Servers

How often should you change out your servers? We have had two of our servers for three years now and our IT company is telling us it is time to switch them out. Can anyone help me with this decision?

Firstly, I would ask what "Time to switch them out" means. What is the IT company's criteria for switching them out? Are they leased? Is the lease up? Do they have a boat payment due?

The driving factors for replacing a server usually boil down to unbearably slow speed, or increasing hardware failure rates due to age. Are you experiencing either?

In this day and age of computers, the IT company will really need to give you a business case justification to convince you to replace a server simply because it is three years old.

During the 90s, each generation of hardware was seemingly an order of magnitude better than the previous generation. There were marked improvements from one to the next. Replacing server hardware typically got you a big performance boost during those years.

Nowadays, the increases in performance from one year to the next has slowed. Last years machine's are not considerably slower than the new models As such, there is a reduced incentive to replace hardware simply for the speed increase.

Eight years old... maybe. Three? I am going to need more convincing. And in any event, the prospect of replacing the server should come from your side of the table, rather than the IT company.

How often should you change your underwear?

Answer: it depends.

Give us some more information on what the servers are doing and what operating system they're running, and maybe we can give you a better answer here.

Unless you know a lot about IT, consider deferring to your IT dept on that decision.

If our org changed out servers unnecessarily every 3 years, we'd be more poor than we already are.  We have some servers that been working for the past 10 years flawlessly.  Others we've had to replace after 5 years.  The rule of thumb for us.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 

Another consideration is availability of repair parts if you need a power supply or disk drive, are they still available?  If you are concerned about availability, then current hardware with a maintenance agreement will give you quicker restore time than scrounging for parts for a 7+ year old server.  (our bread and butter server is seven years old and my concerns are 1.  Restore time from hardware failure in finding parts or another platform to run on,  2.  Performance issues where our processing needs are larger that the server was designed for so some things take longer to process that what would be preferred.  (a large report may take 5 to 10 minutes to run rather than 30 seconds)   3.  aged OS on server that is not supported and I will not add new apps to the existing platform (if it isn't broke don't fix it) )

Changing servers is often more than just hardware replacement, are you upgrading your software at the same time, do your apps support the new OS software among other concerns that weigh in on determining your replacement time frame.

Dave

Do I hear an arguement for virtual servers?  :)  This is one reason why my company is virtualizing everything it can.  The virtual servers run on just about any replacement hardware.

Anyhow, I think you are right to question this.  I use old computer for simple server tasks all the time.  Most people have a misconception that servers need to be the most powerful, expensive computer in the agency.  In actuality, they merely should be the most reliable.  This doesn't always translate into the most expensive, especially if you aren't replacing them every 3 years.  If you spend more on a server up front its likely to last you many years down the road.

Very good points Chris.  We will be trying to virtualize a few of our older application servers in an effort to reduce power consumption, and to avoid having to repair an old server if something should fail. 

If you're talking about a simple file server in your office, that is one application--but if you are talking about a DB server for a high traffic Website that is entirely different thing.  What are you using the server for exactly?

We vitalize as much as we can and as a 'rule of thumb', change-out servers every 3-4 years. Determining factors are commonly:

- Onsite warranty period (usually 3 years - important to us because of rural locations)

- Long term planning projections for any increase in system capacity requirements

- Environmental considerations (newer technologies that run leaner, cooler, take up less space etc.)

- Availability of support and parts

donc:

We vitalize as much as we can

LOL - gotta love this spell-checker... should have read: We virtualise as much as we can..."

haha, Don.  virtualization is vital!

for me, minimum is 5 yrs. since I buy server with 5 yrs warranty anyway.  after that, I will keep using it until it break. then replace it.

Virtualization is great idea but make sure your server has enough power/memory/storage to handle it.  you don't want to host 10 VM with 1 NIC card.  You can start with Xenserver or vmware ESXi (both free)

We are a relatively large non-profit and have been on a 3 year replacement cycle.  until recently.  now I've been told that the 5 yr old has to go 3 more years (it's currently the oldest and I was denied its upgrade last year and this year).  

Keep in mind that we lose power FREQUENTLY and until very recently, not even UPS on the servers.  The hardware has taken many many hits.  Next power outage, maybe some servers don't come back.  Has already happened to me, once this year, once last. 

Being that I'm the dba and software developer and support all users of the apps myself, I do not subscribe to "if it ain't broke don't fix it" because BROKE = EMERGENCY.  That's for-sure outage, possible data corruption and days and days of disaster recovery.  The impact is huge.

Planning and executing a replatform is much easier on everyone. 

I guess each org makes it's own decision - be proactive or reactive.   I would prefer to be proactive but am forced into reactive. 

geekette: I do see your pain.  It's depend who is denied the request.  CEO or CIO?? for me, CIO is on my side and we use every problem  and blame on to old server to justify the replacement.  because down server = user not able to do the work = lost time and money.

Underwear should be changed at least every three days.  Two days would be better and 5 days is regrettable for the people around you.

Underwear change survery