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Grex > Coop13 > #380: Cyberspace Communications finances for November 2006 | |
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| Author |
Message |
aruba
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Cyberspace Communications finances for November 2006
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Dec 2 03:04 UTC 2006 |
Here is the treasurer's report on Cyberspace Communications, Inc. finances
through November 30th, 2006.
Beginning Balance $6,022.39
Credits $150.00 Member contributions
$1.18 Interest on our savings account
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$151.18
Debits $100.00 Provide Net colocation (thru 12/22/06)
$48.98 Phone Bill
$29.90 Renewal of grex.org and cyberspace.org
$3.63 Paypal fees (income = $90)
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$182.51
Ending Balance $5,991.06
Our current balance breaks down as follows:
$5,814.69 General Fund
$176.37 Silly Hat Fund
The money is distributed like this:
$4,076.75 Checking account
$1,914.31 Savings account earning 0.75% interest annually
We had one new member (easlern) in November. We are currently at 58
members, 47 of whom are paid through at least December 15th. (The others
expired recently and are in a grace period.)
Notes:
- We renewed both domain names through the beginning of 2008.
Thanks to everyone who contributed in November:
arabella, easlern, keesan, and witling.
If you or your institution would like to become a member of Grex, it
only costs $6/month or $60/year. Send money to:
Cyberspace Communications
P. O. Box 4432
Ann Arbor, MI 48106-4432
If you pay by cash or money order, please include a photocopy of some
form of ID. We can't add you to the rolls without ID. (If you pay
with a personal check that has your name pre-printed on it, we
consider that a good enough ID.) Type !support or see
http://www.cyberspace.org/member.html for more info.
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| 124 responses total. |
jep
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response 1 of 124:
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Dec 6 00:47 UTC 2006 |
At $182.51 per month, Grex has over 32 months of expenses secured. I
suppose there are other expenses as well and so that may not be exact
but it seems to me if Grex stopped taking in money entirely, I think it
would still be securely financed at the current level for at least 2 years.
In the event of a major expense, such as a new computer, Grex users will
no doubt step forward, as they have in the past, to contribute the
needed money. That means there's no need for Grex to have a pile of
money like it does.
Grex has the funds to expand into new services or areas, increase it's
level of service, or to reduce it's required membership contributions.
How about exploring some ways to use some of Grex's money?
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mcnally
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response 2 of 124:
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Dec 6 00:52 UTC 2006 |
Or perhaps Grex could lower its membership dues and consider tailoring
a special membership program to users in developing countries who
probably cannot afford $60/year but who might take a more active role
on Grex if they were more engaged..
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keesan
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response 3 of 124:
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Dec 6 02:13 UTC 2006 |
The grex membership is steadily shrinking and I think we should hold onto the
reserve cash.
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slynne
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response 4 of 124:
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Dec 6 03:54 UTC 2006 |
I think that considering a membership scheme that makes it easier for
people in other countries to become members doesnt necessarily have to
cost us a lot of money.
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jep
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response 5 of 124:
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Dec 6 16:28 UTC 2006 |
I don't have much interest in sending in more membership money at
present. Grex doesn't need the money. We're not using it for anything
and not planning on using it for anything. If $60 has got to sit in a
bank account, it might as well be my bank account.
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keesan
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response 6 of 124:
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Dec 6 18:03 UTC 2006 |
We are using the money to pay monthly expenses, including an internet
connection that lets you access grex.
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cross
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response 7 of 124:
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Dec 6 19:22 UTC 2006 |
...and jep's point is, that with the money in the bank, there's no need to
send in more money for another couple of years.
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tod
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response 8 of 124:
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Dec 6 20:15 UTC 2006 |
re #7
I'd totally disagree with that presumption. One of the board's primary
responsibilities is fiduciary and as such should always strive to bring in
some funding. Inflation and whatever else could easily make the current
reserves insufficient.
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keesan
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response 9 of 124:
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Dec 6 21:29 UTC 2006 |
If provide.net dumps us costs could go way up.
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nharmon
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response 10 of 124:
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Dec 6 21:34 UTC 2006 |
At which point, most of us will throw in some bucks. Now, if Grex wants
to start using that money to carry out its mission statement instead of
eating it all up in operating expenses....then JUST DO IT (tm).
But it bothers me that Grex says they need funds with no plan on how to
spend them. Tell 'ya what, publish a budget, a plan of how you would
spend money you don't have yet. If you have a vision, you may find more
people willing to part with their hard earned scratch.
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aruba
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response 11 of 124:
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Dec 6 22:13 UTC 2006 |
Grex's financial situation is pretty stable at the moment, thanks to the
fact that we decreased our expenses a lot by moving into colocation two
years ago. That's a good thing! Before that our bank account was steadily
declining.
I agree tht we don't need a cushion as big as we have right now, though I am
happy we have it. And I agree we should talk about ways to use some of our
money to improve the infrastructure.
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denise
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response 12 of 124:
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Dec 6 23:45 UTC 2006 |
Maybe if we reduced the price of a membership, more people would become
members.
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cross
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response 13 of 124:
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Dec 6 23:54 UTC 2006 |
I could think of a few ways:
Buy a hardware RAID controller and some more disk space. Revamp grex's
storage solution.
Buy a rackmount case and put grex in a rack instead of in a large
tower-style case. That might further reduce costs by lowering the physical
footprint at the colo facility.
Upgrade the grex computer by getting a new processor, RAM, and motherboard.
Put ECC memory and a faster processor onto a server-class motherboard that
can handle serial BIOS consoles. That would eliminate the need for a ``pc
weasel'' card that is continually talked about and never bought.
Pay janc to fix the outstanding bugs in fronttalk and replace the
ever-buggier picospan. Or buy a YAPP license.
With the exception of the last item, these are roughly in decreasing order
of cost.
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aruba
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response 14 of 124:
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Dec 7 05:18 UTC 2006 |
(We tried to buy a PC-Weasel, but it seems to be impossible to get one now.
So another solution is warranted.)
Those are good ideas. I don't think reducing our footprint will affect the
price we're paying at the colo facility - right now we're in the attic, and
it's a rather informal situaion. ANd we're getting a good deal. If we had
to leave and find a new home, then it would be an advantage to be small.
How much would a server-class motherboard and processor cost us? What else
would we need to buy? I'm assuming we could move the disks over as they
are.
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cross
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response 15 of 124:
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Dec 7 23:14 UTC 2006 |
Regarding #14; At the time grex switched to the current hardware, I
championed getting server-grade components, but it didn't happen. But,
they're not significantly more expensive than the current commodity
hardware. I'd estimate that a new motherboard might be $300-$400. A new
processor might run a couple hundred. A good 3U or 4U case might run
$400-$500. A couple of gigabytes of ECC RAM might be similarly priced (or
even cheaper...). A hardware SCSI RAID controller might be upwards of $600,
and new disks could run a grand or so. I'd champion replacing grex's
existing disks with new, larger capacity drives that are all the same size
and can thus be mirrored more easily. I'm not sure how much 4 x 72GB drives
would cost off the top of my head.
All in all, I'd say allocating $2000 to new hardware wouldn't be a bad
investiment at all. Grex went cheap on the current hardware and that has
cost us: I can remember some things - like hardware RAID - being shot down
because they were ``too expensive'' and then grex being down for extended
periods due to disk failures. Similarly, a rackmount case was shot down
because it was deemed unnecessary since grex was still in the pumpkin, not
colocation.
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gelinas
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response 16 of 124:
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Dec 8 01:41 UTC 2006 |
(Just a note: that "attic" is our host's server space. The last time I
was up there, they were using less than half the available floor space.)
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aruba
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response 17 of 124:
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Dec 11 15:49 UTC 2006 |
This response has been erased.
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aruba
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response 18 of 124:
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Dec 12 05:47 UTC 2006 |
Dan - I guess I'm not convinced that Grex's users will see much benefit from
that $2000 investment. Grex's hardware had a ouple glitches (which cost a
lot less than $2000 to fix), but it's been pretty stable lately. So
convince me that we'll see $2000 worth of improvement if we spend that much
money.
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mcnally
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response 19 of 124:
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Dec 12 06:24 UTC 2006 |
> Grex's hardware had a couple glitches (which cost a lot less than $2000
> to fix)
Actually, we had months of almost daily downtime, and we *still* have
periodic problems with user home directory partitions and (much more
frequently) /var/spool/mail filling up.
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spooked
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response 20 of 124:
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Dec 12 06:30 UTC 2006 |
Mike and Dan are accurate in their arguments and comments.
However, buying better hardware will NOT fix the problems because good
system administration is more about active monitoring, tailoring, and
anticipating problems --- none of these 3 are currently sufficiently met
by the Grex staff.
I know this may sound harsh, but it is spot on. There really needs to be
change in Grex staff, its culture in particular, and processes.
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aruba
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response 21 of 124:
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Dec 12 13:52 UTC 2006 |
Re #19: I agree that when we were having memory problems, that was ugly, adn
if throwing money at the problem would have fixed it, it would have been a
good thing. But we haven't had that problem for the last year, since STeve
pulled the bad memory chip. So I think it's a moot point.
I suppose we could buy a bigger disk and alleviate the mail spool problem
for a while. But it would just fill up again, right? So I'm not convinced
money can solve that problem.
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cross
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response 22 of 124:
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Dec 12 14:30 UTC 2006 |
There have been downtime periods of greater than a week on grex, largely due
to hardware (and more frequently) software failures. How much does that cost
grex in terms of opportunity costs? How much does it cost the staff people
who have to turn around and fix those problems?
Sure, in a direct, apples-to-apples comparison you won't see $2000 of benefit
for a $2000 investment, but that's the wrong metric. Instead, judge it based
on how much money is *saved* from things like reduced staff time commitment,
improved reliability, etc. Would the mailbox partition fill up if staff could
have devoted more time several months ago (when staff *had* time) to tweaking
the mail system rather than figuring out why grex was crashing all the time?
What was the cost to Steve for nursing a sick grex back to health in terms
of time away from his job, his family, etc? Is that worth $2000?
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keesan
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response 23 of 124:
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Dec 12 14:46 UTC 2006 |
How long would it take to write some program that deletes any mailbox which
has not been accessed for a month after the account was opened?
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nharmon
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response 24 of 124:
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Dec 12 14:57 UTC 2006 |
This response has been erased.
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