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Personal vs. Work/Free Server?
akutz asks: "I am sure many of you have asked yourselves this question before: do I run my own server, or take advantage of my employer's hardware and/or free online hosts? I recently brought my own personal server online that provides web, e-mail, source control, and directory services for myself. I like the warm snuggly feeling that all my data is on my box and it is mine, mine, mine. However, I have also just burdened myself with maintaining a server when my employer, The University of Texas at Austin, has plenty of servers that I could use for this very purpose. There are also plenty of free services online that do this, such as Gmail and Sourceforge. So the question is, which is better, running your own server or letting someone else do it for you?"
If it's just my stuff I prefer to run my own, mostly for the learning experience. However if I'm hosting things that a lot of other people use I think it's better to have a company host it. They generally have better uptime, and if they do go down, the blame isn't on me :)
If you host it yourself, make sure taht your ISP has no plans to block the port(s) you plan to use for the servers.
There seem to be a lot ISP now, at least here in Australia, who routinely block port 80, 25 and a host of others.
This is a multivariable optimization problem. There is no right answer for all circumstances. Which is why some people host their own sites, some host at their employers' sites, some use colocated servers, some use virtual servers, etc.
I appreciate all your comments, truly. For the curious, here is my setup at home. I have a 10mbps Fiber connection to my home courtesy of Grande Communications. I happen to rent a duplex in a well-to-do neighborhood of Austin where my wife and I could never afford to actually buy, but the nice side-effect of renting here is that the Austin president of Grande lives in the same neighborhood making this area the first one with fiber to the doorstep :) Oh, and I pay for 3mbps! double-:)
My server is a P4-2.8ghz 83G5 Shuttle with 2GB of RAM. It runs Ubuntu Linux 5.10 Breezy Badger. All this setup does is run SSH (pubkey auth only ) and Apache2 with WebDav enabled so I can access my home directory from afar with ease. Oh, and I require client certificates to talk to my WebDav share for security.
On top of this though I run VMware GSX server. I run a virtual instance of Breezy that is my web/e-mail/ldap/svn server. The beauty of it being virtual is that if I ever need to move it I just move the directory to another machine! Since the VM was created under VMware GSX 3.2.1 I can easily move it into ESX 2.5 or VMware Workstation 5.5.1 (legacy mode). I went this route specifically in case of the need to migrate the server. I also run a virtual instance of Windows 2003 Server Enterprise and Exchange 2003 for testing code and projects on Windows.
I like running my own server, it teaches me a lot, and I feel that I have the minimum amount of competence to pull it off. That said, there are times when I would love to just give it to somebody to run for me!
P.S. I was using Lunarpages, but I got to the point when I decided that I needed shell access to much. However, Lunarpages is a spectacular hosting company and their support turnaround is second to none. Withing 2 hours on the weekends! Those guys rock!
-- -a
I'm guessing you have already considered the relevant University of Texas System polices, the Office of General Council Ethics Standards, and the ITS Policies. Sorry, I work for another Texas university.
With that in mind, know that you and only you are responsible for the security of your computer and that you will be held responsible for any undesireable activity coming from your computer. If someone were to manage to compromise your computer and then attempt to compromise other university systems, you will at least be held responsible for not securing your own system, if not held responsible for anything coming from your computer -- or through it. If you are quite certain that you can keep your computer secure, then by all means run your own server and learn as much as possible. It's best not to experiment with production university systems. Besides, one could argue that using university-owned systems for your own purposes is a violation of the ethics policy. However, using your personal computer on the university network is no different than any student using a laptop.
Ouch! The truth hurts!
Doh! That should have said,
"Professor John Smith <jsmith@somewackydomain.com>"
Didn't realize the tags would get eaten even when posting in plain text. (Clearly this is some new definition of "plain old text" of which I was not previously aware...)
Just as an FYI, here in Ohio (as it was explained to me by my HR contact), it is illegal to profit from State owned (e.g. public university) resources such as IT equipment, vehicle, telephone, e-mail box, etc. (ORC 102.04) For example, forwaring "you@yourbiz.com" to the University Central Mail system and making personal business transactions, is (at the opinion of the University) a violation of (ORC 102.02) If what you are doing is of "academic or not-for-profit" interest, it's up to the IT folks/university lawyers what they construe as "within the academic mission of the university." The problem comes when your friend of a friend's boss asks if you'll host his stuff for $juicy_sum_of_money, and you risk it or need to get a 3rd party host if you want to get his business anyway,. You also have to worry about hosting content for a social/political group whom the university (or mid-tier sysadmin) doesn't want on the subnet, you're in a real pickle.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
I don't host anything of my own at work. Take a look at the Personal Co-location Registry. You'll find a bunch of inexpensive providers for your servers or apps.
Since I work for a Global Company in a information Security postion, I may a few insights to add. Statemachine talked about your information on company assets and how that information is now theirs. The reverse can be true also. If you brought in your own machine and put company data on it, theoretically, that machine belongs to the company. As we all know, even deleted, overwitten, zero-ed out data can be recovered (with different levels of labor respectively) from hard drives and other mediums. Companies will not and should not let you take your personal machines out of the building. This represents a avoidable risk to that companies intellectual property and corperate information. Email, files, software, and any other electronic communications methods that you use and/or provided by your company are theirs. This includes Cell phone converasations on company cell phones.
Most companies indemnify their employees. In other words, you, personally, would not get sued for an illegal act to commit fraud against customers using company assets. The company would. But, you would probably get fired in attemptng to settle the lawsuit.
A few things to remember:
PC does not mean Personal computer. It means Property of your Company.
Keeping Personal data on company assets is a big NO-NO.
Keeping Company Data on personal assets is a big NO-NO.
If you need something to do your job better, ask your company first.
If you need to bring in an asset you own, get permission and know the rules.
And the number one thing you can do: USE COMMON SENSE.
I know not every company follows these rules, mine does. They make sense, allbeit, sometimes difficult to follow.
CYA is a very good thing. If your using the CYA methodology, your already following the rules.