Edit: Some links no longer work.
Originally posted June 30, 2015 on AIXchange
I needed a bigger vehicle. Given my work with Boy Scouts, I spend considerable time on the road, hauling boys and their camping gear.
I wanted something big enough to comfortably contain eight or nine people and capably transport a trailer of supplies. I also wanted something that was reliable, well-maintained and a good value. I knew it’d take some time. Decently priced used vehicles like that don’t become available every day, and they typically sell within hours of being advertised. But after a few months of searching craigslist, I found a Chevy Suburban that fit my needs and requirements.
Many people are understandably apprehensive about car-buying. How do you know you’re getting what’s being advertised? There are options, services like Carfax that allow you to see different aspects of a used vehicle’s history. A few individual owners may also keep documentation of the work done to their vehicles. Even if you’re not a car person, you can have a trusted mechanic examine a used vehicle for you. While all of this is reassuring, you must still be alert for individual sellers or dealerships that may try to pawn off their problem by concealing costly issues. I certainly have no desire to own a high-mileage, poorly maintained used car.
The same principle applies to our computer hardware. This is something I’ve discussed often over the years. Of course I’m hardly the only one. Anthony English explores this issue in this recent posting. He even uses a car maintenance analogy in the second paragraph. His point? We must maintain our hardware and software.
Only a few weeks ago I wrote about the need to keep current on firmware and OS patches. Customers shouldn’t skip these updates or miss out on other enhancements that are made available on a regular basis.
In short, it pays to be proactive. Plus, it’s fairly simple now. By keeping up with AIX patches, as newer generations of POWER hardware come out, much of the enablement is already loaded into your operating system. Upgrading to new hardware can be as easy as performing a live partition mobility operation to migrate to your new equipment.
Related resources: David Tansley discusses log file maintenance in this article. I wrote about the value of keeping IBM hardware maintenance contracts on your gear here.
I’m sure we can all agree that, like our cars, our machines require regular hardware and software service.
By the way, so far so good with my Suburban. I took care of some minor issues after I got it, but I’ve already had it on a few campouts and it’s been great. You can bet that I plan to continue maintaining it to protect my investment, drive the boys back and forth to campouts safely, and enjoy it for years to come. Likewise, our machines are worth the same effort and investment.