FreeBSD Quarterly Status Report - Second Quarter 2015

[Willem Jan Withagen]

On 27/07/2015 16:42, Glen Barber wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 04:32:34PM +0200, Willem Jan Withagen wrote:
>> On 27/07/2015 16:25, Glen Barber wrote:
>>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 04:14:54PM +0200, Willem Jan Withagen wrote:
>>>> On 27/07/2015 04:39, Benjamin Kaduk wrote:
>>>>>   * Separated email services (and single-point-of-failure cases) from
>>>>>     the machine that has been handling this task for over 18 years, to
>>>>>     new, single-purpose service installations
>>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> This sort of sounds like the system that a former company (IAE) donated
>>>> to Jordan when he was here in Arnhem at a FreeBSD meeting organized by
>>>> Wilco Bulte. I think it was called freefall??
>>>> There used to be pictures of the meeting online, but I can't seem to
>>>> find them.
>>>>
>>>> Would be nice to know if that is the case, because then I'm really
>>>> impressed with the life time of that system...
>>>> Does anybody know if this is actually the case?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Based on what I've recently learned of the machine's history, it was
>>> originally freefall, then became known as 'hub'.
>>
>> You have any idea what is/was actual the hardware that was in the box?
>>
>> If I remember correctly we gave Jordan a check for like 5000 guilders.
>> Which I guess would be 2500 us$ at that time. Which was not an enormous
>> amount of money, so even more impressive that the system lasted 18 years :)
>>
> 
> The physical hardware did not last this long, and I do not recall the
> physical specs of the recently deprecated hardware, but as far as
> "handling this task for 18 years", that could have been clarified a bit
> more (my fault).  The system moved chassis several times, but was never
> reinstalled (as far as we can tell) - it was originally a FreeBSD
> 2-STABLE install, and was upgraded constantly throughout its lifetime,
> and finally ran 11-CURRENT before being decommissioned.

Right, that makes more sense.

And I'm sort of more "relaxed" that there is not that much commodity
hardware capable to survive that long running 24*7 ...

The oldest servers here in the basement are like 10 years old, and on
the brink of being thrashed...

--WjW