Jules writes: Not a service processor, but Alpha has a built in "failsafe loader" that allows you to rewrite the console firmware if something happens. It also has hardware lockdown of the PROM. I don't think I'd consider a separate service processor always a good thing, though - I've just been looking at the docs for the Sun E10k and if you loose the SSP you're pretty much hosed unless you can get Sun to make a new one up that matches your machine. Aren't IBM mainframes and their ThinkPads in roughly the same boat? There, though, I think it's easier to recover if you have a backup - I got the feeling that the E10k's unit was somehow hardware-locked to that machine.