Replacements, Financing and Warranties
Most of the server hardware used by CNS (and by Drew) is actually leased or financed for a period of three years - the same as the standard warranty and service contract we buy with the equipment. Generally, the fourth year of service adds considerable cost. We have the option of buying out equipment, but we rarely want to keep servers that are more than 3 years old for critical services, since they aren't covered by warranty and may not support newer operating system releases. We do keep some older equipment for testing or development.
This means that we are having to replace servers, moving their software and configurations, on an ongoing basis, which can be very labor intensive. Careful planning helps, as does our move to virtual servers. The virtual server can be moved to a new VMware host without the need to reinstall the guest operating system (Linux, Windows or NetWare) from scratch.