Let's assume several people/businesses get the more expensive packages and the server infrastructure are rolled into the $10 mil, AND they get all 4000 customers right away... shall we call it $2.5 million/year?
That means if they accrue NO extra monthly costs (bandwidth, hardware failure, tornado, wages) they can earn what they've spent in 4 years.
But, what do these guys want to make? $50K/year seems low for that kind of effort, but maybe not in Iowa.... but let's stick with that. That's probably $450K/year including taxes, SSI, insurance...etc etc.
Bandwidth for 4000 people at 128K... assuming no-one is downloading pr0n movies or their favorite warez & ISOs they would need about 2 T1s? If they offer their own news servers then add another T1. So... $40K/year?
Office space... $15K/year.
Staying up all night recovering from their first crash? Priceless.
So I've tallied about $500K each year. There's a lot I left out, too, still they could be completely in the black in 15 years. Will there be a need for them for 15 years?
I dunno, but I guess I can see the possibility of success, especially if they're the only game in town.
Seriously. After $1 million to build the antennas, probably another $50-$100 thousand for routers and servers, whoknowshowmuch for office space and perhaps $5,000/month minimum for bandwidth, how long until this will pay 6 guys a worthwhile wage for 24-hour duty???
If the hardware works... leave it. If the hardware has lasted as long as you seem to suggest... it's liable to last years longer. Replacement power supplies are cheap, so are CPU fans. Otherwise get a HD mirror or better and leave the rest alone. Server hardware should be upgraded when it gets too slow or breaks, not when the next OS upgrade comes out...
Where I work I have a couple each of Novell 4.11 and Linux boxen... don't have problems with either. I'm upgrading the Novell servers to 5.1 *only* because Novell offers great deals to non-profits... it's a good excuse to get some practical experience for a CNE.:-)
Bottom line, Novell has amazingly good software but if it weren't for the great deal I probably wouldn't be upgrading the Novell boxen. Linux/BSD offer impressive remote admin abilities, internet cache, mail server, DNS etc etc on the cheap... a 30 license Novell upgrade will cost ~$3,000 plus the Groupwise update plus ZEN (if you like) plus Bordermanager plus new hardware.
you're not kidding about the high barrier for switching. I've been an Airtouch custumer (no verizon) for nearly 8 years. When I asked them to replace my phone, they said no. They'll give me $150 off RETAIL pricing on a replacement, and I have to renew a contract. New customers get a better deal than I do for being loyal.
I've seen it run on a few systems... private high schools. Impressively stable, moving between 5,000-6,000 emails daily for nearly 10 months at a time without incident.
Mind you, 5-6K is not "a lot" of mail in a day, but it does work OK.
Perhaps. It's chunks for me. 7200rpm Deskstar ATA66, 128MB, PII-450, TNT2. Wasn't any better or worse with a G200/32. Win2000 seems smoother. Heck, 98se was smoother!
*nix, whether it's Caldera, Redhat, *BSD beat M$.
But then, BeOS beats them all. Too bad TFC isn't ported to Be.
Look like an AGP slot. Same color; looks to be the same length; same offset to the PCI slot; heck it even has that little AGP notch so few OEMs seem to use (except maybe Intel).
Flashcom "couldn't" sell me their $50/mo deal because they weren't able to get "sufficient line quality." Pacbell gave me their 384K sDSL for $50 w/ static IP -- I actually see ~1.1Mbps downstream even after 11 months of service.
Flashcom finally refunded my deposit. It took 11 months, but they accidentally did it three times. Whoops!
BTW: local telco techs told me servers weren't allowed unless I got a business account, but they didn't have any reason to check unless my IP was getting "unreasonable" usage. Whatever "unreasonable" means....
If power consumption is a concern then an old (or new)PC is not the best choice. Seems that Win2K needs a lot of horsepower just to boot.
Remember when your router "goes down" and needs to be restarted, Linux on a floppy will take ~1 minute. Win2K on new hardware boots fast but is expensive, and on old hardware and will take several minutes.
How long does something have to be broken before *your* phone extension starts ringing off the hook?
Of course, if you have the dough then a Cisco somethingerouter looks great on that rack!!
Get a quality case and silencer power supply from PC power and cooling. They also offer exceptionally quiet PS and CPU fans. Pricey (if you ask me) but my system w/ Power supply, 2 CPU fans and 3 PS fans would be silent if it weren't for the hard drives or the occasion CD that makes the ROM vibrate like a misbalanced washing machine.:-)
They (Dell) saves themselves the headache already. They only support OSes they sell, and they have to be in "original factory condition" before they'll seriously help.
After a few minutes of questioning the tech suggests using that "emergency recovery CD" to restore, and then they'll troubleshoot.
Anyhoo, why order a Dell without an OS when you can burn a copy of it for all your friends!:-)
Since I'm still on the steep end of the learning curve and the top is not in sight...:-)
I'm curious why there would be 5 servers dedicated to serving pages and 3 more just to images? As opposed to 8 servers dedicated to serving up the complete page?
Or maybe a reverse-proxy arrangement?
Seriously. This stuff is great and I wanna know more!
you're right. crocs can move quickly at times. so can lizards (ever try to chase one?). for that matter... so can spiders. so can scorpions. heck, even protozoans can dart around (relatively) quickly. -sid
Slashdot Mirror
eeeesh
I'm from 34. California.
Duz that mayk me stoopid? Below average at least....
Okay...
Let's assume several people/businesses get the more expensive packages and the server infrastructure are rolled into the $10 mil, AND they get all 4000 customers right away... shall we call it $2.5 million/year?
That means if they accrue NO extra monthly costs (bandwidth, hardware failure, tornado, wages) they can earn what they've spent in 4 years.
But, what do these guys want to make? $50K/year seems low for that kind of effort, but maybe not in Iowa.... but let's stick with that. That's probably $450K/year including taxes, SSI, insurance...etc etc.
Bandwidth for 4000 people at 128K... assuming no-one is downloading pr0n movies or their favorite warez & ISOs they would need about 2 T1s? If they offer their own news servers then add another T1. So... $40K/year?
Office space... $15K/year.
Staying up all night recovering from their first crash? Priceless.
So I've tallied about $500K each year. There's a lot I left out, too, still they could be completely in the black in 15 years. Will there be a need for them for 15 years?
I dunno, but I guess I can see the possibility of success, especially if they're the only game in town.
-sid
Wow.
*IF* you killed them you managed to "knock them out" for a full 15 minutes. You monster.
I'd say your virginity is intact.
-sid
I guess neither of us can read.
It says they spent $10 million AND a year.
So... is this profitable?
-sid
Seriously. After $1 million to build the antennas, probably another $50-$100 thousand for routers and servers, whoknowshowmuch for office space and perhaps $5,000/month minimum for bandwidth, how long until this will pay 6 guys a worthwhile wage for 24-hour duty???
Maybe that's a question for Ask Slashdot?
-sid
If the hardware works... leave it. If the hardware has lasted as long as you seem to suggest... it's liable to last years longer. Replacement power supplies are cheap, so are CPU fans. Otherwise get a HD mirror or better and leave the rest alone. Server hardware should be upgraded when it gets too slow or breaks, not when the next OS upgrade comes out...
:-)
Where I work I have a couple each of Novell 4.11 and Linux boxen... don't have problems with either. I'm upgrading the Novell servers to 5.1 *only* because Novell offers great deals to non-profits... it's a good excuse to get some practical experience for a CNE.
Bottom line, Novell has amazingly good software but if it weren't for the great deal I probably wouldn't be upgrading the Novell boxen. Linux/BSD offer impressive remote admin abilities, internet cache, mail server, DNS etc etc on the cheap... a 30 license Novell upgrade will cost ~$3,000 plus the Groupwise update plus ZEN (if you like) plus Bordermanager plus new hardware.
-sid
you're not kidding about the high barrier for switching. I've been an Airtouch custumer (no verizon) for nearly 8 years. When I asked them to replace my phone, they said no. They'll give me $150 off RETAIL pricing on a replacement, and I have to renew a contract. New customers get a better deal than I do for being loyal.
-sid
Strange...
The webmin page is "sponsored by Caldera" but the software is "best supported (at the moment) by Solaris, RedHat and FreeBSD."
No wonder Caldera is such a small player. Their own admin tools work better on other distros!
-sid
I get a steady 1.5Mbps out of my DSL. There was an occasion where it was fluctuating between 400Kbps and 750Kbps.
My point is online gaming on Quake/UT/TFC/CS sucks when it fluctuates like that.
-sid
By that rationale, conserving water is a waste of time. Personally, I could only save a few hundred gallons each year if I'm careful.
That water savings mean only a couple bucks savings each year. Takes more time to conserve water than it's worth... so why bother?
-sid
Also...
NT 4.0 introduced the video system into kernel space. This helped speed the video system -- albeit at the cost of "stability."
You may recall the "use of a third-party driver may cause problems" message when installing that shiny new video card in NT...
-sid
Actually, the amount was two day's coffee sales.
It's a sad society that needs all the warnings we do.
"This cup of coffee is HOT."
"Don't eat this Preparation-H."
"Airport runways are NOT playgrounds."
Gimme a break.
-sid
I've seen it run on a few systems... private high schools. Impressively stable, moving between 5,000-6,000 emails daily for nearly 10 months at a time without incident.
Mind you, 5-6K is not "a lot" of mail in a day, but it does work OK.
-sid
WinME stable?
Perhaps. It's chunks for me. 7200rpm Deskstar ATA66, 128MB, PII-450, TNT2. Wasn't any better or worse with a G200/32. Win2000 seems smoother. Heck, 98se was smoother!
*nix, whether it's Caldera, Redhat, *BSD beat M$.
But then, BeOS beats them all. Too bad TFC isn't ported to Be.
-sid
W0W... you can count. An extra two years makes something "OLDER!!!"
"And lame-o was your name-o!"
-sid
Look like an AGP slot. Same color; looks to be the same length; same offset to the PCI slot; heck it even has that little AGP notch so few OEMs seem to use (except maybe Intel).
:-)
Flashcom "couldn't" sell me their $50/mo deal because they weren't able to get "sufficient line quality." Pacbell gave me their 384K sDSL for $50 w/ static IP -- I actually see ~1.1Mbps downstream even after 11 months of service.
Flashcom finally refunded my deposit. It took 11 months, but they accidentally did it three times. Whoops!
BTW: local telco techs told me servers weren't allowed unless I got a business account, but they didn't have any reason to check unless my IP was getting "unreasonable" usage. Whatever "unreasonable" means....
-jeremy
Serious question.....
Can it really be considered a "firewall" if you run DNS, mail, squid?
:-)
If power consumption is a concern then an old (or new)PC is not the best choice. Seems that Win2K needs a lot of horsepower just to boot.
Remember when your router "goes down" and needs to be restarted, Linux on a floppy will take ~1 minute. Win2K on new hardware boots fast but is expensive, and on old hardware and will take several minutes.
How long does something have to be broken before *your* phone extension starts ringing off the hook?
Of course, if you have the dough then a Cisco somethingerouter looks great on that rack!!
:-)
http://www.pcpowercooling.com
Cisco in high school. That woulda been good.
:-)
I was happy to get Pascal *and* AP Pascal. Networking OS? Not on the Apple IIe.
-sid
They (Dell) saves themselves the headache already. They only support OSes they sell, and they have to be in "original factory condition" before they'll seriously help.
:-)
After a few minutes of questioning the tech suggests using that "emergency recovery CD" to restore, and then they'll troubleshoot.
Anyhoo, why order a Dell without an OS when you can burn a copy of it for all your friends!
-sid
""http://www.tpc.org/new_result/ttpp.idc ""
I wonder why Sun isn't on that list... Maybe it's because Sun doesn't run Windows NT?
Since I'm still on the steep end of the learning curve and the top is not in sight... :-)
I'm curious why there would be 5 servers dedicated to serving pages and 3 more just to images? As opposed to 8 servers dedicated to serving up the complete page?
Or maybe a reverse-proxy arrangement?
Seriously. This stuff is great and I wanna know more!
you're right. crocs can move quickly at times. so can lizards (ever try to chase one?). for that matter... so can spiders. so can scorpions. heck, even protozoans can dart around (relatively) quickly. -sid