V5R1 Losing Support in two years! Better Hurry!

[David Abramowitz]

Unless there is a pressing need to be on the bleeding edge (and there's quite a precipitous fall from there) why bother? Shops will not be blind to the 19 month cycle. Installing a new release is expensive, time consuming (particularly if a shop is 24x7), and a general royal pain. Most shops will put off installing a new release if possible, and guess what? IBM's 19 month policy has not only made this possible, but actually preferable!!. Here's the rationale: A shop installs V4R5 at date "X". Support runs until date "Y" 19 months later. In the interim, release V5R1 is released, but before support expires, V5R2 will also be released, perhaps even V5R3! By the time the shop is forced to upgrade, it will make more sense to skip a release or two, than to perform multiple updates. Most managers would also prefer to bypass any release ending in "R1". BTW, I have two clients at V3R2, and they ain't movin'. When the topic of support comes up, they don't really care about the support of the OS. Now if IBM were to drop hardware support, that might be another issue. Dave

[Guest.Visitor]

You don't have a choice on V3R2 do you as far as upgrading, aren't you stuck with it because of hardware CISC? And with the hardware concern aren't they dropping hardware support this year sometime on that old hardware? AS/400 Guy.

[Guest.Visitor]

You can upgrade from V3R2 to V4R4 until 05/31/01 and V3R2 to V4R5 until some unspecified time in the future. However, if you are on a CISC box, you'll have to move to a RISC processor before you can upgrade anyway. Is V3R2 CISC? I never can remember. Too far back.

[David Abramowitz]

TTBOMK, There have been no whispers of support dropping for any AS/400 hardware. Dave

[Guest.Visitor]

TTBOMK, There have been no whispers of support dropping for any AS/400 hardware. au contraire...IBM to Kill Model 170, 7XX Gear Later This Year (http://www.midrangecomputing.com/iaa/article-5b.cfm#more) Also, MMU has reported over the last year or so about the death of the 4xx/5xx boxes as well as the 6xx and Sxx boxes too.

[David Abramowitz]

There is a difference between stopping the production of hardware, and the continued maintenance of hardware no longer being produced. IBM has assured this client (paying monthly hardware maintenance fees) that they will continue to maintain the hardware. Dave

[Guest.Visitor]

So No matter how old my AS/400 is Model 200, I have hardware support until I decide to get rid of it? Disk drive fails need a new comm card or anything like that I will have support from IBM? AS/400 Guy

[Guest.Visitor]

With the V5R1 announcement, IBM has also stated that it will no longer support V5R1 after May 31, 2003. So if you want to install it and use it, you'd better hurry! FYI, V4R4 loses IBM support on May 31 of this year (2001) and V4R5 loses IBM support on July 31 of 2002. That's about a 19 month life cycle for V4R5 and a 24 month life cycle for V5R1. In case you were wondering, here are the the upgrade paths to V5R1: V4R3 to V4R5 - Single Step Upgrade V4R3 to V5R1 - Must first upgrade to V4R5 V4R4 to V4R5 - Single Step Upgrade V4R4 to V5R1 - Single Step Upgrade V4R5 to V5R1 - Single Step Upgrade So if you are at V4R4 right now, (support ends at the end of May this year), you'd be better off upgrading to V5R1 without first stopping at V4R5. If you are at V4R3 or below, you'll have to perform some "step" upgrades from one release to another, until you get to V4R4 or V4R5.

[David Abramowitz]

Yes, That is why IBM is taking your money month after month. Dave

[Guest.Visitor]

<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Nick,</FONT></DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Yes, until they discontinue service for it. We had a bunch of terminals go on non-support a couple of years ago. They will send you a letter whenever they decide to end service support for any of your equipment.</FONT></DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Bill</FONT></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px">So No matter how old my AS/400 is Model 200, I have hardware support until I decide to get rid of it? Disk drive fails need a new comm card or anything like that I will have support from IBM? </BLOCKQUOTE>