What Needs Replacing, at Its Heart?
October 22, 2014
Hewlett-Packard's 3000 hardware has started to show its age this year. Even the newest of servers was built at least 11 years ago. Although that's an impossible age for PCs or tablets, more than a decade isn't outrageous for systems created by HP. These things were built to the specs of spacecraft, on the good days of the manufacturing line in Roseville, Calif. and elsewhere.
However, even a server of rigorous construction has moving parts and electrical components with a finite lifespan. Lately we're been hearing from customers whose managers have awoken from a peaceful slumber, dreaming of limitless hardware lifetimes. Hey, say they, how did we ever get to be relying on computers built before Y2K?
At this point there are no questions about MPE/iX, or TurboIMAGE, or the pedigree of bash shell software, or the built-in the ODBC data connection capabilities, or jobstream management. These are all stand-up, solid citizens, even through their range of motion can be limited. (So is mine, but like the software above, I work to stay limber.)
No, this is all about the age of the iron. HP stopped building servers that ran MPE apps more than a decade ago. So, is it out those apps go, the baby tossed with the hardware bathwater? It's a simplistic way to approach system reliability. However, until recent years there was no newer hardware to lift those apps onto. Fresh steeds, in the shape of faster and newer computers, hadn't been in the stable in many years.
Users would like to move to implementation straight away, once they get that "What's up?" inquiry from the boardroom. The fastest path to Get Me Outta Here -- indeed, the most ready getaway car -- seems to be the Stromasys virtualization solution. There are more complete, wider-ranging moves. They take a great deal longer, because their details demand they move slower.
The best set of practices for each customer is only going to be checked rigorously using an assessment. Which programs are used, what data types are still viable, what networking and sharing services are on demand -- the answers to all of these give the perspective that sees farthest forward into the future of corporate IT strategy.
But if you want to move away from hardware only supported by third parties, computers not built or backed by their creators, the Stromasys Charon package using new iron -- even HP's -- is the fastest path that we have seen. The level of complexity to put MPE onto Linux hosts isn't trivial, but it's well tested. It looks like the kind of getaway vehicle that lets you take the big money of apps away from the bank, instead of just the bank book of application designs and data.