Countdown to a Crash

March 2012 - By Don Cockayne

I don’t know if you’ve seen the latest Steven Spielberg movie “Super 8” yet, but if you have, I’m pretty sure you’ll agree that the train wreck scene in that movie probably has to be one of the most epic crashes ever put on film. I think I have an idea why that crash is such a memorable scene, and if you’ll indulge me for a second, I’ll give you my theory.

I think this scene is exciting to watch because it’s scary, intense and suspenseful, and best of all, you know it’s not real and it’s not happening to you.

There’s another kind of crash that I want to talk about for a minute, that’s also scary and intense, but unfortunately is all too real when it does happen to you. I’m talking about the “train wreck” that usually accompanies a computer crash.

In “Super 8”, having seen the movie trailers, we do know a train wreck is coming, so while we’re watching the movie, as the train approaches in the distance, there’s a great sense of apprehension that builds up as we mentally start to countdown the seconds until the crash happens.

With a computer crash, it’s not quite so easy, but let’s take a few minutes and see if perhaps we can get some idea how far away we might be.

When you first bought your latest computer system and first turned it on, you started the countdown. Almost every vendor that sells any kind of computer system or component will confidently provide an economically priced 3 year hardware warranty on their new equipment, as they know that statistically speaking, the number or hardware failures that occur in the first 3 years of a systems life are low enough for them to profit from their hardware contracts. That’s not to say there aren’t any failures in those first three years, but the number of failures are relatively low. Typically, these first 3 years also have the shortest response time, vendors know that since their new equipment is least likely to fail and that if a failure does occur the parts required to make the repair are well stocked so they can commit to the fastest response time. Repairs on these systems are carried out by the original Vendors own technicians who only work on that one brand of machine and can thus be the absolutely best trained and most current technicians available for the job.

Let’s take a minute to review our countdown. Your system turned on at day 1, so by the end of those first 3 years, since most systems have been running non-stop 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, your system has put in 26,280 hours so far. In order to try to come up with some form of real life comparison, let’s equate this to the miles on your personal car.

The average driver puts about 15,000 miles on a car each year, so your computer could be said to be like a car with 45,000 miles on it so far. While we might expect some minor repairs in the first three years of the life of a new car, we’d all most likely be totally confident loading the family up for a cross country vacation in a car with just 45,000 miles on it.

After the first 3 years, typically a hardware renewal contract comes at a higher price, and in many cases the response times are reduced so that you’re basically paying more to support the same hardware, and now you may have to wait longer to get your system repaired. Vendors raise their prices and lower the response time commitment because they know their repair technicians will be fixing older machines, and that the stock of parts for those older models is beginning to be depleted, so they might only be able to commit to a “second business day” type of response time.

Now 6 years have passed since your system was new and you’re now at 52,560 hours of continuous operation. When we look at the odometer on our 6 year old car, it’s now at 90,000 miles and even if we bought the extended warranty, we’re rapidly approaching that point where any major repair bill is going to be paid for out of pocket, and the thought of heading cross country in that car now might just give us reason to pause.

When a system gets past 6 years of use in the field, most major vendors have statistical proof that the hardware is nearing the end of its useable life, and they leave the support of this aging equipment to the “break fix” shops that have teams of “generalist” technicians who have good working knowledge of the basics of many types and brands of systems, but who might struggle with the subtle differences between major brands. Parts are getting much more difficult to find, and in many cases you can expect a repair to take a few days unless you get lucky and the part you need just happens to be sitting on someone’s shelf nearby. Hardware support at this point typically is the most expensive and the least responsive.

After 9 years, our system has been running for 78,840 hours. While it’s impossible to predict with any certainty the day that your system will suffer some major crash, at this point you are over 78,000 hours closer to that moment. Keeping our 9 year old car in the discussion, it’s now at over 135,000 miles. How many of us would bundle the family up in a car that old and head off on vacation without some worries that there might be some major breakdown along the way.

So, why have I taken you through this exercise? I’ve done this to make sure your eyes are wide open as you consider the age of your computer system. We have many of you out there whose systems are older than the examples I’ve used above and I worry that you might think you’re sailing along safe and sound while a storm is building just over the horizon. Doing nothing seems like a great idea at this point because times are tough and the system has run fine for a long time now.

Older systems are getting to the point where there are extremely limited resources still available to repair them, and like the train in “Super 8”, they are rushing towards the point where the catastrophic crash is inevitable. Is the system that you depend on to run your business every day one of these? Don’t you think it’s time for us to have a talk about eliminating the risk?

Give us a call today at (801) 266-4888 so we can make sure you're not worried about a crash!