On Oct 10, 2009, at 3:08 PM, Alan McKay wrote:
The better solution would be to make sure you are prepared for when the hardware does fail. Inform the client that you understand that they don't want to upgrade the servers, and that hardware failure is not a case of "if" but "when". Lay out a plan to them describing what would happen when that occurs, and how you will make sure that their downtime is minimal.
For the win!
This is by far the best approach if you want to bring them along. It has to be THEIR decision, so the best way to get them to make that decision is to sit back and say "OK, if you don't want to upgrade that is fine, but we still have to make sure we are prepared for when that hardware fails, so here is what we'll do ..."
That will probably scare the crap out of them enough to change their minds :-)
Can you get something like the average lifespan of the circuits in hours ?
There should be something saying that in the best case scenario the processor can work X thousand hours and die. Although I don't know where that information could be available :-)
-Giovanni