Sunday, April 27, 2008

Entering the state of readiness

Planning is the power behind readiness, that ability to respond to challenges and seize opportunities. In the 3000 community, few kinds of customers do more planning than manufacturers — that's why their software systems have been called Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) and then Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Both are a bulwark of the 3000's populace and power.

With MRP and ERP in mind, then, it follows that one of the most established advisors to 3000 manufacturing firms has started a new service: HP 3000 legacy readiness. Specifically, the Support Group Inc. is now offering HP 3000 sites Ready State Legacy Support, a service which lets an organization store its 3000 platform with tSGi at a new datacenter in Austin, Texas.

Although the Support Group's Ready-State makes a physical space for your HP 3000, the service's biggest benefit may be the care and feeding of the 3000. The Support Group gives the 3000 customer experienced managers to keep a system available, without the cost of headcount.

Loaded headcounts — the kind which include benefits and training — can run from $80,000 to $130,000 yearly for HP 3000 experts, according to the Support Group. These experts might be managing a migration by now, while the HP 3000 needs to remain available. Expertise is the creamy nougat of Ready-State.

HP 3000 and MPE/iX experience might be the most essential part of the Ready-State offering. As community members age and seasoned managers retire or leave their posts, the 3000 world is battling brain-drain. Even though applications inside companies can be up-to-date, man- and woman-power to maintain these systems is falling below needed resource levels.

Budgets to employ these experts are shrinking, too, along with the capital costs to keep upgrading HP 3000s in a homesteading environment — whether it's the interim homesteader working on a migration, or a permanent homesteader looking to reduce costs.

Ready-State is aimed at the migrating customer first, any company which is moving off production use of a 3000 but wants to keep their system ready for archives, reporting or regulatory compliance. Rather than move all the software and data to another system, Ready-State takes on the server altogether.

So the TSG Ready State service offers what's in shrinking supply to the community: seasoned 3000 pros to boot up a system monthly and ensure it can do month-end or yearly reporting, or access for a remote system which a customer once used onsite.

Your system will be prepared, validated, operationally tested, and then cocooned in a ready-system state. At anytime during your annual agreement, authorized users may request access (based on your security requirements).

tSGi system administrators will boot, load and verify application software. You'll have the peace of mind knowing that within four hours of your formal request, your HP 3000 or VAX will be up and running with modem/VPN /Internet access to your authorized users.