How Do I Provide a Workstation To Last 15 Years? 655
An anonymous reader writes "My father is a veterinarian with a small private practice. He runs all his patient/client/financial administration on two simple workstations, linked with a network cable. The administration application is a simple DOS application backed by a database. Now the current systems, a Pentium 66mhz and a 486, both with 8MB of RAM and 500MB of hard drive space, are getting a bit long in the tooth. The 500MB harddrives are filling up, the installed software (Windows 95) is getting a bit flakey at times. My father has asked me to think about replacing the current setup. I do know a lot about computers, but my father would really like the new setup to last 10-15 years, just like the current one has. I just dont know where to begin thinking about that kind of systems lifetime. Do I buy, or build myself? How many spare parts should I keep in reserve? What will fail first, and how many years down the line will that happen?"
Moving parts are the main problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Hard drives and fans will be the first to fail as they have moving parts.
You can get systems that don't need fans, but replacing the hard drives with flash memory probably isn't going to help reliability.
short answer - you don't (Score:5, Interesting)
However, you should consider how to upgrade each part in isolation - or with small numbers of associated changes. That means using popular, but not bleeding-edge components. One's that (like with vintage cars) have a good number of enthusiasts using them. That means that spares will be available and the know-how to diagnose and fix problems will be available too.
The final fallback would be to buy two systems. Keep one in "deep freeze" until you need to cannabilse it for spares. However, don't expect the electrolytic capacitors to last that long.
Build your own system. Keep it solid and simple. (Score:2, Interesting)
Moving parts usually fail first; get some solid state hard drives. Avoid fans by using components with passive cooling; most importantly get an integrated video card and a passively cooled power supply. Running DOS software? Use freedos. No need to bother with full-blown Windows. Keep to name brand components and you should be fine. As long as you buy standard components, they should be easy enough to replace 15 years from now, don't go hog-wild stocking up on replacement parts. Good luck!
virtualization = future-proof. (Score:3, Interesting)
If the goal is to get legacy DOS software running on new hardware and being robust, then the most rock-solid option (and maybe the cheapest) will be to put it into a VM such as qemu or VMware. This will allow you to transplant it to new hardware, make/restore backups, far more seamlessly.
As for the hardware itself, have you considered a Soekris [soekris.com] box or similar?
Neurosine (Score:2, Interesting)
Most 15-year old Sun workstations are still useful (Score:5, Interesting)
Take an Ultra 1 or Ultra 2 - they are still rather useful computers, and the OS they run is rock solid by any standards. And there's a ton of software for them.
Now, I'm not suggesting that a 15 year old Sun Ultra 1 would be what your father is looking for, just that it is possible to have hardware that is both good quality and long lasting, and that it would run an OS and software that is still relevant nowadays. Sun did a great job at keeping Solaris backwards-compatible, both hardware-wise (supports older architectures) and software-wise (you can run a lot of vitnage software even on the newest Solaris).
Anyhow... an Ultra 1 is still a damn good computer.
Go server hardware (Score:5, Interesting)
Get server hardware. It's the only stuff built these days with reliability as the #1 concern. And get GOOD server hardware. That doesn't mean dual quads with 64gb ram, that means a well known line in a company known for servers. I'd probably go HP or IBM, and for what your father needs you can pick the bare minimum and it will be fine for years.
Remember when you spec this out, that #1 failures are those with moving parts, as others have said already. This means, when you build your server, you want the LOWEST capacity and LOWEST speed you can get, for reliability. The high capacity, high speed drives fail the quickest because they push the hardest. SSD might be a good alternative, but as yet the long-term reliability is unproven and they have a definite limited life-span (i.e. # of writes, how quickly that is used depends on the application), instead of a constant potential failure rate. The plus on that is there should be very little chance of a SSD failing until it actually reaches its end of life.
So, slowest fans you can get, or no fans if possible, and slowest HDD. You should probably go with as low a power CPU as possible also, to keep from taxing the PSU.
Also note, VM would be a heck of a lot of work to get going, but new migrations and failure recovery should be simpler. Gotta pick what works for you.
Your father might be in for a shock (Score:5, Interesting)
Your father might be in for a shock if he thinks he can keep running the same computer system for the next fifteen years. Almost all veterinary clinics have a web presence these days (if only contact info, a map, and some cute photos) so it's a cinch that in five years the bar will be raised to include real online functionality. Make an appointment, see when your dog is due for shots, see how much Poo-Poo weighed at his last checkup -- sounds nice, right? His current customers won't care if he falls behind, but without a steady stream of new customers, his practice will dwindle.
That means he needs to plan on new software. Software upgrades are much more painful and expensive than hardware upgrades, and new small business software has a way of running poorly on five-year-old machines. The next fifteen years will bring painful changes for his clinic's computer systems, much worse than simple hardware upgrades, and he is the one who will have to understand and deal with it. Of course, he might soon have the option of having his data and applications hosted elsewhere, so he might be able to keep the same hardware for the next fifteen years after all, but I don't think that scenario satisfies his current expectations.
Re:Build yourself (Score:1, Interesting)
When exactly software RAID is not the best option? I mean, any modern CPU can XOR several gigabytes per second... it's unlikely any RAID card can beat that. Of course you need good bandwidth from the card to CPU. Times have run past hardware RAID anyways...
Re:You don't. (Score:2, Interesting)
Clearly, this guy doesn't even need internet access, so there's no need to worry about operating system updates. All that's needed is reliable hardware and future-proof communication ports for backing up and migrating to the next system.
A low-power fanless ARM or x86 based system with a SLC flash drive and an ethernet port is all that's needed to meet those specs. The longevity of the flash drive isn't a problem, since even the smallest drives are many times larger than what he's already got, so the wear-leveling will keep the drive going for a very long time.
Re:Moving parts are the main problem (Score:5, Interesting)
ehm, Nand flash ram by itself is pretty fast, and Linux can natively handle it. Unfortunately, all available flash is slowed down behind some disk emulation chipset, which would make battery backed ram necessary. Just wait a few more months till the real good ssd come available... (as always in IT, things will be better later).
Re:Moving parts are the main problem (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Moving parts are the main problem (Score:2, Interesting)
Up to date controllers write heavily used logical sectors to new physical locations, so repeatedly writing a single sector isn't all that different from repeatedly writing other stuff.
NVidia Tegra (Score:3, Interesting)
People are going the wrong direction. Don't build 1 big beefy machine.
Build an incredibly small lightweight machine. Like the NVidia Tegra platform. It costs less than $200. At that price you could replace it every other year for 20 years for the cost of one low-end server.
Now. Find a simple web-app which can be hosted. HTML and CSS don't change from decade to decade. Use a CSV file as the database. Now setup a one click option which downloads the data to a CF Card.
This website should be entirely file based so no need to install php, cgi, mysql.. nothing. This way you can copy an entire clone of the site to a CF Card.
Make sure it's a password protected ZIP file that is downloaded so that customer information can't be stolen.
Install a fast booting linux distro with Apache and Google Chrome or Firefox.
Now all you need to do for 15 years is install the latest web browser. And backup the website to a removeable drive every couple of days.
Here are some ways to add bonus points: Put the OS on a CF Card and clone it. Since all he needs is a dumb client and a barebones web server you should be able to fit it pretty easily onto a 2GB CF Card. You also now don't need any fancy ghostingesque software just a straight drive image. Keep 2 copies of the OS on CF Cards. Then if the computer ever breaks. Just replace the CF Card. Have a button which copies the latest website state to the new OS and off you go.
Websites are designed to be portable. They're meant to run on new hardware without a lot of setup. They're the perfect candidate for an application which can move easily from system to system and since you're only spending $200 on hardware which has no fans and no moving parts, but insane redundancy and replaceability I think your Dad should be able to run it himself.
"If it stops working. Just swap out the 'broken' card with the 'new' card." Then every 5 years you can update the instructions on cloning his system drive using the latest software.
And you've already written a little one click macro to restore and backup his web data so he should be able to easily follow the step by step instructions.
I could see this system easily running for 20 years.
Re:Your father might be in for a shock (Score:1, Interesting)
Ok, for starters, both my wife's parents are Vets, as is my Bosses wife. I've been involved in quite a few talks with veterinarians about their plans for web-presence and their use of technology in the workplace.
You think modern hospitals are behind the times lacking electronic medical records and requiring warehouses full of paperwork, you'd be amazed at the antiquated systems used in vet offices. A 15 year old PC is not quite what my in-law's office uses, but they ARE still running Win98 on 10+ year old hardware. They needed a backup solution a few years back that demanded a CD burner... It was a nightmare. The installation process had a few moments where I was certain I'd have to tell my father-in-law that I had lost all his scheduled appointments and customer contact info. That all makes the point that, vets don't generally respect the power of technology, nor do they understand it's potential.
The entire lack of modern hosted services for veterinarians and just daily-use software is pathetic as well, but what can you do... they don't want to pay for the services, so they suffer the lack of options...
Re:forget it (Score:4, Interesting)
My father is a veterinarian
He is cheap many doctors are.
I wrote software for doctors for a few years. They will drop 200k on a bad ass car. But the computer for the front room nurse? "Can we get it for 200 dollars less somehow?". "I found a B/W monitor for 20 dollars less" and so on...
They are running a business. If they can get ROI of years then they are doing pretty good.
I would tell him to buy *THE* cheapest computer they can (350-400 at this point in time). It will crush anything they are currently using. Hell it probably will ROI itself in the power bill alone in the first year. Then in 3-5 years when it goes tits up (and it will because it is a cheap computer) just migrate it.
You are advocating the guy spend thousands of dollars on something that he really doesnt need to do. He probably dropped 5k on those rigs back in 95. He probably can get 15 YEARS worth of computers if he replaces every 3-5. At the same 1995 dollars cost.
Your response is typical of IT (and other) professionals who presume to know users want, rather than listening to what they actually want
Your response is one who doesnt bother to dig into what they are really doing. Then showing what it would cost. *THAT* a business man will listen to. "I can do the same thing for 2000 less but there is a bit of a downside and some risk" will get his attention. Also his business is probably hurting in that floppy drives are long gone. The CD (if it has one) probably is on its last legs.
If he is DEAD set on lasting 15 years then I would say get an asus mini notebook. Plug in some cheap lcds and a 15 dollar keyboard. Probably total cost 500 bucks. Would probably last 15+ years.
15-20 years ago you thought about computers like that. It is not surprising he is still thinking like that. My dad is the same way. Until I laid out the math for him. He can buy a 2500+ computer to surf the web and hold a simple db and print some pages once and awhile. OR buy a cheapo one and upgrade (and keep your computer from becoming legacy junk no one wants to touch) ever few years and keep up and get the exact same effect.
There are other benefits to thinking this way. For example backup solutions. He is probably (if we are lucky) using some sort of tape drive. Older types of tapes are long gone and getting more expensive. But keeping up keeps your costs down.
Computers (least back in 95) were considered a 1 time expense. They are not. They are an ongoing expense. Treat them as such.
When it comes down to it newer computers are cheap junk. Unless you are really willing to pay for the support costs and buy 8k rigs, with long costly service contracts. You have pretty much no guarantee of lifetime. That he got 15 years out of those computers is commendable. But I would not plan my business that way. I would plan as if they are going tits up at any moment. If you treat them that way. Low cost is a better solution.
That he didnt keep up now he has other costs. Such as now he needs to be using VM type solutions or get some sort of conversion done to his data (and hopefully the new software does what his old does).
I would be a poor IT professional if I didnt show him the hidden costs that he has been accruing. There are tradeoffs. It is my job as a IT pro to SHOW management what they are.
Re:Buy any current workstation and... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Moving parts are the main problem (Score:1, Interesting)
You're either full of shit or talking about a very very old flash drive without any wear leveling whatsoever. Current drives do not write to the same block of flash memory, even if you keep writing to the same logical block.
In regard to the original question: Don't worry too much about longevity. New computers are much cheaper than they were 15 years ago. It is unreasonable to pay significantly more to get a machine which outlasts a cheap PC. Failure still isn't among the top reasons for replacing computers. Usually they're being replaced for the reasons the submitter stated: It needs upgrades which are no longer on the market, the user desires modern software which needs a faster machine or a different OS with incompatible drivers, etc. In other words, the computer still does what it did, but that's no longer enough. Buy a new computer now and your chances of replacing it due to breakage sometime in the future are still very slim, despite the price crash.
Re:Moving parts are the main problem (Score:3, Interesting)
It's Mean Time Between Failure. Your example gives it as a hard number that none of the drives will survive past. There will be a statistical spread, but not like you describe it.
The actual spread depends on the shape of the failure distribution which isn't normally given. In a lot of cases, it's a Weibull curve which front-loads the failures and has a long tail. Even then though, you don't expect more than 60 to 70% of drives to have failed by the MTBF point.
Re:Moving parts are the main problem (Score:2, Interesting)
FANS!!
I went to a local pet store, (I know not the same as a vet) and I was looking at the back of their computer.
The fan was packed with FUR! (And I mean PACKED!!!)
It dawned on me, how does this machine continue to run? Then I walked around the store a bit. I noticed several unplugged workstations stacked like they were being stored.
EACH had FUR PACKED IN THE HOLES, FANS, etc..
I had my answer. They die.
Re:A few questions to answer before deciding... (Score:1, Interesting)
My father too is a veterinarian. He is in a multivet practice with 30 computers on its network. From what I understand, in the veterinary world, you can get your software/hardware from the same vendor (such as ImproMed or Infinity [I think]). They will provide support and help you convert your old data. It is a bit pricier than building the machines yourself, but if your father is not too tech saavy, it might be helpful.
Re:A few questions to answer before deciding... (Score:1, Interesting)
Yep, you guessed it, my father is also a veterinarian with a small private practice. I handle all his IT stuff. There is something about veterinarians and being slightly "luditish." Get him to upgrade. You will be amazed at what the practice managment software that is out there today( we use avimark, tried intervet) can do. Both those companies have database conversion options to ease your transit. Get yourself a simple network setup with some reliable business class machines and servers, and enjoy all the stuff your new practice software can do.
Re:Your father might be in for a shock (Score:1, Interesting)
The real money in the vet business isn't Fluffy or Fido (unless it's a boutique vet storefront). The real money is Farmer Brown needing a couple dairy cows checked out, or other farm work. Rural area practictioners are much less in need of a web presence than urban ones.
Another alternative (Score:3, Interesting)
Weak point here though would be the connection to the server - so as well as primary ADSL/Cable access from his office, you'd then need maybe 3G dongle backup on his router, then a spare client machine and then..
Experience (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone with experience with hardware support for a large company, I can attest to the assertion that SSD's fail pretty often. We use the HP TC4400 tablet, which has a 40gig SSD in it, and we seem to get more of them in with dead harddrives than we do the TC4200, which uses a typical SATA drive.
This may not be true for all SSD's, but it's my experience so far.