The server that has been operating continuously for 24 years without any stops is finally retiring in April 2017

ByTimothy Vollmer

Even though it is a non-stop type server, the day will come when it stops someday. At the Great Steel's Great Lakes Ironworks in Michigan State, a server powered on in 1993 continued to run without stoppage, but as the company upgraded the system in April 2017 I decided to retire.

Booted up in 1993, this server still runs - but not for much longer | Computerworld
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3162416/data-center/booted-up-in-1993-this-server-still-runs-but-not-for-much-longer.html


In 1993, at the iron factory "Double Eagle Steel Coating" (DESCC) in Dearborn, MichiganStratus TechnologyIntel's XA / R10 made byI860BasedFault-tolerant server (non-stop server)Was set up, Phil Hogan of IT application architect turned on.

DESCC supplies products for the automotive industry, and various integration tasks were handled on the server.Year 2000 ProblemWhen he was in trouble, Mr. Hogan was worried that he should update XA / R10 hardware, but in the end it did not turn around and the OS remained the old version of "VOS". Update seems to have not been done since the beginning of 2000, but the server still kept moving without stopping.

In April 2010, Stratus Technologies held an up-time contest that competed for "how long the server keeps moving without stopping."

As a rival, there are servers used for signal control of railroads connecting Paris and Brussels, servers responsible for controlling civilian aircraft and military aircraft in Chile, hundreds of thousands of items per day in over 5,000 stores The lottery server handling transactions, such as a server that handles over 100,000 orders per day by connecting the worldwide branches of Bank of America Merrill Lynch and the US and Canadian securities exchanges Although the powerful race went on to compete, DESCC XA / R 10 wonderfully won "17 years non-stop".

By the way, the second place in the contest was Stratus Continuum 1229 owned by Highmark Company in Pittsburgh, which is handling 170 million electronic data exchanges (EDI) by doctors and hospitals annually We have been planning to have no downtime since February 2001, but considering that the non-stop period was "over 4 years", you can see the extraordinary stability of XA / R10.

Stratus 4 Uptime Contest Winner's Server Is 17 Years Running ... and Still Counting
http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/stratus4uptime-contest-winners-server-is-17-years-running-and-still-counting-1168970.htm


David C. Lorello, president and CEO of Stratus Technologies, said at the contest "our server uptime is on average more than seven years," DESCC XA / R 10 has already exceeded the average for over ten years That's why.

Even then, XA / R 10 continued to move, but in 2015, DESCC is a leading steelmakerUS SteelIt was incorporated into the Great Lakes Ironworks. Originally DESCC was with US SteelAK SteelIt was because US Steel acquired 50% ownership at 25.2 million dollars (then at about 3.1 billion yen).

And in 2017, the company decided to upgrade the system in April, and it was finally decided that XA / R 10 will be disqualified. According to Mr. Hogan who took care of to the last, although some components such as disk drive and power supply were replaced, 80% seemed to be original.

There are no real photos of what kind of server, but according to the PDF that Stratus has released for support it seems this type.

XA / R-S Systems Service Announcement
(PDF file)http://www.stratus.ecacsupport.com/servicedocinternal/pdf/ha053.pdf