Any old iron?

Turgon

Anyone still running NT Server 4.0 or NT Workstation in their shops?

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bertieb

Turgon wrote: »

Anyone still running NT Server 4.0 or NT Workstation in their shops?

Not internally, but one of my clients (manufacturing) still has a hundred or so NT4 Servers running! Which is why I still keep my NT4 books and PDF's handy....... It certainly brings back memories if I need to logon to them whilst using VNC or PCAnywhere

Turgon

bertieb wrote: »

Not internally, but one of my clients (manufacturing) still has a hundred or so NT4 Servers running! Which is why I still keep my NT4 books and PDF's handy....... It certainly brings back memories if I need to logon to them whilst using VNC or PCAnywhere

Cool. There is always legacy stuff sprinkled about out there. Even when extended support runs out. Might be worthwhile for the new people to invest in some used books on amazon in case they have to support things like this. The price of what was once expensive study resources is dirt cheap today.

bertieb

Unfortunately they don't have the budget to even think about moving just yet. The whole thing is a tangled mess really, but their IT guys understand it right down to the last detail and it works for them. I suspect the guys who have been there since the start have engineered it that way for their own benefit.... Whenever I go there I always get the impression that the management are concentrating on other strategic decisions (shut this factory here, move people there etc) but certainly that's shifted a bit over the last 12 months and they are taking more interest in IT so things will change soon.

If anything, having to occasionally (like once a year) look at an NT4 system makes me appreciate how far we've come, but still brings back some fun memories of being stuck in datacentres in the early hours trying to breath life back into a broken system then running off to a Kebab house for a late tea (or early breakfast depending how you view it)

powerfool

Sounds like an opportunity to virtualize. That hardware has got to be on its last legs by now. Virtualize on many fewer servers.... you have to imagine that you would be a be able to get a super high density of VMs on each physical host.

bertieb

powerfool wrote: »

Sounds like an opportunity to virtualize.

I agree completely. The last I heard was that they are going through a rationalisation process first to understand what they have, and get rid as much as possible as they suspect a lot is sitting there doing nothing. After that, and with some budget next year, they will likely then virtualise as much as possible to at least get the hardware refreshed and supported. Due to the complexity, I expect it to be NT4 for a while longer yet though......

Unfortunately, its another large global company which is owned by the same parent corporate as the one I work for so they have their own IT staff/processes and procedures so my involvement is sporadic at best. My consultation time is given away for 'free' after the management of the two companies speak so theres no real benefit for us apart from earning some brownie points, hence my overall lack of involvement. With so many NT4 servers there running on ye-olde hardware and out-dated processes (and some would argue, IT staff who are stuck in their ways) maybe thats for the best?

It scared the bejesus out of me when I first saw their data centre.

Everyone

I'm not sure if my current job does or not, I know none of the systems I'm responsible for are.

My last job had a couple NT4 systems still hanging around. One of them ran the physical access (magnetic swipe cards) system! Real secure eh? It could not be virtualized, and had hardware failures that it almost didn't recover from.

demonfurbie

we still have auburn/green screen terms on a token ring

IRONMONKUS

Any old iron?

I'm only 34. :-p

It is interesting how fast time quickly passes us by that the words of "This is the top-of-the-line gear" turns to "This stuff is crap and on it's last legs".

I guess if we always kept up on technology and the "state of the art", we would be spending the majority of our time installing.

rsutton

Turgon wrote: »

Anyone still running NT Server 4.0 or NT Workstation in their shops?

Last time I ran in to NT was 5 years ago. I work for a service provider and we have yet to pickup any clients running anything older than win2k systems.