It doesn't happen often, but sometimes things just work like they're supposed to. No drama, no problems—a machine just keeps chugging year after year. That's the case with the Cal Ripken of servers, the Stratus server of steel products maker Great Lakes Works EGL in Dearborn, Michigan. It's been working for 24 years straight without a single problem.
Part of Michigan's legendary automotive industry, Great Lakes Works makes "coated steel products primarily for the automotive industry for use in both exposed and unexposed applications." This server mainly works on the money side of things, processing payment transactions and credit cards.
It's a fault-tolerant server, which means its capable of running uninterrupted with some of its components failing. "It never shut down on its own because of a fault it couldn't handle," Phil Hogan, an IT application architect, tells Computer World. "I can't even think of an instance where we had an unplanned shutdown," he says.
Beyond reliability, the server's functionality has also kept it alive for so long. With a character-driven interface that looks like a green screen, what worked in 1993 works just fine in 2017. Users enjoy "the reliability of it, and the screens are actually pretty simple," says Hogan.
But as was the case with even Ripken himself, every streak must end. A deal completed in 2015 brought Great Lakes Works under new management, and a system upgrade in April 2017 will end the Stratus server's remarkable run. If that new system even falters for a second, one suspects that a heavy sigh will creep among everyone involved, who will remember how good they once had it.
At least the Commodore 64 that's been powering an auto body shop in Poland since 1992 is still running.
Source: Computer World
