What to do with a retired IBM F80 RS6000?

cross6 · 12-13-2006, 04:52 PM

It's time to retire our venerable IBM RS6000 model F80.

We're switching from DB2 on AIX to Oracle on x86 so I need some ideas on what to do with the old girl. I never touched it once in 3 years!

Specs: 2 x 450mhz RS64III CPU's. 4 Gigs of RAM.

I already googled around and Linux is a no go for this model. Firmware makes the kernel hang at boot time. So I'll have to stick with AIX.

We don't really need any file or print servers or anything. I guess it could house/data warehouse databases for us. Maybe it could run mysql DB's for our websites?

Folding @ home?

InlineFive · 12-13-2006, 07:04 PM

What OS does it run?

cross6 · 12-13-2006, 07:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: cross6
It's time to retire our venerable IBM RS6000 model F80.

We're switching from DB2 on AIX to Oracle on x86 so I need some ideas on what to do with the old girl. I never touched it once in 3 years!

Specs: 2 x 450mhz RS64III CPU's. 4 Gigs of RAM.

I already googled around and Linux is a no go for this model. Firmware makes the kernel hang at boot time. So I'll have to stick with AIX.
We don't really need any file or print servers or anything. I guess it could house/data warehouse databases for us. Maybe it could run mysql DB's for our websites?

Folding @ home?

......

DarkTXKnight · 12-13-2006, 08:54 PM

I know the feeling.... I have 10 RS 6000 43P workstations that I dont know what to do with at work. they keep going and goind, but Id love to do something usefull with them

kamper · 12-14-2006, 02:12 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by: InlineFive
What OS does it run?

AIX, he said it twice ...

Op, you could consider donating it to an open source project so they can work on supporting it. Maybe your googling produced some linux people who are interested or netbsd seems to be up for it.

I doubt that'd make a very efficient folding machine

do they even release binaries that run on aix/power or do they release fairly portable source code?

drag · 12-14-2006, 02:26 AM

Ebay it. I bet there would be somebody that would be happy to take it off your hands and it would probably go a long way to getting a new laptop. :-)

cross6 · 12-14-2006, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by: drag
Ebay it. I bet there would be somebody that would be happy to take it off your hands and it would probably go a long way to getting a new laptop. :-)

LOL

Ever try to get a multi million dollar company to donate or ebay something? rofl.

InlineFive · 12-14-2006, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by: cross6

Quote:

Originally posted by: drag
Ebay it. I bet there would be somebody that would be happy to take it off your hands and it would probably go a long way to getting a new laptop. :-)

LOL

Ever try to get a multi million dollar company to donate or ebay something? rofl.

Do you know what eBay does?

It's far from donating things...

RebateMonger · 12-14-2006, 12:53 PM

If you don't need the computer for any services, and you can't sell it or donate it, then it's time to dispose of it. If you move any databases to it, you've then committed yourself and your company to keeping it patched, supported, and running. And it's going to cost more money to remove the data when you DO finally decide to scrap it.

cross6 · 12-14-2006, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
If you don't need the computer for any services, and you can't sell it or donate it, then it's time to dispose of it. If you move any databases to it, you've then committed yourself and your company to keeping it patched, supported, and running. And it's going to cost more money to remove the data when you DO finally decide to scrap it.

Well we still have 100% 24 hour onsite IBM support for another 2-3 years.

Plus we have Brand new IBM boxed spare power supplies, hard drives, and fans.

Also, it just got a brand new CPU board about 4 months ago.

cross6 · 12-14-2006, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: InlineFive

Quote:

Originally posted by: cross6

Quote:

Originally posted by: drag
Ebay it. I bet there would be somebody that would be happy to take it off your hands and it would probably go a long way to getting a new laptop. :-)

LOL

Ever try to get a multi million dollar company to donate or ebay something? rofl.

Do you know what eBay does?

It's far from donating things...

notice the use of the or operator

It would take 6 months and a mound of paperwork to sell of give it away. Would only take one piece of paper to trash it. But it's still supported through IBM, has nothing wrong with it and is a workhorse.

kamper · 12-14-2006, 02:27 PM

Well obviously if you were going to do a donation you'd go through the trash route and then substitute your trunk for the bin at the last moment and donate it from home. But I can understand if that's still not an option. Sorry, I've got no better ideas

drag · 12-14-2006, 03:35 PM

Gut it and turn it into a wet bar. Get one of those small fridges in there, pipe in some fresh water. Put a couple big fast fans in it to similate the actual running of the thing. Then your set. I could be there for years, just tell people it's a good old work horse and it will go for decades.

Other then that just install the toolkit for Linux applications and see what you can get to compile and run reliably on it. Turn it into a webisite with a database back-end or something like that.

I don't know how secure AIX is. (IBM can usually make secure stuff, but weither they care enough to is another story.. and keeping up with latest version can get expensive.) But if you could get normal network management stuff running on it like OpenNMs or a IDS like Snort you can use it as a network, server, and workstation monitoring station.

Maybe take a look at some other enterprise Unix/linux management software like CFEngine or Bcfg2. They are comlex to setup and are definately industrial grade software and they allow you to manage mixed environments, Windows, Linux, Unix, etc. Whatever people use. On the job training...

cross6 · 12-14-2006, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: drag
Gut it and turn it into a wet bar. Get one of those small fridges in there, pipe in some fresh water. Put a couple big fast fans in it to similate the actual running of the thing. Then your set. I could be there for years, just tell people it's a good old work horse and it will go for decades.

Other then that just install the toolkit for Linux applications and see what you can get to compile and run reliably on it. Turn it into a webisite with a database back-end or something like that.

I don't know how secure AIX is. (IBM can usually make secure stuff, but weither they care enough to is another story.. and keeping up with latest version can get expensive.) But if you could get normal network management stuff running on it like OpenNMs or a IDS like Snort you can use it as a network, server, and workstation monitoring station.

Maybe take a look at some other enterprise Unix/linux management software like CFEngine or Bcfg2. They are comlex to setup and are definately industrial grade software and they allow you to manage mixed environments, Windows, Linux, Unix, etc. Whatever people use. On the job training...

ROFL @ wetbar!

Yeah, we really don't need that much power for any websites, and I need IIS to run our intranet on (Long story about Active Directory and biometrics).

I did google about snort and people have got it to compile in AIX. MySQL too.

I wonder if spamassasin/clamav/postfix will run :Q hmmmm most overkill big iron spam gateway ever! I feel like dr. evil.

drag · 12-14-2006, 04:53 PM

Well your machine is going to be pretty weak CPU-wise.

But, it's going to have a lot of I/O and it can handle multiple threads well.. So for optimal use your going to have to use it for something that requires only moderate cpu load, but a lot of I/O. Anything that would require a lot of data proccessing.

Do you have anything on other machines were running a job thrashes the disk and doesn't use a whole of CPU?

cross6 · 12-14-2006, 05:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: drag
Well your machine is going to be pretty weak CPU-wise.

But, it's going to have a lot of I/O and it can handle multiple threads well.. So for optimal use your going to have to use it for something that requires only moderate cpu load, but a lot of I/O. Anything that would require a lot of data proccessing.

Do you have anything on other machines were running a job thrashes the disk and doesn't use a whole of CPU?

Yeah, it's really suited for lots of small integer operations with it's huge caches, and almost no penalty for missed branch predictions. (0-1 cycles per ibm).

Definately good for a database. It would suck for any type of encoding/math like folding I guess.

ultimatebob · 12-15-2006, 01:40 PM

I recommend gutting all of the obsolete technology out of those servers, and then use the cases as storage cabinets. You could also use them as pedestals for a table, or maybe even convert one into a mini-fridge.

Blowing them up and filming it on YouTube would be entertaining, too

Trust me, I'm an AIX administrator. Those things are completely obsolete compared to the Power5 systems that folks should be upgrading to now if they want to stick with AIX.