This blog highlights a growing IBM i administration trend – IBM i (iSeries/AS400) application hosting
A key business management principle is delegation.
Perhaps that is why I hear more IBM i executives who are interested in cloud hosting. Quite simply, they want to delegate their IBM i administration.
More frequently I hear interest in outsourcing IBM i administration from 3 groups:
1. Those who need IBM i administration skills,
2. Those who are interested in lowering their IT costs, and
3. Those who want to ensure IBM i application continuity.
Let me explain.
Those Who Need IBM i Administrative Skills
Several factors influence this group.
First, more frequently businesses that rely on IBM i applications have newer IT personnel with little or no IBM i background.
Second, more of these businesses also experience a decline of IBM i skills accessibility. This occurs due to a combination of retirement and a shrinking pool of affordable experienced IBM i talent to recruit from.
Yet, these businesses rely on core IBM i applications.
Even if these businesses plan to move from the IBM i to another platforms, the migration can take years. And, the IBM i system may still need to be required for industry compliance and future queries.
Delegating IBM i administration to a cloud hosting provider can easily satisfy the decline of accessible IBM i talent.
While the common allure of cloud hosting includes lowering IT costs, operating expense instead of a capital investment and flexibility for resources, performance and length of term, the IBM i expertise becomes more attractive to those how want to delegate IBM i admiration.
With cloud hosting, these IBM i users rely on the provider to manage the IBM i server, the backups, the data center infrastructure, and OS software updates. This way, IT management can focus their efforts on other business priorities instead of management IBM i.
Those Who Are Interested In Lowering Their IT Costs
If there is one constant in business it’s change. And many of us have seen our revenues remain flat or decline for causes out of our control.
Even in good times, most IT executives I know are concerned with costs … and how to lower them when possible.
IBM i talent may leave. It may not be replaceable due to a combination of budget constraints and rising cost for a shrinking pool of IBM i talent.
As a result, more frequently I hear of IBM i users who want to compare IBM i cloud hosting to a newer on-premise server with the expectation that hosting with IBM i expertise will be less expensive. Frequently, IBM i cloud hosting is less expensive than an on-premise server total cost of ownership.
This is especially true when IT executives isolate the cost of IBM i and infrastructure management costs compared to the costs managing their on-premise resources.
Those Who Want To Ensure IBM i Application Continuity
I have heard from more IBM i managers in their mid-to-late sixties who are planning for retirement. They have been involved with their business for decades. In fact, they were instrumental in the creation and evolution of the core applications that run the business.
While they know that the IBM i applications will remain central to their business, as part of their retirement planning they want to be sure IBM i support is readily accessible for continuity.
Those in this group can confidently delegate their applications to a competent IBM i cloud hosting provider for continuity. They discover this in the evaluation, testing and hosting process.
Summary
When we started Cloud400 IBM i application hosting we thought lower IT costs, flexibility and an SSAE-16 secure, redundant data center were the primary benefits.
Those benefits are still important.
Surprising to me, IBM i expertise has become more significant that we had originally thought for all the reasons above that I mentioned.
That explains why more IBM i users are interested in delegating their IBM i administration.
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