Tandem NonStop

This morning was nice and cool, a precursor as summer turns to fall.  A nice change of pace from hot and humid.

Today at work we started the process of shutting down the Tandem NonStop system known as S77.  For the better part of my 20+ years at Reuters it has been the most reliable editorial system.  In my career as an IT professional, I can not think of another system that held up as long and served its purpose with so few problems.  

This day in history "The Tandem NonStop system at the Hauppauge datacenter is powered off"  For the first time since 1999, the system is powered off.  Thousands of journalists at Reuters have used this system to publish stories.  Millions of stories have been processed.  

Frank and Bill, a couple of old timers watched as we clicked the mouse over the Power Off System and answered "yes" to the warning message that splashed onto the screen.  That's it ?  Is the system really powered down ?  NonStop systems do not have a power on/off switch...it's design is to keep running.....

Into the machine room we go to check for a pulse, a glimmer of life.  An LED light flashing, or a fan cooling the power supplies.   We approach the cabinets and open the doors.  The system is quiet, its $system disk and all other components have been powered off.

The next phase is to power off the sister system in St. Louis on Wed. and a final power off of the system in Europe on Friday.   The end of an era.

Photo of the day "Tandem NonStop"

P.S. The Final Year - S55 and S77 , Both Tandem Non-Stop served Reuters editorial for nearly 3 Decades.  I have the nameplate from the system in my office.