As an example of another old technology that needed help from superceded machines, I recently had to find a Windows 7 machine to connect to a storage array as the management software for the array would not talk to the newer version of google chrome. This was related to the deprecation of older versions of TLS.
I expect we will see a lot more of these older devices being junked because no-one can manage them with current tech. In my digital archaeology, I have found that some of the e-recyclers are claiming a premium for used equipment that is no longer available from, or supported by, the manufacturer. Sure they may have re-formatted drives and verified that the equipment will fire up, but I wonder how far their "re-conditioning" goes?
Whilst it is understandable that this equipment is probably reaching the end of it's safe usable life (who wants to store their important data and servers on storage that could fail sooner rather than later and have no replacement disks available), it seems wasteful to scrap old equipment that is still working. Of course, it is vital that there is a valid backup of this data, and a way to restore it.
At this point many users opt for a cloud solution, not realising that they will end up spending far more over multiple years as an operational cost instead of a capital cost up front. Instead of jumping into "the cloud" without considering the costs and implications, they just do it. For small organisations ( <10 users) Microsoft 365 is ideal as it provides email and office without too much of a monthly commitment, and saves the company the issue of having to maintain hardware and software licensing.
However for larger organisations, it is critical that a thorough analysis of the costs and potential downsides is taken to ensure that all eventualities are covered. I have seen a couple of companies that were stung for outrageous ongoing costs because they were locked into a particular vendor technology. As users of VMware will know, it is easy for a new owner to come in and immediately jack up the prices.They are also held hostage by their telecomms company particularly as they are unable to do anything when the Internet service is not working or heavily loaded. Having load balancers and alternate internet services are additional expenses that many companies do not consider although they should be part of any ongoing Disaster Recovery Planning.
I recently used some superceded equipment to build some servers that were to be hosted on an existing VMWare 5.5 host. The aim was to allow them to use the upgraded hardware in the old host (extra ram, CPU and Storage) with the latest Windows version servers. The bonus was that we could run them up alongside the existing servers to replicate the data and configuration across, whilst refreshing the installation and saving on storage that was not in use. By running the new servers up on a temporary installation of VMWare, we were able to make sure the servers were accessible and working correctly on swap over. The only issue was the windows licensing complained that it was not activated because of the hardware change in the swap over. Strangely enough this only happened on one of the servers, I suspect because it contained multiple drives.
As an "Older" IT person, I will admit that I tend to hold onto superseded equipment much longer than I should, and am constantly told that I am a pack rat. However I have lost count of the number of times I have been asked about some old piece of kit because the system that has never given a fault and has finally reached the EOL defined by the manufacturer, only to finally give up the ghost when the warranty runs out.
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