NetWare 3.12 Server Taken Down After 16 Years of Continuous Duty 187
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica's Peter Bright reports on a Netware 3.12 server that has been decommissioned after over 16 years of continuous operation. The plug was pulled when noise from the server's hard drives become intolerable. From the article: 'It's September 23, 1996. It's a Monday. The Macarena is pumping out of the office radio, mid-way through its 14 week run at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, doing little to improve the usual Monday gloom...Sixteen and a half years later, INTEL's hard disks—a pair of full height 5.25 inch 800 MB Quantum SCSI devices—are making some disconcerting noises from their bearings, and you're tired of the complaints. It's time to turn off the old warhorse.'"
Re:Is this supposed to be a good thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Netware 3.12 was quite secure and rock solid. It did one thing (file and print serving) very, very well. It's a testament to good software design. The fact that you make light of it probably indicates that you were not in the IT field back then and have no sense of perspective. I wasn't a huge Netware fan, being more of an OS/2 and Unix guy back in the day, but I had a great deal of respect for the product.
16 years and they did not run of space on it? (Score:4, Insightful)
16 years and they did not run of space on it?
also good hardware not to fail in some way other that time. Did they hot swap UPS batteries over the years as well?
Re:patch much (Score:4, Insightful)
"My linux systems require constant patching for them not to be p0wned by script kiddies. Therefore it follows that every other system is the same.".
Love that logic.
Re:Seriously? (Score:3, Insightful)
So? Is there some rule requiring every tech website to report unique content?
I don't follow Arstechnica, so I'm glad that having been on Arstechnica doesn't disqualify something from being on slashdot.
Re:patch much (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess (the article didn't say) is that they were using it for something really specific.
It's pretty obvious the only thing they were using it for was to watch the runtime go up and up.
The drive bearings had been noticeably failing for quite some time. The operators might pay some lip service as to why that somehow didn't matter, but the bottom line is - if the risk of a drive failure during operation isn't a problem, the machine isn't serving any real purpose.