representative or Business Partner and negotiate discounts wherever possible.

No matter what upgrade options you are considering, be sure to examine your software costs for each option. In most cases, an upgrade to a larger iSeries 8xx will put you in the same software price tier as an upgrade to an i5 model of comparable size. In such cases, software costs are not an issue. However, there are situations in which one option will be in a higher or lower software tier than other options. When this happens, the resulting differences in software costs could tip the balance for or against that option.

You should also consider the costs of any systems features that you will need to migrate or replace under each upgrade option. Here are some important rules to keep in mind:

• While most Model 810 memory features will migrate to the i5, some will not. Any memory features from a 2-way 810, such as the 810-2469, will not migrate. In addition, any 810 memory that is smaller than 256 MB will not migrate to the i5 520, and any 810 memory that is smaller than 512 MB will not migrate to the i5 570.
• All 10,000 RPM and 15,000 RPM disks will migrate to the i5 servers.
• While none of the old SPD I/O towers and drawers can migrate to the i5, most of the PCI I/O towers and drawers will migrate. The only PCI features that do not migrate are the 0578 Expansion Drawer and the 5075 and 5078 Expansion Towers.
• As for other iSeries feature codes, the i5 520 and 570 support many but not all of them. IBM provides lists of supported feature codes in the announcement letters for these models. Click here to read the Model 520 announcement letter; click here to read the Model 570 announcement letter.

Upgrade Options for the iSeries 820

If you own an iSeries 820, your upgrade considerations are much different from those of the Model 810 user. Unlike the 810, the 820 was one of the original iSeries models that came with interactive feature codes that provided incremental amounts of 5250 application performance. Since all 820s have interactive capabilities, customers can only upgrade them to an iSeries 8xx Enterprise Edition or i5 Enterprise Edition. This is reflected in the following table, which compares prices for upgrades of the 820 to the iSeries 8xx and i5 servers.

As you study this table, please note that it only presents a representative sample of Model 820 processor feature codes. Due to the large number of feature codes for this model, there was not adequate space to present every upgrade option within the 820 product line. The table also does not show the available upgrades from the Model 820 to the 870-2486. However, it does show every 820-to-i5 upgrade option.

¹ List prices and costs per CPW for upgrades to the iSeries 825, iSeries 870, and i5 570 are based on upgrades to servers with the minimum number of activated processors.

² An upgrade to this model is available, but the upgrade requires that additional processors be activated running either OS/400 or Linux. Upgrade prices vary based on the number of processor activations and the selection of either OS/400 or Linux for the activated processors.

As the above table reveals, there are considerable differences in how IBM has structured prices for upgrades to the iSeries 8xx models versus those to the i5 servers. Customers that upgrade from the 820 to the i5 520 will pay dramatically lower costs per CPW than they would if they were to upgrade to 8xx models with comparable performance. By contrast, most of the upgrades from the 820 to the i5 570 cost more on a per CPW basis than comparable upgrades to the iSeries 825 and 870. Admittedly, the 570 has On Demand capabilities that the iSeries 825 and 870 do not have, not to mention the ability to support AIX LPARs. Moreover, many upgrades from the 820 to the 570 will cost less over the long term than upgrades to an 825 or 870 because of the lower maintenance costs of the 570. In addition, upgrades to the 570-0920 put customers in the P30 software tier rather than the more expensive P40 software tier of the iSeries 870-2489. For some iSeries 820 customers, however, these differences may not be adequate reasons to jump to the 570. As such, it is likely that many 820 customers will be able to negotiate significant discounts on 570 upgrades if they ask for them.

There are several other factors you should take into consideration when considering any Model 820 upgrade option. Here are the most important ones:

• You cannot migrate any of your 820 memory to the i5, so consider memory costs as part of your purchase decision. You can, however, migrate the disk drives and I/O towers mentioned earlier in this article.

• The upgrade prices in the above table do not include promotional discounts that IBM is currently offering on upgrades from the iSeries 820 to the Model 810 and 825. Those discounts are either 15% or 7%, depending on the interactive feature code of your server. You can get these discounts if you receive shipment of an 810 or 825 upgrade before June 30, 2004. If these discounts could play a factor in your upgrade decision, click here to access IBM's announcement of the promotion.

More to Come

While this article may give you a head start on your upgrade plans, developing a solid strategy takes far more information and analysis than I can present here. As such, I would encourage you to talk with your IBM sales representative or Business Partner to expand your understanding of this complex subject. And remember, if you own an iSeries 825 or larger 8xx server, come back next week to see my study of your upgrade options.

Lee Kroon is a Senior Industry Analyst for Andrews Consulting Group, a firm that helps mid-sized companies manage business transformation through technology. You can reach him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Also Read

The Effects of COVID-19 on the IBM i Ecosystem

Dissecting the HelpSystems IBM i Marketplace Survey

IBM i Receives Package Manager Support