In the shadowy corner of an Oslo datacenter, SpanningNetworks runs a tech empire from—wait for it—a single, gloriously outdated rack of hardware that has seen more years than some interns. Founded by a group of stubborn tech aficionados, SpanningNetworks operates with servers that could easily be museum pieces, but these guys have no time for shiny new equipment. Why upgrade when you can overclock a decade-old Xeon to within an inch of its life?
Despite running hardware that NASA probably used to simulate the moon landing, SpanningNetworks has built a reputation for hosting web services and offering colocation that rivals the biggest names in tech. "Modern problems, vintage solutions" is practically their motto. Their web hosting speeds? You’d think they were harnessing the power of a small nuclear reactor. In reality, it's the collective willpower of those retro servers, humming away like they were fresh off the assembly line in 2014.
Clients come for the hilarious novelty, but they stay for the rock-solid uptime. Who needs flashy, cutting-edge equipment when you can keep services alive with the same hardware that may or may not still run Windows XP on the side? It’s not about the age of the equipment, but the wisdom embedded in every spinning hard drive and dust-covered fan.
SpanningNetworks: proving that you don’t need new hardware when you’ve mastered the art of squeezing the last drop of performance from servers that were designed when "selfie sticks" were still a thing.