Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.misc > #10006 > unrolled thread

Server retired after 18 years and ten months

Back to article view | Back to comp.misc

Contents

  Server retired after 18 years and ten months Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-01-15 18:41 +0000
    Re: Server retired after 18 years and ten months Ian McCall <ian@eruvia.org> - 2016-01-15 22:28 +0000
      Re: Server retired after 18 years and ten months RS Wood <rswood@therandymon.com> - 2016-01-16 16:02 +0400

#10006 — Server retired after 18 years and ten months

http://m.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/14/server_retired_after_18_years_and_ten_months_beat_that_readers/#content

Quoting from the URL above:

   The Register has learned, thanks to a post to a semi-private mailing
   list, of a server that has just been decommissioned after running
   without replacement parts since 1997.

   The post, made by a chap named Ross, says he "Just switched off our
   longest running server."

   Ross says the box was "Built and brought into service in early 1997" and
   has "been running 24/7 for 18 years and 10 months."

   "In its day, it was a reasonable machine - 200MHz Pentium, 32MB RAM, 4GB
   SCSI-2 drive," Ross writes. "And up until recently, it was doing its job
   fine." Of late, however the "hard drive finally started throwing errors,
   it was time to retire it before it gave up the ghost!" The drive's a
   Seagate, for those of looking to avoid drives that can't deliver more
   than 19 years of error-free operations.

   The FreeBSD 2.2.1 box "collected user session (connection) data
   summaries, held copies of invoices, generated warning messages about
   data and call usage (rates and actual data against limits), let them do
   realtime account enquiries etc."

   ...

[toc] | [next] | [standalone]

#10010

On 2016-01-15 18:41:02 +0000, Rich <rich@example.invalid> said:

> http://m.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/14/server_retired_after_18_years_and_ten_months_beat_that_readers/#content

 
> 
>  Ross says the box was "Built and brought into service in early 1997" and
>    has "been running 24/7 for 18 years and 10 months."
> 
>    <snip>

>   The FreeBSD 2.2.1 box "collected user session (connection) data
>    summaries, held copies of invoices, generated warning messages about
>    data and call usage (rates and actual data against limits), let them do
>    realtime account enquiries etc."

Fun story for the electronics of course, but that's obviously a 
terrible, terrible idea. Holds invoices? Real time account enquiries? 
Sounds like business critical processes to me, and to have them on such 
an supported environment is just foolish.

They later say it took a lot of work to move the reports to a new 
machine. The work would still have been worth it, but even if they'd 
done something as simple as dd the drive to some virtual machine and 
then run the same system on non-EOL hardware, they'd -still- be better 
off.

Clear example of penny wise, pound foolish.


Cheers,
Ian

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#10018

> Fun story for the electronics of course, but that's obviously a 
> terrible, terrible idea. Holds invoices? Real time account enquiries? 
> Sounds like business critical processes to me, and to have them on such 
> an supported environment is just foolish.
> 
> They later say it took a lot of work to move the reports to a new 
> machine. The work would still have been worth it, but even if they'd 
> done something as simple as dd the drive to some virtual machine and 
> then run the same system on non-EOL hardware, they'd -still- be better 
> off.
> 
> Clear example of penny wise, pound foolish.

... but they earn full geek cred of course.  

Gosh, imagine cqlling your company only to learn they are storing
 your info on a pentium 2. Yikes.

It occurs to me the cost in electricity alone for the hardware
 would be far greater than newer machines.

[toc] | [prev] | [standalone]

Back to top | Article view | comp.misc

csiph-web