idownvotepunstoo

You're correct they don't have the up time, identical system builds and hardware virtualization generally is used to combat this with wide, memory dense clusters; DELL makes garbage, HP is nearing that same classification with driver/firmware issues in the DL series of hardware... and CISCO is possibly the front runner for best in breed of x86, but you pay for it...

As for expertise, with x86, server virtualization and *nix / Windows engineers being more prevalent and cheaper to train, what has IBM done in the last couple years to combat the retiring demographic of Admins/Engineers that have been around almost as long as the product?

P.S. Mass storage guy, generally interested as IBM products (Namely, the 'mainframe' and POWER systems) interest me and the architecture has always been viewed by myself as superior, just usually cost prohibitive from the upstart, annual support and cost of expertise. Working at a hospital; but what do I know, I'm just a storage/windows flunky ;)

How does IBM stay competitive vs generic x86 architecture and server virtualization being the dominant force behind most environments currently? To be blunt, white box x86 systems are cheaper than dirt some times and a menagerie of applications for those systems are practically falling off the shelves, what helps you guys maintain your edge in the medium to large business market?

You obviously didn't repost the same shit, also independent thought gets you the big DV commonly.