Yes, the gear doesn't stop working just because Sun stops supporting it. I have a bunch of old Sun and HP/Compaq gear that I keep happily humming away. Around here I am the master of old system re-use. Here are some of my rules of thumb...

1) Don't use it for anything really important. Nothing production or mission critical should be run on the old gear (unless you have a lot of redundancy (a lot!)). It's hard to explain to your boss that a major application is down because it's running on unsupported gear that just died. So, this means it's great for lab or development use. Also, that occasional software trial or proof of concept project is great for old gear, except vendors will always blame poor performance on the old gear.

2) Spares, spares, spares!!! Get as many spare drives and power supplies as you can. These are the most likely to go bad. If you put one 6320 into use, only do so if you have at least one or two identical units sitting cold on the shelf to scavenge for parts. You can't call Sun, but you can get a screw driver and dig in.

3) Advertise it! Some bosses love the fact that you are "repurposing decommissioned equipment to provide new capabilities to the department, with zero impact to the budget" (wordsmith to taste). This can give you more leverage when you do need new equipment, and it will cover your butt since management knows what you are doing (your boss can decide if they don't want to assume the risk of using unsupported gear).

I'm sure I can think of more, but these are good high points.


 

I work for a company that does hardware maintenance on many legacy systems. We cover basically everything from IBM, DEC, HP, EMC, Dell, Sun, Cisco etc etc etc.. Look at www.sysmaint.com. We have many office locations across the US. I am not sure where you are based but the cost for contracts is extremely low. You need to think of it this way (take out a contract and receive hardware support, troubleshooting, and hardware replacement(no extra cost)), or hope you don't have a problem because if you do and you need hardware analysis and parts you would most likely pay more for 1 T&M service then you would pay for a contract for the year. We spare up local offices based on contracts. We offer 7x24, NBD services etc. Take a look and if interested and you end up talking to our sales force please mention my name Chris Adams. I am a Senior Support Engineer based in Florida.

As SamBones says you could always purchase additional equipment but then again if you take out a contract you don't waste money on parts you may never use.

Also we have hundreds if not thousands of customers that still use their Legacy systems for production environments. With today's economy people are holding onto everything much longer.

Boy I sound like a sales person..want to gag.. I am a technician who hates to see customers down and out or wasting money. So do yourself a favor and at least call SMS and then compare the contract quote to what it would cost for you to spare up.

Thanks

Chris

Thank you both for the tips, very helpful.  We are in the UK Chris so I'm sure I could find a similar operation over here if need be?  
Cheers.
Iain

Iain, if you're in the UK, I'd recommend Amtec:

https://sslrelay.com/www.amtecgroup.co.uk/sess/utn;jsessionid=154cda67aa06649/shopdata/index.shopscript

You can mention my name, and I promise I'm not on commission, just think that people who do a good job deserve the credit.

The internet - allowing those who don't know what they're talking about to have their say.

Thanks Ken, I'll certainly mention your name if I contact them.
Iain