|
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 184 responses total. |
i
|
|
response 100 of 184:
| 
Sep 19 03:01 UTC 2003 |
Equipment at ICNet is in a commonly-accessable room. Between electronic
secuity, being so close to A^2's Police HQ, the very limited size and
user demographic of their co-lo renters, etc., I don't see much of an
issue there. I recall them being tight with extra security cards to get
inside - that might be an issue for us. Their co-lo service includes
UPS's backed by a (natural gas) generator - everything stayed up right
through August's blackout. Though (grumble) not perfect, ICNet's uptime
record has been very good for a number of years. You may want to ask
Bill if their bandwidth is still "typically but we do not promise any
more" burstable to much higher data rates. Last i knew, the charged an
extra $150 for 4U of extra rack space...but it's been a while.
|
mary
|
|
response 101 of 184:
|
Sep 19 10:29 UTC 2003 |
The quote was for 4u of space. But I'll get confirmation
on that when his email bid arrives.
|
i
|
|
response 102 of 184:
|
Sep 20 12:11 UTC 2003 |
I was thinking of a second 4U - 8U total - since we're interested in
having two systems going. At (my memory of) their price, it would be
more reasonable to spend money slimming down our systems.
|
cross
|
|
response 103 of 184:
|
Sep 20 18:00 UTC 2003 |
I think grex could fit in a 2U or 3U machine, with any other system we
needed fitting in 1U. I think we could get away with 4U of space. The
trouble is tape drives and the modem....
|
jep
|
|
response 104 of 184:
|
Sep 23 15:57 UTC 2003 |
Isn't Ivars Upatnieks still the owner/president of ICNet? If so, he's
an old-time M-Netter and might be willing to give Grex a price break.
|
mary
|
|
response 105 of 184:
|
Sep 23 17:24 UTC 2003 |
I'm not sure if he's still associated or not. Regardless,
we first need to decide if co-location is something we want
to do. The quoted price is close enough for us to make
some decisions.
I hate to be a gloom and doom type person but I think
liability insurance is going to be an albatross around
Grex's fiscal neck. Each year it gets more and more
expensive and harder to get.
I'd much rather put that money into bandwidth. But
that's my concern. I don't know if it's shared by
many others.
Our lease has one more option to renew, taking us from
06/01/04 through 05/31/05. After that we may be able
to get a simply extension or it may mean renegotiating
the terms. We need to notice by February 1, 2004 as to
whether we'll be renewing for another year.
So any decisions regarding co-location should be made
by early to mid-January, at the latest.
I'd like to know if we could afford this and how much it
would cost to get the necessary racks.
If anybody else has any co-location ideas it would probably
be a good idea to get them on the table now, to allow for
public discussion, before any decisions have to be made.
|
remmers
|
|
response 106 of 184:
|
Sep 24 01:03 UTC 2003 |
(For what it's worth, ICNet was Grex's first ISP, back when its
internet connection consisted of one 28.8kbps modem.)
|
i
|
|
response 107 of 184:
|
Sep 24 10:58 UTC 2003 |
Unless it's really recent, Ivars is still the owner/president of
ICNet. I've no idea if he'd be interested in giving grex any
discount.
|
scg
|
|
response 108 of 184:
|
Sep 24 19:28 UTC 2003 |
If anybody has ideas for providers who might give discounts on colo, or other
donors who might give something, it's probably much better to handle this in
mail to baff (board and staff) than in the coop conference. To air that sort
of thing in public puts pressure on the potential donor, and is as likely to
lead to resentment as to generosity.
|
jep
|
|
response 109 of 184:
|
Sep 25 15:21 UTC 2003 |
That's a good point. My apology for posting the suggestion about
discounts in public.
|
mary
|
|
response 110 of 184:
|
Oct 11 13:53 UTC 2004 |
I had a conversation yesterday with a representative at
provide.com, an ISP located in Ypsi. Without going into
a lot of details about Grex, and our needs, it looks
like they could offer us colo space, at $100.00 per month,
plus phone lines.
We wouldn't need insurance. Electric is included. They
have backup power. We'd have access to the equipment approx.
12 hours a day, 7 days a week. We wouldn't need to be
housed in a rack. That price would include a 50 gig feed.
At present that feed isn't capped but "they're working on
it".
Stringing phone lines sounded like something they don't do
routinely, but they'd be willing to get creative in terms
of finding a way.
Anyhow, I think this sounds interesting. If others do, then
I'd suggest someone from staff give him a call and see
if such an arrangement could work.
We've got some time to consider such a thing, but not a lot.
We need to give our landlord notice about our next lease
by the end of January, 2005.
|
mary
|
|
response 111 of 184:
|
Oct 11 13:54 UTC 2004 |
I think it's provide.net, not .com.
|
other
|
|
response 112 of 184:
|
Oct 11 14:17 UTC 2004 |
Wow. It's hard to see anything wrong with that scenario.
What would the additional cost be to support RetroGrex, assuming the
numbers you report above are for NextGrex?
|
aruba
|
|
response 113 of 184:
|
Oct 11 16:16 UTC 2004 |
Sounds great, Mary. I'd like to hear some more details.
|
albaugh
|
|
response 114 of 184:
|
Oct 11 17:46 UTC 2004 |
aruba, can you provide an average monthly figure for grex "operating
expenses"? I.e. rent, insurance, electricity, phones, network? It would be
helpful to have a figure against which to bounce any alternative location
scenarios that come our way.
|
mary
|
|
response 115 of 184:
|
Oct 11 19:16 UTC 2004 |
There's a lot more information we'll need to get before knowing
if this is a solution for Grex. How many IP addresses will
we need and will that increase the cost? What about retro-Grex?
How many phone lines could they supply and will we need?
I think the next step has to be someone who knows about our
needs and equipment talking with provide.net. I'm not qualified.
Maybe Joe, or Jan, or Kip? I'd be happy to pass along the
contact information, just let me know.
I think one of the things we all should talk about now is phone lines.
Could we get by with one?
|
janc
|
|
response 116 of 184:
|
Oct 11 20:26 UTC 2004 |
I very much approve of getting Grex more cost effective housing, but I don't
really want to get involved in the project right now. I just want to work
on NextGrex. Anyway, I don't know the answers to most of the questions. I
think Grex now has a block of 8 IP addresses, but it seems perfectly possible
to me that one would suffice, but I don't really know.
|
cmcgee
|
|
response 117 of 184:
|
Oct 11 23:48 UTC 2004 |
I''d say that we need at least two phone lines, maybe three. I have no
problem with staff having a line that is last in the queue or otherwise more
often available. Having staff be able to dial in to grex to fix things
without getting shut out by us dialers is worth supporting, in my book.
|
ryan
|
|
response 118 of 184:
|
Oct 12 00:13 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 119 of 184:
|
Oct 12 04:26 UTC 2004 |
FWIW, I use Provide.Net for my ISDN access. I will undertake to talk to them
in the next day or three, certainly no later than next Tuesday.
|
mary
|
|
response 120 of 184:
|
Oct 12 10:32 UTC 2004 |
Thanks, Joe. I've sent email.
|
janc
|
|
response 121 of 184:
|
Oct 12 20:30 UTC 2004 |
I think we should continue to pursue the library option, which seems to me
better than this.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 122 of 184:
|
Oct 13 02:46 UTC 2004 |
At this stage, I don't see this as "either/or." We are gathering information
prepatory to making a decision. The more information we have, the better the
decision is likely to be.
|
keesan
|
|
response 123 of 184:
|
Oct 14 03:45 UTC 2004 |
We have a provide.net mug. Several people have told us they are very happy
with provide.net, and I spoke with them once and got a good impression. They
are honest and friendly and competent. But so is MCRS - do they also do
colocation? I don't understand the terminology well enough to ask very
detailed questions. Either of these ISPs ought to get enough extra customers
from happy grexers to make it worth their while.
It would be lovely to start off the new grex in the new year in a new place.
Or does the lease run until later and we just need to decide by January?
I think we need at least two phone lines. I tend to tie up one of them for
an hour or two at a time. And maybe a way to send a message to whoever is
on the phone line that someone else wants to use it.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 124 of 184:
|
Oct 14 04:20 UTC 2004 |
The lease expires next summer; June 30, I think. However, the landlord needs
notice of what we are going to do.
|
