When You Need Expert IBM i Cloud Hosting, Who You Gonna Call?
Computer Geeks…or Computer Geezers?
Computer geeks? You know the type. They are young, intense (maybe too many energy drinks?), and computer smart. In fact, they will be the first to tell you just how smart they are. They talk in tongues – an incomprehensible language of impressive sounding acronyms and techno-babble. It must be a secret language they practice during the midnight ritual of on line chatting or trying to hack the Pentagon.
But at the end of the day – how effective are they making your computer work right in a business environment?
Computer geezer? Now these are the guys that have been working on computers for 20-30 years – in some cases, even more. They have grey hair – if they still have hair. They have learned from experience – generally hard knocks – to speak like normal people and assess a situation before jumping in.
What’s the big deal?
Well, here is a real example.
A few years ago, a name-brand pharmaceutical company contacted us to host their IBM i application. They explained that their IBM AS400 ran PRMS on a 9406-640 at V4R5 since 1996. While they were in the process of migrating to SAP, industry compliance required that they have archive access to their PRMS system for 10 years.
After a few conference calls with this pharmaceutical company’s technical team, they no longer returned our calls. We assumed the project with us was dead.
Then they called us 60 days later.
Huh?
They explained that they had been impressed with a bigger hosting company with younger computer geeks. They had spent $10,000 to host PRMS at V4R5 — with NOTHING to show for the money they spent. The younger computer geeks said that both the software and the 3570 tape media were too old to upgrade.
They wanted to know if we could help.
Yes, we can help! To prove our capabilities we would migrate their system to a newer IBM POWER server at IBM i V4R5 at NO COST to them.
Initially, they were taken aback.
They asked how we could take on this assignment at no cost, when another well-known big hosting company that billed them $10,000 had failed.
We explained we had several advantages that competing hosting companies do not have.
- First, we have a 10,000 square foot warehouse full of IBM AS400s, IBM POWER servers, related parts and peripherals, and tape drives. For starts, there is no tape backup from any tape drive IBM has offered since 1988 that we cannot read.
- Second, we have been working on IBM AS400 since 1988. In fact, we worked on System/38 (the AS400’s predecessor) since 1980. So we really know IBM OS400 and IBM i. We have a library of IBM OS400 and IBM i to draw upon to help with legacy systems.
- Third, we are computer “geezers.” Our technical team has a minimum of 20 years of hands-on experience. Several have up to 30 years and have trained other engineers to work on and service IBM POWER servers.
Well, the pharmaceutical company’s IT team decided to give us a chance.
And they were blown away when we had their system ready for testing on our IBM i cloud hosting server in 7 days.
Who you gonna call? COMPUTER GEEZERS!
