Al Sherkow
2004-11-12 19:58:43 UTC
IBM really changed this discussion when the z990 had one Announced MSU
size, and a smaller MSU number for Software Pricing.
With their "mainframe charter" (22 August 2003) IBM announced on the web
what they called "Improved Software Pricing on z990 Servers", with an
effective date of 10Oct2003. They created what I named "Software Pricing
MSUs" (SWPMSUS), though none of IBM's material uses that term. These MSUs
did not change the "announced MSU Capacity of the z990", but the Software
Pricing MSUs are approximately 10% smaller than the "Announced MSUs" of the
z990s. This decreased the cost of all IBM software that was charged on a
capacity basis; including PSLC, WLC, and ULC. IBM also was encouraging ISVs
to adopt these Software Pricing MSUs for any of their capacity based
pricing plans. You can read about this at the following link:
http://ibm.com/zseries/announce/charter/pricing.html
and the key information is in this paragraph:
"Improved Software Pricing on z990 Servers. Superior performance and
technology within the z990 has allowed IBM to provide improved software
prices for key IBM zSeries operating system and middleware software
products. The superior technology includes superscalar processing, native
"LPAR-only" mode of operation with the capability to support 30 LPARs,
support for multiple logical channel subsystems within a single system
footprint, and complete support of z/Architecture. While the announced z990
MSU values remain unchanged, IBM is pricing the designated software on z990
at lower MSU values than those previously announced. In order to implement
this IBM software pricing initiative on z990, IBM intends to lower the MSU
values generated by the z990 microcode by approximately 10 percent."
I wrote about this on my website on 23Aug2003 and again on 17Sep2003
(http://www.sherkow.com/updates/aug2003.html). IBM's actual announcement
letter was 103-280 dated October 7, 2003 "IBM enhances the IBM zSeries 990
family of servers". By changing the hardware microcode, any vendor that
asks for the capacity retrieves the SWPMSU numbers.
MSUs have all the same traditional problems as MIPS, with one major
difference. IBM publishes MSUs
(http://ibm.com/zseries/library/swpriceinfo/hardware.html) and IBM never
published MIPS; they have been doing relative capacity for years with LSPR.
It is consultants and IBM-Watchers (Gartner Group, Meta Group, Cheryl) that
publish MIP tables. IBM only wants you to use LSPR, but your management
probably wants a single number. MSUs are a single number for each machine
model. The LSPR provides information that matches our collective
experience, i.e. "not all workloads run with the exact same performance on
a given machine model. This is partly why the people who sell MIPS tables
usually provide a range of performance. I do not have Cheryl's or Gartner's
tables in front of me, though I've seen them in the past and they included
a range of performance. I believe they do not do their own testing, their
ranges are based on the LSPR, anecdotal information, and experiences from
their clients and customers. The old-timers will remember that years ago
large organizations actually "benchmarked" machines. I don't think any
company does this anymore except for the vendors. Benchmarking is too
expensive. Even IBM does not test each model relative to each other model,
they compare a representative sample so customers can use the LSPR to
compare various machines and models. Gary King has an excellent
presentation on MIPS, MSUs and LSPR. His long experience in capacity
planning and working for IBM is nicely pulled together in this session.
Don't just read the session material, but attend and listen to Gary if you
have the chance, as I did last week at the z/OS Expo conference.
In my presentations at Share, z/OS Expo, CMG, etc., I have been telling
people to swing their management thinking over to MSUs. If you are not
using MSUs you should start to do so. One step may be to put MIPS on the
left vertical axis and MSUs on the right axis of your capacity and
performance charts. MIPS for the historical reference they provide and MSUs
because that is now how the software pricing and the hardware are being
sized. This is especially relevant as the software costs typically
represent a larger percentage of the upgrade costs versus the hardware
costs. You might just as well report the SWPMSU number.
With the z890s IBM only announced the software pricing MSUs. If you look at
the SRM constants (SMF72ADJ) and crank through some arithmetic, you'll see
the SWPMSUs are about 10% less than the HWMSUs calculated from SMF72ADJ. I
expect that any future announcements from IBM will only be Software Pricing
MSUs. Also, IBM can again change how much "service" is delivered with
Software Pricing MSUs relative to the HWMSUs we can calculate from the SMF
constants.
I'm a mainframe proponent and proud of it. The difference between SWPMSUs
and HWMSUs is important to systems programmers, performance analysts and
capacity planners. With sub-capacity pricing there is now an opportunity
for the technical staff to have a direct impact on costs in the data
center. Tuning, besides improving performance and reducing resource usage,
can now more directly influence software charges. I have clients and
licensees saving money on their software charges month after month with
sub-capacity pricing.
Al Sherkow, I/S Management Strategies, Ltd.
Consulting on Capacity Planning, Performance Tuning,
WLC, LPARs, IRD, MSUs and LCS Software
Voice: +1 414 332-3062 Web: www.sherkow.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to ***@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
size, and a smaller MSU number for Software Pricing.
With their "mainframe charter" (22 August 2003) IBM announced on the web
what they called "Improved Software Pricing on z990 Servers", with an
effective date of 10Oct2003. They created what I named "Software Pricing
MSUs" (SWPMSUS), though none of IBM's material uses that term. These MSUs
did not change the "announced MSU Capacity of the z990", but the Software
Pricing MSUs are approximately 10% smaller than the "Announced MSUs" of the
z990s. This decreased the cost of all IBM software that was charged on a
capacity basis; including PSLC, WLC, and ULC. IBM also was encouraging ISVs
to adopt these Software Pricing MSUs for any of their capacity based
pricing plans. You can read about this at the following link:
http://ibm.com/zseries/announce/charter/pricing.html
and the key information is in this paragraph:
"Improved Software Pricing on z990 Servers. Superior performance and
technology within the z990 has allowed IBM to provide improved software
prices for key IBM zSeries operating system and middleware software
products. The superior technology includes superscalar processing, native
"LPAR-only" mode of operation with the capability to support 30 LPARs,
support for multiple logical channel subsystems within a single system
footprint, and complete support of z/Architecture. While the announced z990
MSU values remain unchanged, IBM is pricing the designated software on z990
at lower MSU values than those previously announced. In order to implement
this IBM software pricing initiative on z990, IBM intends to lower the MSU
values generated by the z990 microcode by approximately 10 percent."
I wrote about this on my website on 23Aug2003 and again on 17Sep2003
(http://www.sherkow.com/updates/aug2003.html). IBM's actual announcement
letter was 103-280 dated October 7, 2003 "IBM enhances the IBM zSeries 990
family of servers". By changing the hardware microcode, any vendor that
asks for the capacity retrieves the SWPMSU numbers.
MSUs have all the same traditional problems as MIPS, with one major
difference. IBM publishes MSUs
(http://ibm.com/zseries/library/swpriceinfo/hardware.html) and IBM never
published MIPS; they have been doing relative capacity for years with LSPR.
It is consultants and IBM-Watchers (Gartner Group, Meta Group, Cheryl) that
publish MIP tables. IBM only wants you to use LSPR, but your management
probably wants a single number. MSUs are a single number for each machine
model. The LSPR provides information that matches our collective
experience, i.e. "not all workloads run with the exact same performance on
a given machine model. This is partly why the people who sell MIPS tables
usually provide a range of performance. I do not have Cheryl's or Gartner's
tables in front of me, though I've seen them in the past and they included
a range of performance. I believe they do not do their own testing, their
ranges are based on the LSPR, anecdotal information, and experiences from
their clients and customers. The old-timers will remember that years ago
large organizations actually "benchmarked" machines. I don't think any
company does this anymore except for the vendors. Benchmarking is too
expensive. Even IBM does not test each model relative to each other model,
they compare a representative sample so customers can use the LSPR to
compare various machines and models. Gary King has an excellent
presentation on MIPS, MSUs and LSPR. His long experience in capacity
planning and working for IBM is nicely pulled together in this session.
Don't just read the session material, but attend and listen to Gary if you
have the chance, as I did last week at the z/OS Expo conference.
In my presentations at Share, z/OS Expo, CMG, etc., I have been telling
people to swing their management thinking over to MSUs. If you are not
using MSUs you should start to do so. One step may be to put MIPS on the
left vertical axis and MSUs on the right axis of your capacity and
performance charts. MIPS for the historical reference they provide and MSUs
because that is now how the software pricing and the hardware are being
sized. This is especially relevant as the software costs typically
represent a larger percentage of the upgrade costs versus the hardware
costs. You might just as well report the SWPMSU number.
With the z890s IBM only announced the software pricing MSUs. If you look at
the SRM constants (SMF72ADJ) and crank through some arithmetic, you'll see
the SWPMSUs are about 10% less than the HWMSUs calculated from SMF72ADJ. I
expect that any future announcements from IBM will only be Software Pricing
MSUs. Also, IBM can again change how much "service" is delivered with
Software Pricing MSUs relative to the HWMSUs we can calculate from the SMF
constants.
I'm a mainframe proponent and proud of it. The difference between SWPMSUs
and HWMSUs is important to systems programmers, performance analysts and
capacity planners. With sub-capacity pricing there is now an opportunity
for the technical staff to have a direct impact on costs in the data
center. Tuning, besides improving performance and reducing resource usage,
can now more directly influence software charges. I have clients and
licensees saving money on their software charges month after month with
sub-capacity pricing.
Al Sherkow, I/S Management Strategies, Ltd.
Consulting on Capacity Planning, Performance Tuning,
WLC, LPARs, IRD, MSUs and LCS Software
Voice: +1 414 332-3062 Web: www.sherkow.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to ***@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html