[Info-vax] rx2800i2 sales/support window changes

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Friday, 14 February 2014 07:33:05 UTC, Paul Sture  wrote:
> On 2014-02-14, johnson.eric at gmail.com <johnson.eric at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Thursday, February 13, 2014 6:33:36 PM UTC-5, JF Mezei wrote:
> 
> >
> 
> >> Also, while the Tukwila system may have used many components that were
> 
> >> easily available (commodity) back in the 2007-2010 timeframe when the
> 
> >> system was designed, it does not mean that those components will still
> 
> >> easily commercially available for the long term. So again, they may want
> 
> >> to have a whole bunch of power supplies etc purchased.
> 
> >
> 
> > Interesting. I hadn't considered this angle of it. But everything you say
> 
> > makes sense.
> 
> 
> 
> To illustrate that kind of problem. in mid-2010 I bought a PC which came
> 
> with 2GB RAM occupying one of the 2 memory slots.  I could add another 2GB
> 
> for ~$50  but the 4GB units came in at $180 apiece.  It was a no brainer
> 
> to settle for 4GB maximum.
> 
> 
> 
> However 18 months later I really wanted more RAM to run virtual machine
> 
> instances, so the choice was between taking the hit on those 4GB units
> 
> (and of course hoping their price had dropped) or buying a second system.
> 
> 
> 
> By that time I couldn't find any of those 4GB units, let alone get a price
> 
> on them.  I imagine anyone who really needed those units had already got
> 
> them or was at the mercy of suppliers who knew how hard they were to find.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Paul Sture

Yes, but :)

This was presumably a standard desktop PC, not very many slots,
non-ECC RAM, usual low end stuff?

Server boxes come with more RAM slots so the "throw it away" question
is less likely to arise. Server RAM (ECC, registered?) comes more
expensive (more profitable?) up front than desktop RAM. Server kit
should be expected to have longer lifecycles than desktop kit.

Add all those together and the obsolesecence problem doesn't go away
but it might have more extended timescales before component availability
becomes a major problem.

I'm not sure extending the life of IA64 hardware availability is a *good*
idea, but I am saying that availability and manufacturing issues may not
be as big an issue for servers (even IA64 servers) as they are in the
volume commodity PC market.