The way you push to migrate (even moving to a QEMU-hppa binary emulation environment) is the following equation: cost(maintain) is the cost of keeping the syst

The way you push to migrate (even moving to a QEMU-hppa binary emulation environment) is the following equation: cost(maintain) is the cost of keeping the system running as it stands right now, with the risk of 100% "it's gone" loss. cost(recover) is the cost of rebuilding what you have from wreckage, including any monetary loss from SLAs. cost(port) is the cost of operating plus the cost of ensuring compatibility at some level (or just "rebuilding it for functional equality"), with the inherent risk of Second System Syndrome. when cost(port) + cost(maintain) < cost(recover) by some factor (say, cost(port)^2 ) then it's time to port the system in-place after documenting its behavior as closely as you can. If you have source, that's great -- it's a UNIX system, you should be able to dredge most of it over and might need to patch in parts here and there.