Hi.

Please help me get a copy of Baan IV Sizing Guide (pdf format) P3004x US.
send it to azzam@robian.com.sa

Jazakallah

Sizing guides are only given to partners, and other people that signed a NDA. Feel free to contact SSA or a partner. They should be willing to help you.

Kind regards,
Dick

Finally we can proceed with the sizing somehow. Thank you so much everyone.

Actually I never understood why Baan/SSA is keeping that sizing information that confidential. It's of the most basic interest for everyone interested in buying that software. If I want to sell software, it should be the most normal thing in the world that I tell my potential customer (and also everyone else who is interested) what hardware they need and that I make that sizing transparent by publishing all relevant information. Keeping that information as a business secret is ridiculous and contra-productive in every possible way. I doubt that the little extra revenue that is generated this way weights out the damage that ist done. By the way: SAP documentation is freely available on their web site (help.sap.com). No need to register, no need to pay support contract fees. It was already a great step for Baan when they made available their documentation to their customers (which also should be a natural thing to do, but obviously wasn't a long time). But they still have a lot to learn, it seems. Selling ERP Software is selling confidence and trust, not exposing a strategy where your customers get the feeling they have to pay for every little information they need.

Uli

SAP is a lot more strict on what you can, or cannot do with their software. They're not nearly as "open" as Baan, so that makes it a lot easier to come up with a set of rules for what you should size your box to. Baan takes the approach that every customer's site and needs are different, and the only way to properly size your box is to have someone who knows how do it.

Additionally sizing guides used to be available, my guess is that someone sized their box to spec, found out that it wasn't enough and sued. Baan can't afford that, I'm sure SAP can...

Even more -- if you haven't looked at the new SSA Installation guides, you should, they have kernel paramaters, etc. Doesn't tell you about CPU and memory, but it will give you ideas on what your max_dsize should be, which is better than it used to be..

Baan's not the only company that does this sort of thing.. Try to get one of EMCs sizing / implementation guides (for oracle for example..).

Dave

Uli,

On top of what Dave already mentioned:
- Buying HW is only a small percentage of the total cost of ownership. So, it is important, but not that important as you mention.
- Sizing is not that easy and too many customers sized their box the wrong way because they don't have insight in what is really needed. It is a way of preventing customers for their themself.

Hope this helps,
Dick