How Do I Provide a Workstation To Last 15 Years?

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?"

Comments

Buy any current workstation and...

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtualize!

Then your father's old setup can remain DOS and Win95 effectively forever, on any modern hardware. I've done this for lots of clients with legacy WinNT and Win95 systems.

The process is called "physical to virtual" (P2V) migration.

forget it

[Arthurio]

Tell him that replacing the system every 5 years will be cheaper than getting one that will last 15 years. There, problem solved.

Re:forget it

[rennerik]

Sometimes (most of the time) users don't know what they want, especially when it comes to IT. Many times they ask for the wrong things, and make the wrong decisions. It's our job, as IT consultants, to let them know what the best solution to the problem would be.

For example, asking, "Why do you want your setup to last fifteen years?" may yield answers like, "I don't want to deal with the costs involved with constantly upgrading" or "I'm familiar with my current system, and I am willing to change, but I don't want to have to refamiliarize myself with it every five years" or maybe even "I don't want to have to pay for someone to upgrade our systems every five years."

All of those answers are perfectly reasonable, but all of them are misinformed. It's our job to let them know that, yes, it may sound expensive at first to upgrade every five years, but putting together a bullet-proof system to last fifteen years is much more expensive. We can also explain how to remain compatible (say, via virtualization, as stated in another post) so they don't have to relearn everything every five years. In fact, the experience remains consistent well into the future. And finally, we can say that, again, the costs incurred with upgrading hardware every five years is much less than designing a system that needs to last at least fifteen years... not to mention, the system still has to be maintained, rigorously, so those costs don't just go away simply because the system has been designed to last a longer period of time.

If, after all of that, they're still set in their ways and aren't willing to take your advice, then I suppose you just have to do what they want... but it would be disingenuous for IT professionals to just do what the user asks on spec, because, as said before, most of the time they don't know or understand what they want. There's a reason why we're the professionals and they're not (i.e., I'm not going to tell an architect that I want a house without a foundation and expect him not to tell me I'm an idiot). Why do people insist on doing that when it comes to IT?

Re:forget it

[RichardJenkins]

Two minutes ago I was thinking the exact same thing. Then I realised if a small business owner tells you that 15 years ago he set up a system at minimal cost and is only now looking at changing because the hardware is noticeably ageing, you'd have a hard time explaining to him that it's going to be *harder* to set up a system with similar longevity nowadays.

I wouldn't know how to even approach the subject without sounding like I'm just trying to extract more cash out of him.

Industrial PCs?

[Rorschach1]

How about industrial hardware? You'll probably pay at least twice as much as you would for a consumer desktop, but PCs made for industrial control applications tend to be a lot more rugged and build to serve for many years in harsh conditions. Sounds like you don't need a lot of processing power, so you could probably get by with a fanless system and eliminate a major failure (and noise) source.

I haven't bought anything from these guys, so I don't personally know anything about their quality, but SuperLogics has a barebones fanless Atom-based system for $315. Something like that might be a good start.

You don't.

[SatanicPuppy]

15 years ago systems were night and day with the way they are now, and it's only going to get worse. After 10 years you won't be able to find anyone to work on the legacy stuff (unless you buy a proprietary unix system), and there is no guarantee for new parts.

The only way you've gotten away with it is that you have one application which has a very limited required environment, and drive interfaces have only changed once. If you stick with that philosophy, and get lucky with the drives again, you may be able to get by with something similar.

If you have to (which I don't recommend) then pick up a midrange quad core server with a ton of RAM and plenty of room for extra drives. Put a Linux distro on it: no hope of keeping up with Windows security for 15 years, and forget Mac, they're very prone to changing interfaces internally, and then discontinuing the old products.

Then use the server to push whatever app you need to some low duty desktops. You could use a web app, or a client/server desktop app. Again, you're probably good with a *nix.

Your biggest fear is drive space. In 15 years you won't be able to buy the drives you're using today, but there is no point in stockpiling them: they'll be dead in the box after 15 years. Solid state won't fail in the box (probably, but they're too new for it to have been tested) but you may have to replace them more often, depending on your utilization.

Just from personal experience, you're much better off buying a modest new system every 5 years, than a major new system every 15. It's cheaper, and the chance of a catastrophic failure are lower.

Re:Moving parts are the main problem

[mmarlett]

Assuming that you have to rewrite his software, make it all web based (even if it runs off of one machine as a server without the Internet) and forgetaboutit. Keep it as basic and generic as possible and then the hardware will never matter.