It's been many years since an HP 3000 appeared on a datacenter's budget. That's only true of the capital expenses for Hewlett Packard's hardware. It's been so long since the vendor billed for MPE/iX computing that the Hewlett-Packard corporation which sold 3000 iron has a new name. Hewlett-Packard Enterprise has been creating capital expenses by selling hardware that will be a legacy. Companies which continue to use HP hardware, even for MPE/iX, have faced expenses to maintain it.

Legacy iron form MPE/iX has become a lesser expense to purchase, but the cost to own is on the rise. Fewer support providers can service the hardware, a factor that can limit choices to assure uptime. Owning a classic computer like any PA-RISC machine can look like a value until something breaks down. The reports from this year's 3000 Reunion showed that the power supply issues are so yesterday. The latest crash point is magnetic storage media. Tape is trouble waiting to happen.

Although emulating HP's 3000 iron has been an option for more than six years now, the solution is still reaching for more traction among installed base customers. Stromasys is devoted to winning over datacenters one manager at a time. The company is putting up a webinar broadcast next week to show how legacy hardware expense can be reduced through virtualization.

The miracle of this virtualization is that HP's PA-RISC designs can be emulated without specialized hardware. In the earliest days of the emulation dream, one company set its sights on emulating 3000s using HP-built processors. Strobe Data had a Kestrel line that used HP chips as plug-in boards inside Intel PCs. A similar 3000 plan didn't get into development. Stromasys pursued the problem from an all-software aspect, since the company already had a Charon emulator working in Digital customers' datacenters.

On December 6 at 1 PM EST (a Thursday, register here)  the company's head of field engineering Dave Clements will present a plan for achieving a one-year return on investment using Charon. That ROI relies on reducing excessive operational expenses. For system owners like those in the Oracle Independent User Group, that translates into hardware upgrades and system vendor support contracts. In the MPE/iX market, those expenses are redundant HP system components and the expertise to install them.

The MPE/iX datacenter in some companies is running out of runway to keep the data departing and arriving as expected. Any additional expense calls out MPE/iX with the kind of attention no platform needs. "What do you mean we need a replacement HP box?" is just one step away from considering how to eliminate the MPE/iX applications that seem to need legacy iron. It doesn't help enough that a replacement N-Class server costs less than $5,000 in today's market.