With half of the low-end mainframe base set to defect to other platforms, IBM is doing everything in its power to try to sell customers a new machine and modern software. To that end, IBM has re-jigged its PC Server S/390 line of servers so they fully support mainframe disks and peripherals and equipped them with relatively inexpensive systems software, in an effort to hold back at least some of the tide that is increasingly flowing into the AS/400, Unix and NT server markets.
By Timothy Prickett Morgan
IBM announced the first P/390 servers several years ago. The original machines came with an RS/6000 processor, running Unix, and a special daughter processor card that could run S/390 applications. That S/390 processor card did not use one of the 9672’s micro390 CMOS chips, but rather a specialized VLSI gate array that was programmed to implement the S/390 instruction set. The 9672 CMOS chips are in fact large multichip modules that ran many times faster than the 6 MIPS that the P/390 daughter card provided, and they were so expensive to make and test that IBM couldn’t afford to use them in a low-cost machine. It would be no different than Intel putting a 450 megahertz Xeon Pentium II chip in a $750 PC. IBM thought that a machine such as the P/390 would make it easier for software developers to port their Unix applications to the OS/390 mainframe environment; Big Blue announced a similar P/390 some time later that used an IBM 500 series PC server as the base chassis to hold the S/390 daughter card, again to try to get application developers to port code to the mainframe. It was immediately obvious to everyone that such a machine might or might not be a hit among independent software vendors, but it would be perfect for the vast base of 9370, 4300, 3080 and 9221 customers who haven’t bought a machine in five, ten or fifteen years. To keep people from thinking such thoughts, IBM didn’t support old 3350, 3370, 3380 and 3390 mainframe disks or their channels directly on the P/390, it didn’t support the 9332, 9335 and 9336 disks used with the 9370s, either; nor did it support other channel-attached peripherals. Some of the mainframe software implemented on the box reportedly was also not kosher MVS, VM or VSE, and subsequently those few vintage mainframe customers who bought a P/390 to support production workloads did so at their own risk and without the help of Big Blue. With the S/390 Integrated Server follow-on to the P/390, which starts shipping in volume on November 12, that will all change. The 3006-B01 is a fully-fledged member of the S/390 line and IBM is absolutely trying to get vintage S/390 – or more precisely, vintage S/370 – customers to buy this box rather than leave the S/390 fold. The Integrated Server uses the same exact P/390 daughter card, only this time it comes configured with maximum memory, 256 megabytes of main memory accessible by OS/390, MVS/ESA, VM/ESA or VSE/ESA operating systems, all of which are supported on the box. The base box also comes with a Pentium II processor running at 266 megahertz and 36 gigabytes of SSA RAID 5 disk capacity; disk capacity can be increased to 255 gigabytes internally and customers can use PCI-based or ISA-based ESCON or parallel channel cards to connect standard mainframe channels to the box, too. The PC side of the Integrated Server must run OS/2 Warp. Windows NT and Novell NetWare are not support on the Integrated Server, and very likely won’t be given the fact that most of its buyers aren’t going to use that side of the box for more than simple print and file serving. All OS/390 releases – 1.1 to 2.6 – are supported on the 3006-B01. So are the following S/390 operating systems: MVS/ESA 4.2, 4.3, 5.1 and 5.2; VM/ESA 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3; and VSE/ESA 1.4, 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3. This software is available under the Entry Support License (ESL) fee schedule from IBM, which offers the software licenses only under a one-time charge scheme rather than the monthly payment scheme IBM prefers for most of its mainframe customers. (With ESL, IBM gets a big wad of cash at the front end rather than a continuous revenue stream, but even still, the ESL fees are much lower than the fees customers would pay if they moved to a low-end Multiprise 2003 server, which in some cases would not have much more power.) The box also comes with an integrated communications adapter that lets the Integrated Server manage existing SNA coaxial terminal networks. The base S/390 Integrated Server costs $49,990; $18,855 of that goes toward the purchase of the S/390 daughter card, which sells at $3,000 per MIPS rather than the $5,000 per MIPS of the high-end 9672 line and as high as $6,500 per MIPS at the low-end of the Multiprise line (IBM charges a lot for the base box and the ability to expand its processing and disk capacity if need be). Additional 18-gigabyte SSA disks cost $3,600 each, and additional RAID 5 controllers cost $2,013. Peripheral prices, including ESCON and parallel channel adapters, range from hundreds to thousands of dollars. So the hardware for a reasonably configured Integrated Server could easily run to $60,000 or $70,000. OS/2 Warp version 4 costs $1,299 for the box and is required since OS/2 ends up managing PCI and ISA peripherals and their controllers. OS/390 costs $32,930, and it includes most of the core MVS programs customers will want to run their old S/370 applications. That OS/390 bundle does not include the DB2 data base management system, which costs $8,390, or the CICS transaction monitor program, which costs $10,400. For those who want to go with older software, MVS JES3 V4.3 costs $12,910 and DB2 for it ranges from $4,330 to $7,275, depending on the version, and CICS runs to $9,035. The IMS/ESA data base costs $7,985 and the IMS/ESA transaction manager costs $9,465. VM/ESA costs $13,760 and VSE/ESA costs $9,615. In all cases, customers will probably spend several tens of thousands of dollars buying other system programs not included in the base operating system licenses. That brings the final price to between $100,000 and $135,000, not including discounts, which could be either non- existent, if IBM feels it is giving customers a great deal already, or substantial – 25% to 35% seems likely, as high as 55% if IBM is really hungry to maintain that vintage S/370 base. But seeing as though IBM will soon either sell to these customers or lose them forever, big discounts seem unlikely. This is IBM’s last stand at the low end of the S/390 line, and that’s the deal, take it or leave it.
