8 Oct
2008
8 Oct
'08
10:39 a.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
You lead a charmed life, my friend. ;)
But no, I was speaking more of "business computer rooms" than
research-class datacenters. Perhaps I should've been more specific.
Every now and then, I do some consulting work for small businesses,
fixing broken network stuff. I see 2501s in production everywhere,
terminating T1 lines, that haven't been touched (or rebooted for that
matter) in a decade.
If they ever go down, they'll likely be replaced by a cheap DSL
circuit (for those whose inbound bandwidth requirement outstrips their
outbound anyway), but most people don't seem to want to fix it if it
isn't broken.
Here at IBM Poughkeepsie, there are still many 2500-series boxes in
various places. If I had to guess at a number, it would be in the range
of a hundred or so. Of course, we have many more 6500/7600-series boxes
than that, even.
Peace... Sridhar
The 2501 in particular was discontinued in 2003.
The last of the
2500 series, the 2525, was discontinued early last year, but it was a
very different (modular) design.
They 68030-based 2500 series was replaced by the PowerPC-based
2600 series.
But as far as being the workhorse...most definitely yes. They're
in datacenters everywhere, and will be for a very long time. They're
capable, reliable, pull little power, generate little heat, and they
just plain don't break.
That's funny, the "workhorse" of all of the datacenters I've seen
lately
are Cisco 6509's and 4948-10GE's, with a few older 3750 and 2950s
laying around for "legacy" stuff. I think you're calling
a "datacenter" what I'd call a "low end wiring closet". :)
Hmm, I guess my environment has helped influence my hardware collecting
habits...