Aging AS/400 Receives $100 Lease on Life

Published: November 28, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Two Northern California counties have entered into an odd agreement involving the leasing of an older AS/400. The story, first reported in the Redding Record Searchlight, shows how state law can be a hindrance when local governments try to help each other.

According to the Record Searchlight, Shasta County was left with two AS/400 Model S20s following the migration of its child support system from an OS/400-based solution to a solution running on a different platform. The government decided to keep one of the servers so it could still access its archives, but the other AS/400 served no purpose and was idled.

When the folks up in Shasta County heard that Mendocino County had also migrated key applications off the AS/400, but were left with no backup AS/400 to access their archives, Shasta County decided to offer their extra AS/400 to their counterparts in Mendocino. But the transfer of the aging midrange server wouldn't be that easy.

Due to a provision in state law that restricts how old computer gear is disposed of, Shasta County could not just give Mendocino the extra Model S20. Nor could it sell them the old box without engaging in a public bidding process, where anybody could have bought it.

As a result, the only way that Shasta County could get the S20 into the hands of Mendocino was for Shasta to lease it to them, at the rate of $10 per year. The county's board of supervisors approved the 10-year lease last week.

Not everybody was pleased with the transfer. "I'm sure it's to make sure government officials and agencies aren't buying and giving away things that are paid for by tax dollars," the Record Searchlight quoted Shasta County child support services director Terri Love as saying, "but it does seem cumbersome and . . . a lot of paperwork."