12 year old ProLiant finally retires

[#1]

By Calvin Zito, @HPStorageGuy   

I got an email from someone at Linktech Solutions Pty Ltd, an HP Elite Partner in Australia late last night that was really cool and wanted to share it with you.  I can't share the identity of the customer but Linktech Solutions told me about their customer who was decommissioning a ProLiant ML370.  Not a big deal really until I kept reading the email.  Since I didn't get specific permission to mention the name of the Linktech employee who sent me the email, I'll not mention his name either.  Here's what the email said:  

I work very closely with the HP presales folk here in Melbourne and I’m also a big fan of your blog – thanks for all the great articles!  Not sure if this mail is more relevant to one of the ISS blogs, but I thought I’d share the appreciation for the engineering we’ve come to expect from HP products!

And this was in the email from the customer:

This server is a ProLiant ML370 G2 which was our GroupWise domain server. The object was created in eDirectory in May of 2000. Yes that is right. It has been in production for over 12yrs.

He also sent me a picture of a cake they had to celebrate the decommissioning of the ProLiant ML370 G2 - that has the customers name on it so I can't show you that but it gave the dates of May 3, 2000 - June 29, 2012.  I can't get over 12 years of service for the ProLiant dating back to before HP acquired Compaq.  Wow - that is getting your money's worth out of a ProLiant!

Have a great weekend!

[#2]

I'd love to know how many of the moving parts are from the original build...

[#3]

ProLiant durability is pretty legendary, so this isn't a big surprise.  We still have plenty of machines older than that. For example I've got a ProLiant 800 still in production that had its first failure in the form of a fan just 2 months ago.

[#4]

We had quite a number of Win2K ProLiant ML and DL servers still running in my last company, as DCs and some SQL2K, most bought in 2000/1. Great boxes. Glad to see the next gen is coming out to continue the tradition. JK

[#5]

Wow, what a great machine! (Editor's note: Spam link removed)

[#6]

As the owner of this server, I can say that the only item that was replaced as a HDD. This server was in production before I started with the company.

It started with NetWare 5.1, and was upgraded to v6 then 6.1. It finished with Service Pack 7. There were 2 post office agents and also the Internet Agent (GWIA) ruuning on it. It also had NetWare's traditional file system, so a reboot took about 15/20mins. All this with 2.5Gb RAM.

I can say that I have alway been a HP ProLiant man and will stay with these servers because they are build with quality parts that are designed to last. Over the years, these servers have become smaller and replacing parts are very very smiple. You can now unbox, rack and boot up all without a screw driver. Very very easy.

Thanks for posting this and letting the world know that HP products are the best money can buy.

Thanks

Aaron

[#7]

Hi Aaron - thanks for stopping by and giving us a bit more detail.  When I saw the email from Linktech Solutions, I thought it would make a great story!  You sure got your money's worth out of that ProLiant!  Thanks again!

[#8]

Only the hard drive, wow! Thanks again for sharing the story with us Aaron - DP

[#9]

A grey HP server? Half our DC is still beige and has Compaq written on it

[#10]

Hello friends,
 
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[#11]

I was at a customer site a few weeks ago and spotted a couple of cream coloured servers. On closer examintation they turned out to be ML370 *G1* servers. I think they started life as a pair in a packaged UnixWare cluster. Even *I* don't have hardware that old, and I'm a major hoarder.

Calvin, you do realise you've probably unleashed a "my hardware is older than yours!" battle?

[#12]

LOL - let's see who has the oldest hardware out there!