How to move an IBM z9 (Model 2096-R02) safely?

[Neuromancer]

So I need to remove an IBM z9 (model 2096-R02) this week from the a computing center, and I'm curious if anyone's moved one of these beasts before? They say it weighs in at 1500 pounds, so it's a lot to just go pushing around. I'd obviously like to keep it intact and in good shape. I'm not sure what circumstances it's currently in, I'll find out tomorrow when I meet with them. It appears to be in a machine room (possibly on an upper floor) and hopefully they've at least uncabled the whole thing. But it's a secured area, so I don't know if they'll allow me to spend any time in there removing parts of it to try to make it lighter, which would be my default approach.

I have a 26' truck with a liftgate and at least an 84" high door opening scheduled for later this week, so if they allow it I have some time to take things out of it. But I've never been around a z9 before, do they have removable CPU cards, other removable parts that we could carry separately? The doors look rather funky compared to other IBM racks, can they be easily removed?

And trying to push 1500 pounds over any kind of hump or uphill seems like it would require more than 3 people. Even getting it onto the liftgate seems like it would be ugly with just pushing. They did remove the service computer drives, so this unit probably won't run without them, but I figure that's more a problem for after we get it safely out of the CC and back to ground where we can examine it better.

Anyone here have experience on the hardware side with these units and can give me some advice on dealing with them?

Thanks, Mowgli

 

[jafir]

I have a 26' truck with a liftgate

I worked at a place that did 3rd party maintenance provider and about a week before I started there, we took a delivery of an IBM P5 595, which is a similar era system, in a very similar rack, that also weighs about that and it fell of the back of the truck when the liftgate flexed.

The supplier of this antique sent us another one and when it showed up, I explained the details of the previous shipment and suggested that he be extra careful and maybe toss a strap or two around it. He seemed annoyed that I was giving him advice, but he loosely put a strap around the back of the truck. As he wheeled the rack onto the liftgate, it moved a lot and began to tip, but fortunately the strap caught it enough to keep it from going over. He seemed a little scared and added a second strap.

I’d imagine will wheel around pretty easily in a nice, level datacenter environment, once you’ve raised the feet and moved any vent tiles out of the way.

 

[ggs]

This has been discussed before in other places. IBM mainframes without the SEs and their drives is a boat anchor. The microcode (which is serialized to the particular machine) is loaded from the SE. In later versions, the mainframe “checks in” with the SEs periodically. That’s why there are at least 2 SEs so that if one fails the entire mainframe doesn’t go down.

In terms of moving the beast, I’d see if you can find some motorized pallet jack. Even if it’s not on a pallet, you can use it to pull the z9 on its own casters. I’d also suggest having a jbar handy for coercing it over small bumps.

When I’m moving heavy equipment in a box truck, I *always* get one with a “rail lift” as opposed to a “tuck under”. Rail lift lift gates only move up/down and have no horizontal component, unlike tuck unders which have a fair amount of horizontal movement.

 

[Neuromancer]

OK, I presume because it's IBM that as soon as they remove parts, it's a boat anchor. But thanks for confirming that. Yes, it's a stupid thing that companies just turn such things into boat anchors, even though there's no way there's any PII on a service processor drive and the unit itself doesn't have any built-in disk. But lawyers like rules that don't involve thought. I'm certain IBM had a way to replace the missing drives, but wouldn't these days and it would probably cost a silly amount of money if they would. But that's OK, it will hang out next to a Unisys machine from we think a little earlier that was a similiar idea at least (but more mid-1990s technology).

I'm running into interesting issues with the box truck anyway, because it looks like the state's dock height is limited to 13' 5", which is pretty short for a truck loading dock (and it's enclosed). So I have to go back to the truck folks and see what I can get that will fit under that. I probably won't get a choice of lift gates, but definitely thanks for the advice about the gate flexing. We will definitely watch that when we load and unload it.

I will get a chance tomorrow to spend a few hours removing bits from it, so I hope to remove the APU batteries (it did appear to have that option) and the skirts to allow me to get to the feet, probably the doors, and we'll see what else comes off easily. Anything that comes off an makes it lighter should help. If I can remove whole modules, I'll definitely go for that.

Thanks for the advice.

- Mowgli

 

[Neuromancer]

Thanks especially for the advice on having a strap around it while it's on the liftgate. The tilt on the liftgate at times got interesting, and that strap was really useful in keeping it in place on the liftgate. We had a long enough strap we had the strap anchored on the E-strap hooks inside, so it could handle the weight. At a few points the strap was quite taught.

Also early on I deployed a couple of the feet towards the open end of the liftgate, to try to prevent the wheels from sliding in that direction. I had to put the feet up again before we put the liftgate on the ground, because with the angle it would have dug them into the liftgate a bit.

The operation was successful.

- Mowgli