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Booted up in 1993, this server still runs – but not for much longer (2017)

193 points · 110 comments · doener

  1. colonwqbang · · focus · HN ↗
    When you think about it, 24 years is not such a long time for a machine to keep doing what it's supposed to be doing. It says something about our profession that we find a 24-year service life surprising.

    There are airliners that have been in service for over 50 years.

    1. asah · · focus · HN ↗
      yabut... airliners require constant maintenance and periodic rebuilds.
      1. andrew_lettuce · · focus · HN ↗
        Not to mention service disruptions and unplanned downtime.
      2. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

        [deleted]

      3. bitwize · · focus · HN ↗
        One of the major differences between like, your PC, and a high-availability server is that high-availability servers require those things as well—and get them, piecewise, while still running. It's like doing a complete overhaul while the plane is flying.

        IBM mainframes, famously, phone home if they detect a faulty component. Service personnel will be on site, same day, to replace it before you even knew it was there, let alone had the opportunity to ask.

        1. organsnyder · · focus · HN ↗
          I wonder how many datacenters bother with those sorts of things anymore, given how many workloads are no longer tied to individual nodes. Seems like it would just be easier to accept that a certain percentage of nodes will be down at any one time, and go through and repair/replace them as needed.
          1. bitwize · · focus · HN ↗
            Cloudslop doesn't provide high availability the way high-availability platforms provide high availability. IBM is still doing brisk mainframe business. You won't find mainframes in many data centers because you need nearly a data center's worth of hardware to provide the volume and availability of one mainframe, and that can fit in one cabinet. (Mainframes also benefited from VLSI; new ones aren't dinosaurs that require three-phase power, their own floor of a building, and their own aircon infra.)
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