We recently tried to be helpful for a 3000 manager who was desperate to get an MPE/iX server back online in steady, reliable service. Our role was just to feed questions to the volunteer force of experts on 3000-L and then pass back answers to the manager. The experience led us to think about what any company should do to fail at using a 3000 for mission-critical service.

Be assured, following these helpful hints will ensure your 3000 cannot do its work.

1. Do your support with someone who'll just help out from time to time. Save your support budget for your other servers that are mission-critical. Let the 3000 fend off errors with volunteer help.
2. Let your inventory of spares of the 3000's moving parts take care of themselves. A power supply or a hot-spare CPU board takes up a lot of room; set aside space for more modern computer components. Someone will be able to find something soon enough when trouble comes up.
3. When a software or network problem starts to occur, give the situation awhile to work itself out for a few months. Save your support budget for the time when things are crashing because they've gotten serious.
4. When your support vendor bills you on your 3000, let that expense take the same place as less-critical services. This isn't a vaccine, after all. It's just support for mission-critical servers.
5. Make it clear to your management you're saving money by using the 3000 in a mission-critical role. Reinforce the cost-effective nature of the use of MPE/iX by keeping the software on 15-year-old HP hardware.
6. If No. 6 might raise attention you're using MPE/iX, keep the age and support matters internal to datacenter planning. A 9x9 with no support provider is a fine way to ensure the future.