From sigje at sigje.org Mon Aug 1 10:09:45 2005 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2005 10:09:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Volunteers for Linux World Message-ID: LinuxWorld is next week! I need some volunteers for the USENIX booth as mentioned previously. Does anyone have some time 12-3 Tuesday, or 12-2 Thursday down in San Francisco? It's a great way to get involved in the community, and meet new people. Jennifer From windsor at warthog.com Mon Aug 1 13:17:33 2005 From: windsor at warthog.com (Rob Windsor) Date: Mon, 01 Aug 2005 15:17:33 -0500 Subject: IP-based video camera management/spooling Message-ID: <42EE835D.7000701@warthog.com> Anyone have some recommendations or pointers on managing IP-based video cameras? Primary interest is the ability to spool the feeds to disk for later review, with adjustable rotation intervals (time- or file-size-based). Secondary interest is the ability to manage >1 camera feeds. Ideally we'd like to do this with IP-based cameras; building an isolated back-end network is a non-issue (already in place, in fact). Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks. Rob++ -- Internet: windsor at warthog.com __o Life: Rob at Carrollton.Texas.USA.Earth _`\<,_ (_)/ (_) "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." -- Major General John Sedgwick From windsor at warthog.com Mon Aug 1 14:13:59 2005 From: windsor at warthog.com (Rob Windsor) Date: Mon, 01 Aug 2005 16:13:59 -0500 Subject: IP-based video camera management/spooling In-Reply-To: <42EE835D.7000701@warthog.com> References: <42EE835D.7000701@warthog.com> Message-ID: <42EE9097.6000006@warthog.com> Rob Windsor wrote: > Anyone have some recommendations or pointers on managing IP-based video > cameras? > > Primary interest is the ability to spool the feeds to disk for later > review, with adjustable rotation intervals (time- or file-size-based). > > Secondary interest is the ability to manage >1 camera feeds. > > Ideally we'd like to do this with IP-based cameras; building an isolated > back-end network is a non-issue (already in place, in fact). > > Any insight would be appreciated. > > Thanks. I forgot to add.. Solaris or win32 solution acceptable, commercial or free. Thanks again. Rob++ -- Internet: windsor at warthog.com __o Life: Rob at Carrollton.Texas.USA.Earth _`\<,_ (_)/ (_) "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." -- Major General John Sedgwick From sigje at sigje.org Thu Aug 4 09:12:46 2005 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 09:12:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: BayLISA General Meeting - August 18, 2005 - Sunay Tripathi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Thursday, August 18, 2005 Where: Apple Campus, Building 4, upstairs meeting room (named Garage 1) http://www.baylisa.org/locations/current.shtml Free and Open to the General Public! 7:30 pm Introductions and announcements 7:45 pm Formal Presentation 9:45 pm After-meeting dinner/social outing (BJ's, next door) Sunay Tripath from Sun, will be presenting "Solaris Networking: Today and Tomorrow". From sigje at sigje.org Thu Aug 4 10:55:10 2005 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 10:55:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: LinuxWorld Expo Exhibit Hall Passes Message-ID: I still have a bunch of LinuxWorld Expo Exhibit Hall Passes kindly donated from USENIX and PH PTR/Addison Wesley to give away. If you are interested in visiting the exhibit hall and wanting to avoid that $35 fee, come grab a few of these passes. I have about 35 of these left. Jennifer From michael at halligan.org Sat Aug 6 22:19:56 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Sat, 06 Aug 2005 22:19:56 -0700 Subject: Solutions for E-mail indexing/filing? Message-ID: <42F599FC.5020806@halligan.org> Dealing with hundreds of clients, friends, vendors, etc, I'm starting to find it rather annoying to only have part of a conversation in any one sub-folder, or remembering a conversation thread, but not necessarily a subject line, and having to wade through dozens/hundreds of e-mails to look it up. What would be very ideal, would be a system where, when I file an e-mail into a subfolder, I can also add a tag to that e-mail, and have that e-mail indexed into a database of sorts.. I can then put a description on that tag, and associate it to a customer, project, etc. Has anybody come accross something like this? Michael T. Halligan Chief Technology Officer ------------------- BitPusher, LLC http://www.bitpusher.com/ 1.888.9PUSHER 415.724.7998 (Mobile) 415.520.0876 (Fax) From rsr at inorganic.org Sat Aug 6 22:56:50 2005 From: rsr at inorganic.org (Roy S. Rapoport) Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2005 22:56:50 -0700 Subject: Solutions for E-mail indexing/filing? In-Reply-To: <42F599FC.5020806@halligan.org> References: <42F599FC.5020806@halligan.org> Message-ID: <20050807055650.GA18778@puppy.inorganic.org> On Sat, Aug 06, 2005 at 10:19:56PM -0700, Michael T. Halligan wrote: > What would be very ideal, would be a system where, when I file an e-mail > into a subfolder, I can also add a tag to that e-mail, and have > that e-mail indexed into a database of sorts.. I can then put a > description on that tag, and associate it to a customer, project, etc. > > Has anybody come accross something like this? Yeah. It's called gmail. I'm not crazy about using gmail for actually sending and receiving email, but I forward all my personal email (and all my history) to a gmail account and use it for indexing and searching, since it's way faster than doing it on my own server. -roy From pozar at lns.com Sun Aug 7 08:56:26 2005 From: pozar at lns.com (Tim Pozar) Date: Sun, 07 Aug 2005 10:56:26 -0500 Subject: Solutions for E-mail indexing/filing? In-Reply-To: <42F599FC.5020806@halligan.org> References: <42F599FC.5020806@halligan.org> Message-ID: <42F62F2A.5090003@lns.com> Michael T. Halligan wrote: > Dealing with hundreds of clients, friends, vendors, etc, I'm starting to > find it rather annoying to only have part > of a conversation in any one sub-folder, or remembering a conversation > thread, but not necessarily a subject line, and having > to wade through dozens/hundreds of e-mails to look it up. > > What would be very ideal, would be a system where, when I file an e-mail > into a subfolder, I can also add a tag to that e-mail, and have > that e-mail indexed into a database of sorts.. I can then put a > description on that tag, and associate it to a customer, project, etc. > > Has anybody come accross something like this? I found that Thunderbird has some basic but very nice search features. It searches on subject, sender or the whole message. Certainly it won't be as quick as gmail, but it does the job for me in helping me group my mail into "project" folders or looking up a thread I need to reference. Tim -- 1978 45th Ave / San Francisco CA 94116 / USA // POTS: +1 415 665 3790 GPG Fingerprint: 4821 CFDA 06E7 49F3 BF05 3F02 11E3 390F 8338 5B04 Life is playful - Ben Olizar -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: pozar.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 209 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jxh at jxh.com Sun Aug 7 08:57:31 2005 From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein) Date: Sun, 07 Aug 2005 10:57:31 -0500 Subject: Solutions for E-mail indexing/filing? In-Reply-To: <42F599FC.5020806@halligan.org> References: <42F599FC.5020806@halligan.org> Message-ID: > What would be very ideal, would be a system where, when I file an e-mail > into a subfolder, I can also add a tag to that e-mail, and have > that e-mail indexed into a database of sorts.. I can then put a description > on that tag, and associate it to a customer, project, etc. > > Has anybody come accross something like this? Also see "intertwingle": Not a solution, as far as I know, but an interesting idea. From vraptor at employees.org Mon Aug 8 15:38:33 2005 From: vraptor at employees.org (vraptor at employees.org) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 15:38:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Solutions for E-mail indexing/filing? In-Reply-To: <42F62F2A.5090003@lns.com> References: <42F599FC.5020806@halligan.org> <42F62F2A.5090003@lns.com> Message-ID: <20050808153710.S73552@willers.employees.org> On Sun, 7 Aug 2005, Tim Pozar wrote: > Michael T. Halligan wrote: >> Dealing with hundreds of clients, friends, vendors, etc, I'm starting to >> find it rather annoying to only have part >> of a conversation in any one sub-folder, or remembering a conversation >> thread, but not necessarily a subject line, and having >> to wade through dozens/hundreds of e-mails to look it up. >> >> What would be very ideal, would be a system where, when I file an e-mail >> into a subfolder, I can also add a tag to that e-mail, and have >> that e-mail indexed into a database of sorts.. I can then put a description >> on that tag, and associate it to a customer, project, etc. >> >> Has anybody come accross something like this? > > I found that Thunderbird has some basic but very nice search features. It > searches on subject, sender or the whole message. Certainly it won't be as > quick as gmail, but it does the job for me in helping me group my mail into > "project" folders or looking up a thread I need to reference. > I don't care much for Apple's Mail.app myself, as I use Thunderbird, but it integrates with Spotlight to do very quick and complete searching. =Nadine= From mark at bitshift.org Mon Aug 8 18:28:16 2005 From: mark at bitshift.org (Mark C. Langston) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 18:28:16 -0700 Subject: Behavior unbecoming an officer of the corporation Message-ID: <20050809012816.GH60379@bitshift.org> I request the board consider a motion of censure against Mr. Moen for http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/litigious2.html and http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/litigious.html Further, I request that the corporation's counsel draft a Cease and Desist order for the removal of those pages from linuxmafia.com, to be served upon Mr. Moen: Rick Moen 2033 Sharon Road Menlo Park, CA 94025-6246 650-561-9820 His upstream provider: Raw Bandwidth Communications, Inc. P.O. Box 1305 San Bruno, CA 94066 650 802 8006 ...and the technical contact for the domain: Brown, Iain iain.srs at mail.webl.com PO Box 1614 McKinney, TX 75070 (972) 568-7653 Fax: (214) 853-5253 Should the C&D be ignored, I recommend that the corporation act in its best interest in accordance with advice from counsel. I also recommend the corporation consider the removal of Mr. Moen from the board for betraying the board's trust and hindering the board's ability to conduct future business in an atmosphere of safety and comfort. Finally, I respectfully request Mrs. Moen produce a copy of the special teleconference she recorded, unedited, for transcription into the corporation's records, no later than the next general meeting of the board. -- mcl From guy at extragalactic.net Mon Aug 8 18:58:53 2005 From: guy at extragalactic.net (Guy B. Purcell) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 18:58:53 -0700 Subject: Solutions for E-mail indexing/filing? In-Reply-To: <42F599FC.5020806@halligan.org> References: <42F599FC.5020806@halligan.org> Message-ID: <4FDDB83E-E980-48B7-A3F4-0457E01BEE57@extragalactic.net> On Aug 6, 2005, at 22:19, Michael T. Halligan wrote: > What would be very ideal, would be a system where, when I file an e- > mail into a subfolder, I can also add a tag to that e-mail, and > have that e-mail indexed into a database of sorts.. I can then put > a description on that tag, and associate it to a customer, project, > etc. > > Has anybody come accross something like this? Yes--Mail.app in Mac OS X does this nicely, without the need to specially tag your messages. It indexes the messages as they're read from the server, and has a search facility that uses that index. Combine that with some rules to stow messages from clients in separate folders (either real or virtual) automatically, and I think that'd give you pretty much what you want. -Guy From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Tue Aug 9 00:46:56 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 00:46:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: server room Message-ID: hi ya a "bait" for discussion: assume, that we have a 14'x16' server room, and need at least 7 full racks a) how would you layout the 7 or 8 racks ( a mix of about 60 machines total ) b) how much AC do you need ? ( i say about 8-10ton minimum ) c) how much power do you need ? - we currently use 4x 220vac (all for the *nix cluster ) - 26x outlets of 110vac presumably 20A circuits - i'd double the electrical power capability for the move to new facilities d) i'd keep the gigE cables at 6' or less between the nodes and the switch and separate the windoze client boxes from *nix servers onto a different and separate switch e) the 4' dell boxes will need to slide in and out of the 4' (xxxx) racks (0) == incoming coool air in the open area from ceiling outgoing hot air and exhaust from PC exiting out of the server room thru ceiling (0) cool air hotair up and out | ^ | | v | +//---------+ | xxxx 4' | +-------+ xxxx | | 0 xxxx | | 2' | 16' | 0 xxxx | | xxxx | | 0 xxxx | | xxxx | +--------//---------+ 16' each x == 2'x2' c ya alvin From jxh at jxh.com Tue Aug 9 07:34:36 2005 From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein) Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 09:34:36 -0500 Subject: server room In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <335FCA19F8C4849EAC310903@[10.9.18.3]> > assume, that we have a 14'x16' server room, and need at least 7 full racks We had an even tighter room, some years back. 9x18, IIRC, with 5 racks. We ended up with a Liebert Data Pad, which was a bunch of 2x4' raised-floor modules bolted together, two of the modules being coil-unit-air-handlers. (A chiller on the roof fed it. I think we had 12 tons.) There was no room in our case for floor area for air-handling equipment. It cost a bit, but it worked great. From rsr at inorganic.org Tue Aug 9 11:44:23 2005 From: rsr at inorganic.org (Roy S. Rapoport) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 11:44:23 -0700 Subject: Behavior unbecoming an officer of the corporation In-Reply-To: <20050809012816.GH60379@bitshift.org> References: <20050809012816.GH60379@bitshift.org> Message-ID: <20050809184423.GB19812@puppy.inorganic.org> On Mon, Aug 08, 2005 at 06:28:16PM -0700, Mark C. Langston wrote: > I request the board consider a motion of censure against Mr. Moen for > http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/litigious2.html > and http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/litigious.html > > Further, I request that the corporation's counsel draft a Cease and > Desist order for the removal of those pages from linuxmafia.com, to be > served upon Mr. Moen: > > Rick Moen > 2033 Sharon Road > Menlo Park, CA 94025-6246 > 650-561-9820 So my girlfriend is finally entering the wireless age with her new laptop. While her current card is 802.11b/g only, I'm thinking of getting her an 802.11a/g router, because IME, 802.11a is less congested and less affected by neighbors (she's in an apartment building). A) Does this seem reasonable? B) Any brand recommendations? -roy From gwen at reptiles.org Tue Aug 9 12:27:39 2005 From: gwen at reptiles.org (Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 15:27:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Behavior unbecoming an officer of the corporation In-Reply-To: <20050809184423.GB19812@puppy.inorganic.org> References: <20050809012816.GH60379@bitshift.org> <20050809184423.GB19812@puppy.inorganic.org> Message-ID: <20050809152519.Q2181@skink.reptiles.org> On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Roy S. Rapoport wrote: > So my girlfriend is finally entering the wireless age with her new laptop. > While her current card is 802.11b/g only, I'm thinking of getting her an > 802.11a/g router, because IME, 802.11a is less congested and less affected > by neighbors (she's in an apartment building). > > A) Does this seem reasonable? > B) Any brand recommendations? I found that the range on 802.11a was distressingly small and prone to issues with interference. For all that 802.11b/g is more likely to have a conflict with her neighbour, it's infinitely more reliable and less frustrating. You might consider turning down the tx on the access point (if that's an option) to help with the congestion issue. cheers! ========================================================================== "A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now." From cos at indeterminate.net Tue Aug 9 13:30:04 2005 From: cos at indeterminate.net (John Costello) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 13:30:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Behavior unbecoming an officer of the corporation In-Reply-To: <20050809152519.Q2181@skink.reptiles.org> Message-ID: On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr wrote: > On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Roy S. Rapoport wrote: > > So my girlfriend is finally entering the wireless age with her new laptop. > > While her current card is 802.11b/g only, I'm thinking of getting her an > > 802.11a/g router, because IME, 802.11a is less congested and less affected > > by neighbors (she's in an apartment building). > > > > A) Does this seem reasonable? > > B) Any brand recommendations? > > I found that the range on 802.11a was distressingly small and prone to > issues with interference. For all that 802.11b/g is more likely to > have a conflict with her neighbour, it's infinitely more reliable and > less frustrating. > > You might consider turning down the tx on the access point (if that's an > option) to help with the congestion issue. Another option is to get MIMO, or 802.11pre-n, which is supposed to work around 802.11g interference issues. The standard has not been formalized, which is why I avoided it. Regarding 802.11a, I've heard that it is intended as a work-around for 802.11g issues and that MIMO is where trends are heading. As for g, I changed my WAP to a non-standard channel and haven't had problems with the neighbors' WAP. It appears that there are no cordless phones in the area (they can interfere with 802.11g devices). John ----- John Costello - cos at indeterminate dot net From camorris at mars.ark.com Tue Aug 9 14:03:48 2005 From: camorris at mars.ark.com (Cheryl Morris) Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 14:03:48 -0700 Subject: Changing subject body and subject header Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> If you change the subject body of an e-mail, please also change the subject header. Thanks, cm From zwicky at greatcircle.com Tue Aug 9 14:27:52 2005 From: zwicky at greatcircle.com (Elizabeth Zwicky) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 14:27:52 -0700 Subject: Changing subject body and subject header In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> Message-ID: <919861c5ec63b60b0c6ea803d30bbc5d@greatcircle.com> On Aug 9, 2005, at 2:03 PM, Cheryl Morris wrote: > If you change the subject body of an e-mail, please also change the > subject header. I'm not really changing the subject, here, although it might look like it at first glance. There's a phenomenon on Usenet -- I know it as the bolivian road repair tactic -- where when somebody posts something that is just not what the group is interested in talking about, and it's clear that any attempt to point this out is just going to bog everybody down in meta-discussion and feed flames, you reply to it by discussing something you *are* interested in talking about. Interesting recipes. Bolivian road repair. Wireless networking standards. Whatever. When the topic takes off, you change the header. The initial topic keeps the same subject because it is a reply. So let's discuss system administration. Under whatever subject lines seem appropriate at the time. Elizabeth Zwicky zwicky at greatcircle.com From rsr at inorganic.org Tue Aug 9 14:29:11 2005 From: rsr at inorganic.org (Roy S. Rapoport) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 14:29:11 -0700 Subject: Changing subject body and subject header In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> Message-ID: <20050809212911.GA27912@puppy.inorganic.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:03:48PM -0700, Cheryl Morris wrote: > If you change the subject body of an e-mail, please also change the subject > header. That's not nearly as amusing. -roy From mark at bitshift.org Tue Aug 9 14:31:28 2005 From: mark at bitshift.org (Mark C. Langston) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 14:31:28 -0700 Subject: Changing subject body and subject header In-Reply-To: <919861c5ec63b60b0c6ea803d30bbc5d@greatcircle.com> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> <919861c5ec63b60b0c6ea803d30bbc5d@greatcircle.com> Message-ID: <20050809213128.GW60379@bitshift.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:27:52PM -0700, Elizabeth Zwicky wrote: > > So let's discuss system administration. Under whatever subject > lines seem appropriate at the time. > Okay. Members, how do you feel about the transparency and openness of the elected board for BayLISA? Can you access the minutes of the board meetings? Can you access the archives of the board mailing list? Do you have any means by which to hold those you electedd accountable for their actions? Certainly germaine to one of the larger sysadmin groups around. -- mcl From mark at bitshift.org Tue Aug 9 14:32:22 2005 From: mark at bitshift.org (Mark C. Langston) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 14:32:22 -0700 Subject: Changing monkey-butter's attitude In-Reply-To: <20050809212911.GA27912@puppy.inorganic.org> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> <20050809212911.GA27912@puppy.inorganic.org> Message-ID: <20050809213222.GX60379@bitshift.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:29:11PM -0700, Roy S. Rapoport wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:03:48PM -0700, Cheryl Morris wrote: > > If you change the subject body of an e-mail, please also change the subject > > header. > > That's not nearly as amusing. Sure it is. -- mcl From rsr at inorganic.org Tue Aug 9 14:36:13 2005 From: rsr at inorganic.org (Roy S. Rapoport) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 14:36:13 -0700 Subject: Changing monkey-butter's attitude In-Reply-To: <20050809213222.GX60379@bitshift.org> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> <20050809212911.GA27912@puppy.inorganic.org> <20050809213222.GX60379@bitshift.org> Message-ID: <20050809213613.GA28228@puppy.inorganic.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:32:22PM -0700, Mark C. Langston wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:29:11PM -0700, Roy S. Rapoport wrote: > > On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:03:48PM -0700, Cheryl Morris wrote: > > > If you change the subject body of an e-mail, please also change the subject > > > header. > > That's not nearly as amusing. > > Sure it is. Someone has a case of the Tuesdays. -roy From pmm at igtc.com Tue Aug 9 14:51:51 2005 From: pmm at igtc.com (Paul M. Moriarty) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 14:51:51 -0700 Subject: Changing subject body and subject header In-Reply-To: <20050809213128.GW60379@bitshift.org> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> <919861c5ec63b60b0c6ea803d30bbc5d@greatcircle.com> <20050809213128.GW60379@bitshift.org> Message-ID: <20050809215151.GD462@igtc.igtc.com> These postings are about as interesting as ones revolving Oracle and conspiracy theories. i.e., not at all If you guys can't resolve your differences privately, would you please get somebody who has a ruler to accompany both of you to a private place where you can settle the matter of who has biggest once and for all? Mark C. Langston writes: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:27:52PM -0700, Elizabeth Zwicky wrote: > > > > So let's discuss system administration. Under whatever subject > > lines seem appropriate at the time. > > > > > Okay. Members, how do you feel about the transparency and openness of > the elected board for BayLISA? Can you access the minutes of the board > meetings? Can you access the archives of the board mailing list? Do > you have any means by which to hold those you electedd accountable for > their actions? > > Certainly germaine to one of the larger sysadmin groups around. > > -- > mcl From rsr at inorganic.org Tue Aug 9 14:55:28 2005 From: rsr at inorganic.org (Roy S. Rapoport) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 14:55:28 -0700 Subject: Changing subject body and subject header In-Reply-To: <20050809213128.GW60379@bitshift.org> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> <919861c5ec63b60b0c6ea803d30bbc5d@greatcircle.com> <20050809213128.GW60379@bitshift.org> Message-ID: <20050809215528.GA28814@puppy.inorganic.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:31:28PM -0700, Mark C. Langston wrote: > Okay. Members, how do you feel about the transparency and openness of > the elected board for BayLISA? Can you access the minutes of the board > meetings? Can you access the archives of the board mailing list? Do > you have any means by which to hold those you electedd accountable for > their actions? Mark, you want the honest truth to those questions? OK. I don't care. Seriously. I don't care. Call me apathetic, call me American, whatever, but in the end, in my selfish worldview, BayLISA exists as a place where I can, when/if I get around to it, go to listen to really interesting people talk about interesting SA things. The mailing lists are useful too for social and informational purposes. What the board does is not all that relevant to me, and I assume that if the board finds someone's being a difficulty, the boar will deal with it. So no, I can't access the minutes of the board -- and if I can, I don't know how. And no, I can't access the archives, and no, I don't know any means by which I can hold those I elected accountable. Of course, I didn't elect anyone because I didn't vote because ... honestly, whoever ends up running seems to do a decent enough job. Even when I was heavily involved (and attending every monthly meeting) years ago, it seemed like pretty much everyone who was on the board or wanted to be on the board had the skills and desire to do a good job. But the thing is, I don't *care* about whether or not I can access the archives or the minutes. And I don't care about your dispute with the Moens -- I don't know either of you (though I love Rick's faucets!), and your arguments do not seem to be particularly relevant to me or what I get out of BayLISA as long as you don't pollute the mailing lists with your vendettas. Seriously, why can't you go out and duel to the death or something? That'd at least be interesting. I'm willing to loan the firearms or epees, if equipment is what's holding you back. -roy From marco at escape.org Tue Aug 9 14:51:50 2005 From: marco at escape.org (Marco Nicosia) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 14:51:50 -0700 Subject: Changing subject body and subject header In-Reply-To: <20050809213128.GW60379@bitshift.org>; from mark@bitshift.org on Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:31:28PM -0700 References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> <919861c5ec63b60b0c6ea803d30bbc5d@greatcircle.com> <20050809213128.GW60379@bitshift.org> Message-ID: <20050809145150.L651@escape.org> I hardly ever use Freshmeat.net, so I have a naive question. Every so often, I get something up my nose and write a python script to solve it. The most recent example is, "Check this list of URLs, keep md5s on their content, and send me MIME e-mails containing the new pages if they change." When I'm done, I think, "Gosh, maybe someone else would like to use this, even though it's really a pretty trivial thing." It seems like freshmeat's a repository that's oriented to "real" applications, less than SourceForge, but still way bigger projects than my one-pagers. Again, I hardly use freshmeat, so I could be off base here. Is freshmeat.net the type of place to post these scripts? Are there better, more obvious places to submit them? -- Marco PS - Bonus points to people who mention superb apps either from freshmeat or other sites... Mark C. Langston (mark at bitshift.org) wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:27:52PM -0700, Elizabeth Zwicky wrote: > > > > So let's discuss system administration. Under whatever subject > > lines seem appropriate at the time. > > > > > Okay. Members, how do you feel about the transparency and openness of > the elected board for BayLISA? Can you access the minutes of the board > meetings? Can you access the archives of the board mailing list? Do > you have any means by which to hold those you electedd accountable for > their actions? > > Certainly germaine to one of the larger sysadmin groups around. > > -- > mcl _______________________________________________________________________ Marco E. Nicosia | http://www.escape.org/~marco/ | marco at escape.org From deirdre at deirdre.net Tue Aug 9 15:13:13 2005 From: deirdre at deirdre.net (Deirdre Saoirse Moen) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 15:13:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Changing subject body and subject header In-Reply-To: <20050809215528.GA28814@puppy.inorganic.org> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> <919861c5ec63b60b0c6ea803d30bbc5d@greatcircle.com> <20050809213128.GW60379@bitshift.org> <20050809215528.GA28814@puppy.inorganic.org> Message-ID: On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Roy S. Rapoport wrote: > But the thing is, I don't *care* about whether or not I can access the > archives or the minutes. And I don't care about your dispute with the > Moens -- I don't know either of you (though I love Rick's faucets!), and > your arguments do not seem to be particularly relevant to me or what I > get out of BayLISA as long as you don't pollute the mailing lists with > your vendettas. Seriously, why can't you go out and duel to the death > or something? That'd at least be interesting. I'm willing to loan the > firearms or epees, if equipment is what's holding you back. For the record, as I have zero desire to deal with the Mark Langstons of the world and have Better Things To Do With My Time, I have resigned from the BayLisa board. In all honesty, I ran because there were fewer candidates than there were open seats -- and because a board member asked me to. I'm not a sysadmin (I'm a developer who has, on occasion, been a meta-sysadmin in that I developed sysadmin tools), though I, like you, enjoy the monthly meetings I attend. -- _Deirdre web / blog: http://deirdre.net/ yarn: http://fuzzyorange.com cat's blog: http://fuzzyorange.com/vsd/ "Memes are a hoax! Pass it on!" From david at catwhisker.org Tue Aug 9 15:14:18 2005 From: david at catwhisker.org (David Wolfskill) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 15:14:18 -0700 Subject: Changing subject body and subject header In-Reply-To: <20050809145150.L651@escape.org> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> <919861c5ec63b60b0c6ea803d30bbc5d@greatcircle.com> <20050809213128.GW60379@bitshift.org> <20050809145150.L651@escape.org> Message-ID: <20050809221418.GI26920@bunrab.catwhisker.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:51:50PM -0700, Marco Nicosia wrote: > I hardly ever use Freshmeat.net, so I have a naive question. >.... > Is freshmeat.net the type of place to post these scripts? Are there > better, more obvious places to submit them? >... Well, the last time I contributed something that I had reason to believe some folks might find useful, it was to comp.sources.misc. (I think. It was either that or to the SHARE "MVS Mods Tape.") I suppose that says more about questions you dodn't ask than those you did, though. :-} Peace, david -- David H. Wolfskill david at catwhisker.org Any given sequence of letters is a misspelling of a great many English words. david (current hat: postmaster at _.org) -- David H. Wolfskill david at catwhisker.org Any given sequence of letters is a misspelling of a great many English words. See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for public key. See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for public key. From jac at panix.com Tue Aug 9 15:18:27 2005 From: jac at panix.com (John Clear) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 15:18:27 -0700 Subject: Changing subject body and subject header In-Reply-To: <20050809213128.GW60379@bitshift.org> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> <919861c5ec63b60b0c6ea803d30bbc5d@greatcircle.com> <20050809213128.GW60379@bitshift.org> Message-ID: <20050809221827.GA15082@panix.com> On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:31:28PM -0700, Mark C. Langston wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:27:52PM -0700, Elizabeth Zwicky wrote: > > So let's discuss system administration. Under whatever subject > > lines seem appropriate at the time. > > Okay. Members, how do you feel about the transparency and openness of > the elected board for BayLISA? Can you access the minutes of the board > meetings? Can you access the archives of the board mailing list? Do > you have any means by which to hold those you electedd accountable for > their actions? > As a disinterested observer who hasn't been keeping score, all I see is two guys pissing into the wind trying to prove who has the bigger unit. I really don't care who has the bigger dick, you both stink of piss. The board seems to be doing a good job of scheduling speakers for the monthly meetings. If there are other issues, the board can work them out. John From sigje at sigje.org Tue Aug 9 15:21:43 2005 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 15:21:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: The Tool Chest In-Reply-To: <20050809145150.L651@escape.org> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> <919861c5ec63b60b0c6ea803d30bbc5d@greatcircle.com> <20050809213128.GW60379@bitshift.org> <20050809145150.L651@escape.org> Message-ID: > It seems like freshmeat's a repository that's oriented to "real" > applications, less than SourceForge, but still way bigger projects > than my one-pagers. Again, I hardly use freshmeat, so I could be > off base here. > > Is freshmeat.net the type of place to post these scripts? Are there > better, more obvious places to submit them? Are they sysadmin type tools? Submit them to blw@ and we can start up a helpful section on the website for people to download/upload helpful scripts :) Jennifer From rolnif at mac.com Tue Aug 9 15:31:56 2005 From: rolnif at mac.com (John Martinez) Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 15:31:56 -0700 Subject: Changing subject body and subject header In-Reply-To: <20050809212911.GA27912@puppy.inorganic.org> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> <20050809212911.GA27912@puppy.inorganic.org> Message-ID: <5FDEB973-CA2F-43F5-A7FB-96F3CCAF5E04@mac.com> On Aug 9, 2005, at 2:29 PM, Roy S. Rapoport wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:03:48PM -0700, Cheryl Morris wrote: > >> If you change the subject body of an e-mail, please also change >> the subject >> header. >> > > That's not nearly as amusing. > > -roy Who am I and why am I on this mailing list? -john From jxh at jxh.com Tue Aug 9 15:37:51 2005 From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein) Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 17:37:51 -0500 Subject: Changing subject body and subject header In-Reply-To: <20050809145150.L651@escape.org> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> <919861c5ec63b60b0c6ea803d30bbc5d@greatcircle.com> <20050809213128.GW60379@bitshift.org> <20050809145150.L651@escape.org> Message-ID: <6513036D5A15C20A87CA9E3F@[10.9.18.3]> > Every so often, I get something up my nose and write a python script > to solve it. Gesundheit! :-) From rsr at inorganic.org Tue Aug 9 15:40:09 2005 From: rsr at inorganic.org (Roy S. Rapoport) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 15:40:09 -0700 Subject: Changing subject body and subject header In-Reply-To: <5FDEB973-CA2F-43F5-A7FB-96F3CCAF5E04@mac.com> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> <20050809212911.GA27912@puppy.inorganic.org> <5FDEB973-CA2F-43F5-A7FB-96F3CCAF5E04@mac.com> Message-ID: <20050809224009.GA1123@puppy.inorganic.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 03:31:56PM -0700, John Martinez wrote: > Who am I and why am I on this mailing list? Well, John, when your daddy and mommy were very much in love a long, long, long time ago, they got together and ... wait, I think I have a video clip somewhere around here of what typically happens afterward ... -roy From sigje at sigje.org Tue Aug 9 16:05:37 2005 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 16:05:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Linux Picnic - THIS SUNDAY! Message-ID: The Linux Picnic is _this Sunday_. You need to RSVP in order to get food/tshirt (although the website says first 400 get free tshirt, the order is 500 so you still have the opportunity to get the google sponsored shirts) http://www.linuxpicnic.org/ I will be at the Welcoming Table.. and it's a great chance to meet lots of people in the Linux/Open Source community. Books from Addison Wesley/O'Reilly/No Starch Press will be raffled off (free books!). There will be a 1U rack mount server, coupons galore from the different publishing houses, BayLISA pint glasses, penguins and more! Mark Sobell will even be there! (he wrote some great Unix/Linux reference books, and was a speaker last November at Baylisa on shell scripting). You can still sign up to volunteer as well. I hope to see you all there! Jennifer From deirdre at deirdre.net Tue Aug 9 16:46:26 2005 From: deirdre at deirdre.net (Deirdre Saoirse Moen) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 16:46:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: A different approach to deploying web apps Message-ID: http://manuals.rubyonrails.com/read/chapter/97 I really really like this concept. I especially like "rake rollback" (rake is Ruby mAKE) so that if you accidentally deploy something that breaks, it'll roll back the release. It's in its initial beta release at present, so I'm sure it'll grow and mature. -- _Deirdre web / blog: http://deirdre.net/ yarn: http://fuzzyorange.com cat's blog: http://fuzzyorange.com/vsd/ "Memes are a hoax! Pass it on!" From gwen at reptiles.org Tue Aug 9 16:57:36 2005 From: gwen at reptiles.org (Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 19:57:36 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Changing subject body and subject header In-Reply-To: <20050809145150.L651@escape.org> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> <919861c5ec63b60b0c6ea803d30bbc5d@greatcircle.com> <20050809213128.GW60379@bitshift.org> <20050809145150.L651@escape.org> Message-ID: <20050809195420.M2181@skink.reptiles.org> On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Marco Nicosia wrote: > It seems like freshmeat's a repository that's oriented to "real" > applications, less than SourceForge, but still way bigger projects > than my one-pagers. Again, I hardly use freshmeat, so I could be > off base here. I've had that question come to mind a few times as well. I do a fair amount of what I consider to be 'utility' coding - quick (perl in this case) scripts to deal with a variety of tasks[0]. I've yet to find a home for them, although they'll probably end up on my website when I do the next redesign[1]. cheers! [0] One of the more recent ones being "what perl modules are on this system, and where" - or my patches to the padl ldap migration scripts to support shadow passwords and a few other niceties. [1] It's okay to point and giggle... I last redesigned when frames were new and exciting... ========================================================================== "A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now." From extasia at extasia.org Tue Aug 9 20:59:35 2005 From: extasia at extasia.org (David Alban) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 20:59:35 -0700 Subject: [baylisa] [sig-beer-west] Saturday 8/13 at 18:00 in Berkeley Message-ID: <20050810035935.GA6183@gerasimov.net> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 extasia.org/sig-beer-west/ sig-beer-west Saturday, August 13, 2005 at 18:00[1] San Francisco Bay area [1] http://extasia.org/sig-beer-west/ Beer. Mental stimulation. Please note that SBW events now take place on the second Saturday of the month. This event: * Saturday, 8/13/2005, 18:00, at Jupiter, Berkeley Coming events (second Saturdays): * Saturday, 09/10/2005, 18:00, location to be determined * Saturday, 10/08/2005, 18:00, location to be determined * Saturday, 11/12/2005, 18:00, location to be determined The San Francisco Bay area's next social event for techies and their friends, sig-beer-west, will take place at 18:00 on Saturday, August 13, 2005 at Jupiter, 2181 Shattuck Avenue (at Center Street) across from the Downtown Berkeley BART station. Call 510-THE-TAPS for directions. They have a fine website with all sorts of good info about: * Jupiter itself[2] * Their beer[3] * Their food[4] * How to get there (contains map)[5] [2] http://www.spacearchive.info/military.htm [3] http://www.jupiterbeer.com/berkeley/index.html [4] http://www.jupiterbeer.com/berkeley/about/index.html [5] http://www.jupiterbeer.com/berkeley/beer/index.html Everyone is welcome at this event. We mean it! Please feel free to forward this information and to invite friends, cow-orkers,[6] and others (of legal drinking age) who might enjoy lifting a glass with interesting folks from all over the place. [6] http://www.jupiterbeer.com/berkeley/food/index.html Can't come this month? Mark your calendar for next month. (Do it now before you forget!) sig-beer-west occurs on the second Saturday of each month. Want to suggest a venue? Suggestions for new places to sip and gab are always welcome. Have questions, comments, or other ideas concerning sig-beer-west? Send all correspondence to the current sig-beer-west Instigator. The Instigator's handle is extasia. The Instigator's email address is <*the handle*> at <*the handle*> dot <*org*>. A subject beginning with "sbw: " will increase the chances that the Instigator's spam filters don't block your message. sig-beer-west FAQ 1. Q: Your announcement says "techies and their friends". How do I know if I'm a techie, or a friend of one? A: Well, actually, you don't have to be a techie to attend. You just have to be able to find the sig-beer-west sign at this month's event. That's it. Simple, huh? 2. Q: I'm not really a beer person. In fact I'm interested in hanging out, but not in drinking. Would I be welcome? A: Absolutely! The point is to hang out with fun, interesting folks. Please do join us. 3. Q: I've been thinking about attending sig-beer-west for some time now. Maybe I should start with this event? A: Yes!! ______________________________________________________________________ sig-beer-west was started in February 2002 when a couple Washington, D.C. based systems administrators who moved to the San Francisco Bay area wanted to continue a dc-sage[7] tradition, SIG-beer, which is described in sig-beer.NET[8] web space as: SIG-beer, n., origin lost to intoxication: 1. Special Interest Group - Beer! 2. An Interprocessor Communications (IPC) signal that should be implemented in every O/S kernel. Semantics are left to the hardware driver for the Robotic Drinks Server. Expected behavior is that kill -beer 3. A standing monthly gathering of systems administrators, past/present/future, and their ilk in Washington, DC. and other worldwide locations. These gathering consists of a friendly gathering of people who enjoy tasting/drinking interesting beer and chatting about computers, life, and how to implement the SIG-beer into their systems. It started with a group of dc.sage[9] sysadmins some time in 1997. ______________________________________________________________________ [7] http://www.jupiterbeer.com/berkeley/directions/index.html [8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow-orker [9] http://www.dc-sage.org/ [10] http://www.sig-beer.net/ [11] http://www.dc-sage.org/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFC+XqAPh0M9c/OpdARAo8nAJ9BRVqP2Xx3hRNhCcZdmAn/rw6TvACgn5uq qsH6++T1mI2ZPocRBYI6emA= =SUzZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From ahorn at deorth.org Tue Aug 9 23:49:23 2005 From: ahorn at deorth.org (Alan Horn) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 23:49:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: good VPN solutions ? Message-ID: Folks, Does anyone have good recommendations for current VPN solutions out there? It does have to have some form of support from a vendor (makes the mgmt happy), and must be reasonably priced (i.e. not raping me for $500 per connection). Appliance preferred, silicon (rather than reboxed PC) maybe a plus. Token (des card etc..) support, cross platform support. Featureful with features that are generally useful and useable. Should support end-user clients and also scale nicely with tunnels to remote offices. All suggestions greatly appreciated. (posting this to baylisa because outside of cisco VPN I don't really know the market that well, and its somewhat confusing naturally :) Cheers, Al From rick at linuxmafia.com Wed Aug 10 04:17:25 2005 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 04:17:25 -0700 Subject: Changing subject body and subject header In-Reply-To: <20050809215528.GA28814@puppy.inorganic.org> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050809140127.02ad2580@mars.ark.com> <919861c5ec63b60b0c6ea803d30bbc5d@greatcircle.com> <20050809213128.GW60379@bitshift.org> <20050809215528.GA28814@puppy.inorganic.org> Message-ID: <20050810111724.GV2228@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Roy S. Rapoport (rsr at inorganic.org): > But the thing is, I don't *care* about whether or not I can access the > archives or the minutes. On the other hand, the discussion about wireless standards has been quite winning. So: My now-antique Lucent Orinoco Gold PCMCIA card is still a winner, since OSes of interest long ago developed outstanding support and since 802.11b remains the lingua franca, assuming you take care of authentication and encryption higher up in the stack. 801.1X? Fine, but modulo key-management issues, SSH/SSL Work for Me. > I love Rick's faucets! Alas, couldn't prove it. They wanted a blood test. From bobs at tellme.com Wed Aug 10 07:53:32 2005 From: bobs at tellme.com (Bob Sutterfield) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 07:53:32 -0700 Subject: good VPN solutions ? Message-ID: For purposes similar to those you describe, we use a variety of Netscreen/Juniper products from the 5GT to the 208. From windsor at warthog.com Wed Aug 10 08:59:18 2005 From: windsor at warthog.com (Rob Windsor) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 10:59:18 -0500 Subject: good VPN solutions ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42FA2456.1000101@warthog.com> Bob Sutterfield wrote: > For purposes similar to those you describe, we use a variety of > Netscreen/Juniper products from the 5GT to the 208. Ditto here at my new employer. Check Point (my newest "former employer") has a competing product out now called "VPN Edge". Rob++ -- Internet: windsor at warthog.com __o Life: Rob at Carrollton.Texas.USA.Earth _`\<,_ (_)/ (_) "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." -- Major General John Sedgwick From ulf at Alameda.net Wed Aug 10 09:04:39 2005 From: ulf at Alameda.net (Ulf Zimmermann) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 09:04:39 -0700 Subject: good VPN solutions ? In-Reply-To: <42FA2456.1000101@warthog.com> References: <42FA2456.1000101@warthog.com> Message-ID: <20050810160439.GL10572@evil.alameda.net> On Wed, Aug 10, 2005 at 10:59:18AM -0500, Rob Windsor wrote: > Bob Sutterfield wrote: > >For purposes similar to those you describe, we use a variety of > >Netscreen/Juniper products from the 5GT to the 208. > > Ditto here at my new employer. Same here, we use mostly Netscreen 10 or 100 at the offices, Netscreen 25 in production and several Netscreen 5 or 5XP at homes. > > Check Point (my newest "former employer") has a competing product out > now called "VPN Edge". -- Regards, Ulf. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ulf Zimmermann, 1525 Pacific Ave., Alameda, CA-94501, #: 510-865-0204 You can find my resume at: http://seven.Alameda.net/~ulf/resume.html From basem at bingojones.net Wed Aug 10 09:07:15 2005 From: basem at bingojones.net (basem moussa) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 12:07:15 -0400 Subject: good VPN solutions ? In-Reply-To: <42FA2456.1000101@warthog.com> References: <42FA2456.1000101@warthog.com> Message-ID: <6DA8D600-AA5F-4B06-BFF0-990F58C97F65@bingojones.net> For what its worth, I would avoid Sonicwall on the low-end at all costs for reasons of great flakiness. basem From rsr at inorganic.org Wed Aug 10 09:25:47 2005 From: rsr at inorganic.org (Roy S. Rapoport) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 09:25:47 -0700 Subject: good VPN solutions ? In-Reply-To: <6DA8D600-AA5F-4B06-BFF0-990F58C97F65@bingojones.net> References: <42FA2456.1000101@warthog.com> <6DA8D600-AA5F-4B06-BFF0-990F58C97F65@bingojones.net> Message-ID: <20050810162546.GA15218@puppy.inorganic.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2005 at 12:07:15PM -0400, basem moussa wrote: > For what its worth, I would avoid Sonicwall on the low-end at all > costs for reasons of great flakiness. I could rant about the Sonicwall and the horror of setting it up if you stray in the slightest from the way the company thinks you should set up your systems, but ... well, frankly, the last time I had to deal with it was about two years ago, and I've mostly blocked it out. -roy From ulf at Alameda.net Wed Aug 10 09:45:03 2005 From: ulf at Alameda.net (Ulf Zimmermann) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 09:45:03 -0700 Subject: good VPN solutions ? In-Reply-To: <20050810162546.GA15218@puppy.inorganic.org> References: <42FA2456.1000101@warthog.com> <6DA8D600-AA5F-4B06-BFF0-990F58C97F65@bingojones.net> <20050810162546.GA15218@puppy.inorganic.org> Message-ID: <20050810164503.GM10572@evil.alameda.net> On Wed, Aug 10, 2005 at 09:25:47AM -0700, Roy S. Rapoport wrote: > On Wed, Aug 10, 2005 at 12:07:15PM -0400, basem moussa wrote: > > For what its worth, I would avoid Sonicwall on the low-end at all > > costs for reasons of great flakiness. > > I could rant about the Sonicwall and the horror of setting it up if you > stray in the slightest from the way the company thinks you should set up > your systems, but ... well, frankly, the last time I had to deal with it > was about two years ago, and I've mostly blocked it out. Sonicwall is what got me my job 4+ years ago. The CIO of our company tried to replace their sonicwall back then with netscreen and screwed up major. Downtime of like 8 hours, then he called me. -- Regards, Ulf. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ulf Zimmermann, 1525 Pacific Ave., Alameda, CA-94501, #: 510-865-0204 You can find my resume at: http://seven.Alameda.net/~ulf/resume.html From jimd at starshine.org Fri Aug 12 09:58:43 2005 From: jimd at starshine.org (Jim Dennis) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 09:58:43 -0700 Subject: Solutions for E-mail indexing/filing? In-Reply-To: <42F599FC.5020806@halligan.org> References: <42F599FC.5020806@halligan.org> Message-ID: <20050812165843.GB20502@starshine.org> On Sat, Aug 06, 2005 at 10:19:56PM -0700, Michael T. Halligan wrote: > Dealing with hundreds of clients, friends, vendors, etc, I'm starting to > find it rather annoying to only have part > of a conversation in any one sub-folder, or remembering a conversation > thread, but not necessarily a subject line, and having > to wade through dozens/hundreds of e-mails to look it up. > What would be very ideal, would be a system where, when I file an e-mail > into a subfolder, I can also add a tag to that e-mail, and have > that e-mail indexed into a database of sorts.. I can then put a > description on that tag, and associate it to a customer, project, etc. > Has anybody come accross something like this? Many eons ago I used to use glimpse (http://webglimpse.net/) for this. However, I stopped dropped it a number of years ago. (Its license was sufficiently non-free that it's not available in Debian and I only ever used it on my personal workstations which is where most of my e-mail resides). However, while writing this message I did decide to poke around for an alternative since I remember that having my mail indexed was handy when I used to do so. I installed "swish++" (using apt-get under Debian) and did some quick tests with it. It looks adequate for my needs. I mostly use MH folders and simplying running: cd ~/mh; index++ -e 'mail:[0-9a-zA-Z]*' . ... seemed to do the trick for creating the index; letting run for a bit while I did other stuff There's an incremental indexing option which I'll have to use to update the indexes; I'll learn about that later. -- Jim Dennis From mornir at gmail.com Sun Aug 14 08:45:28 2005 From: mornir at gmail.com (Brian Edmonds) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2005 08:45:28 -0700 Subject: Solutions for E-mail indexing/filing? In-Reply-To: <20050812165843.GB20502@starshine.org> References: <42F599FC.5020806@halligan.org> <20050812165843.GB20502@starshine.org> Message-ID: <413a3a380508140845267475ce@mail.gmail.com> On 8/12/05, Jim Dennis wrote: > However, while writing this message I did decide to poke around for > an alternative since I remember that having my mail indexed was handy > when I used to do so. I did the same thing sometime last winter, and came up with mairix. It was good for me because it's 100% simple command line interface, with incremental indexing. In practice I read (and search) most of my email with gmail these days, but mairix is great when I'm looking for something from the fifteen years or so of email before I started using gmail... Brian. From dannyman at toldme.com Mon Aug 15 16:44:50 2005 From: dannyman at toldme.com (Danny Howard) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2005 16:44:50 -0700 Subject: Advice: HA Storage Appliance for Postgres Message-ID: <20050815234450.GA34616@ratchet.nebcorp.com> Problem: We have a Postgres database hosted on FreeBSD. We require high availability. The present solution is to dump the database with some frequency, and copy the dumps off the machine. If the primary database fails, another machine loads the latest dump and steps in. (Manual failover.) This is sub-optimal, and our engineering team is working on a long-term replication solution that will work across databases at multiple sites. I'd like to maybe set up a dedicated disk solution where I can store the database on a RAID array on its own hardware unit, maybe with a hot-failover RAID controller -- the idea being that the backend storage will be high availability, and if one machine fails, I can bring the data up on another server (though I may have to run fsck or the postgres clean sequence first) I have a little experience with NetApps, as well as with some dedicated hardware that connected to the servers via SCSI cables. I think the latter is a better solution, especially if I can connect multiple servers to the same RAID hardware, and bring up the disk on one or the other. (Having a Datacenter Tech walk over and swap a cable could also do ...) I really don't need much storage. A few hundred gigabytes should hold me for some time. :) Can someone offer a bit of advice here: - Am I thinking the right way? - I think I want to avoid anything called "SAN" right? - These days, is SATA versus SCSI versus fiber versus copper connects important? - Anyone have a particular vendor they like? There was a place in Soquel that was very helpful for me back in 2000 but I can not seem to find them any more ... HP? IBM? Sun? A local integrator? (ASA don't seem to do this stuff.) - Is an NFS/NetApp solution viable? - Do smaller disks provide better performance in RAID contexts? Thanks a lot in advance. Sincerely, -danny -- http://dannyman.toldme.com/ From rjholland at ciber.com Mon Aug 15 19:08:52 2005 From: rjholland at ciber.com (Rich Holland) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2005 22:08:52 -0400 Subject: Advice: HA Storage Appliance for Postgres In-Reply-To: <20050815234450.GA34616@ratchet.nebcorp.com> Message-ID: <20050816020659.305868D@orb.sasl.smtp.pobox.com> Danny Howard wrote: > I'd like to maybe set up a dedicated disk solution where I can store the > database on a RAID array on its own hardware unit, maybe with a > hot-failover RAID controller -- the idea being that the backend storage > will be high availability, and if one machine fails, I can bring the > data up on another server (though I may have to run fsck or the postgres > clean sequence first) Sounds like you want a SAN. > I have a little experience with NetApps, as well as with some dedicated > hardware that connected to the servers via SCSI cables. I think the > latter is a better solution, especially if I can connect multiple > servers to the same RAID hardware, and bring up the disk on one or the > other. (Having a Datacenter Tech walk over and swap a cable could also > do ...) If you really want SCSI, I know the Dell PowerVault arrays will handle multiple hosts with the PERC/4 RAID controllers; that's what we use for NT-based clustering solutions for ERP systems. > - I think I want to avoid anything called "SAN" right? Why? You can set up a simple SAN with a single storage array using protected disks. Set up a couple of small switches and put at least one HBA in each host. If you want REAL high availability, use dual HBA's with something like PowerPath from EMC. You can mirror the database within the same array or to a second array at a remote location on the same SAN (another building, etc). > - These days, is SATA versus SCSI versus fiber versus copper connects > important? SATA is a lot cheaper and nearly as fast as Ultra320 SCSI from what I've seen. Most of the high-end arrays still use SCSI, but there are SATA arrays out there that will do what you want. > - Anyone have a particular vendor they like? Anyone that won't be out of business next year. IBM (Shark), EMC, Hitachi, Dell (EMC reseller and PowerVault 22xS SCSI arrays) - Is an NFS/NetApp solution viable? - Do smaller disks provide better performance in RAID contexts? Depends on what kind of RAID you're using. Normally smaller disks means more spindles, which equates to better performance. If you're using it for a database, RAID 0+1 (striped & mirrored) is your best bet for performance and protection. Then use the vendor's array technology to mirror that to another set of disks elsewhere (same array or a different one, doesn't matter). -- Rich Holland (913) 645-1950 SAP Technical Consultant print unpack("u","92G5S\=\"!A;F]T:&5R(\'!E References: <20050815234450.GA34616@ratchet.nebcorp.com> Message-ID: <3FCA6578-A7D2-45A6-B994-D22F9085C746@mac.com> On Aug 15, 2005, at 4:44 PM, Danny Howard wrote: > ... > > Can someone offer a bit of advice here: > - Am I thinking the right way? > > Somewhat, although I would avoid using SCSI in preference to Fibre Channel, that is if you want to connect multiple hosts to the same array. > - I think I want to avoid anything called "SAN" right? > > Note necessarily. But just because I say "Fibre Channel", doesn't mean I'm saying SAN. You can direct-attach Fibre Channel devices to your host if you have Fibre Channel HBAs. If you want to connect multiple hosts, a SAN is the easiest way to do so, but can get expensive In the end, your host will see these drives as SCSI. Confused yet? Don't worry, I was somewhat confused at first, too. > - These days, is SATA versus SCSI versus fiber versus copper connects > important? > > You're mixing several things together. SATA versus SCSI are drive types. Fiber Channel drives are a third type of drive, having nothing to do with fiber optic cables (yet). You can find arrays with the three types of drives that have fiber connections (most common) and some that have copper connections. There are lots of high-performance SATA disks out there now, with comparable performance to SCSI and Fibre Channel. Although be careful of write performance. Once you pick some vendors to look at, see about what tests they've done given typical RAID set ups. Even go so far as requesting an evaluation unit and do your own testing. > - Anyone have a particular vendor they like? There was a place in > Soquel that was very helpful for me back in 2000 but I can not > seem to > find them any more ... HP? IBM? Sun? A local integrator? (ASA > don't seem to do this stuff.) > > Depends on your budget. These things can get pretty expensive. We tend to gravitate towards Hitachi. > - Is an NFS/NetApp solution viable? > > Depends on what you're trying to do. Some people like to use NFS (NetApp) for database hosting, I personally don't like NFS for that type of application, but it is easy to set up. From what I understand, you can get a NetApp with Fibre Channel interfaces now and use it like a Fibre Channel array. > - Do smaller disks provide better performance in RAID contexts? > > That's the thought, anyway. I find that the number of spindles has more to do with performance (most Fibre Channel disks being 10k and 15k RPM), although you have to be careful of the reliability factor with too many spindles in your RAID set. The issue you may run into is support for your OS. I don't use FreeBSD for high-end storage (we use Solaris). You'll find things get complicated with multipathing and how to handle that on your OS. Storage vendors can get picky at that point. I'm not saying that vendors won't support FreeBSD. I'm just saying we found Solaris to be traditionally better supported, although Linux is just as supported these days. Good luck, -john From dsmith at FinancialEngines.com Tue Aug 16 08:49:14 2005 From: dsmith at FinancialEngines.com (David Smith) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 08:49:14 -0700 Subject: Advice: HA Storage Appliance for Postgres Message-ID: <17D60EFECB2C044097D6C4336DD8ED7524F328@INF-EXCH-SJC-01.fngn.com> As a heavy user of NetApp on DBs via FC and iSCSI, they are the way to go if you don't have the bandwidth to manage the storage on a dedicated basis + the software uplifts that they offer have a lot of value (SnapMirror for DR, FlexCone for developer copies of DBs, etc) I highly recommend them -- they are far more an "engineering/admin" company with lots of information available via their website and anytime I've called their techsupport they have clue. Their AutoSupport system that creates cases & auto dispatches parts for things like drive failures is also a huge benefit. Others will tell you they have autosupport, but the dispatch parts piece is usually not there. Their CIFS/NFS stuff also rocks. It isn't the cheapest, but well worth it IMO. Cheers, Dave ---- David Smith Voice: 650-565-7750 Fax: 650-565-4905 432F 465C 5866 FC46 5B19 EAC6 AED3 E032 F49B 62CF -----Original Message----- From: owner-baylisa at baylisa.org [mailto:owner-baylisa at baylisa.org] On Behalf Of John Martinez Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2005 8:24 AM To: Danny Howard Cc: baylisa at baylisa.org Subject: Re: Advice: HA Storage Appliance for Postgres On Aug 15, 2005, at 4:44 PM, Danny Howard wrote: > ... > > Can someone offer a bit of advice here: > - Am I thinking the right way? > > Somewhat, although I would avoid using SCSI in preference to Fibre Channel, that is if you want to connect multiple hosts to the same array. > - I think I want to avoid anything called "SAN" right? > > Note necessarily. But just because I say "Fibre Channel", doesn't mean I'm saying SAN. You can direct-attach Fibre Channel devices to your host if you have Fibre Channel HBAs. If you want to connect multiple hosts, a SAN is the easiest way to do so, but can get expensive In the end, your host will see these drives as SCSI. Confused yet? Don't worry, I was somewhat confused at first, too. > - These days, is SATA versus SCSI versus fiber versus copper connects > important? > > You're mixing several things together. SATA versus SCSI are drive types. Fiber Channel drives are a third type of drive, having nothing to do with fiber optic cables (yet). You can find arrays with the three types of drives that have fiber connections (most common) and some that have copper connections. There are lots of high-performance SATA disks out there now, with comparable performance to SCSI and Fibre Channel. Although be careful of write performance. Once you pick some vendors to look at, see about what tests they've done given typical RAID set ups. Even go so far as requesting an evaluation unit and do your own testing. > - Anyone have a particular vendor they like? There was a place in > Soquel that was very helpful for me back in 2000 but I can not seem > to > find them any more ... HP? IBM? Sun? A local integrator? (ASA > don't seem to do this stuff.) > > Depends on your budget. These things can get pretty expensive. We tend to gravitate towards Hitachi. > - Is an NFS/NetApp solution viable? > > Depends on what you're trying to do. Some people like to use NFS (NetApp) for database hosting, I personally don't like NFS for that type of application, but it is easy to set up. From what I understand, you can get a NetApp with Fibre Channel interfaces now and use it like a Fibre Channel array. > - Do smaller disks provide better performance in RAID contexts? > > That's the thought, anyway. I find that the number of spindles has more to do with performance (most Fibre Channel disks being 10k and 15k RPM), although you have to be careful of the reliability factor with too many spindles in your RAID set. The issue you may run into is support for your OS. I don't use FreeBSD for high-end storage (we use Solaris). You'll find things get complicated with multipathing and how to handle that on your OS. Storage vendors can get picky at that point. I'm not saying that vendors won't support FreeBSD. I'm just saying we found Solaris to be traditionally better supported, although Linux is just as supported these days. Good luck, -john From sigje at sigje.org Wed Aug 17 14:05:07 2005 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 14:05:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Blizzard PC Technician position Message-ID: I just spotted this job.. I have no affiliation/association with Blizzard at all.. so don't contact me about this. Go to the website to get more details. http://www.blizzard.com/jobopp/pc-technician.shtml Blizzard North is looking for a self-motivated and skilled Information Technology Technician. Job duties would include building, configuring, deploying, monitoring, modifying and repairing local/remote computers. An ideal candidate would have expertise in computer hardware. They would also possess an intermediate level of troubleshooting OS and networking issues. Requirements * Strong customer service skills * Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate and present complex issues and analyses in an effective manner * Good organization and time management skills * Must be highly dependable, with a "Can Do" attitude * Must have extensive hardware experience (ability to build, diagnose and repair computers; strong troubleshooting skills) * Must have intermediate level of installing and maintaining Windows 2000 and XP * Basic to intermediate knowledge of network routing technologies (TCP/IP, DNS) * Must be available for on-call for emergencies -and- must be able to work weekends if needed * Must be able (and willing) to lift a minimum of 70lbs * Must be experienced in playing computer games * Must be local to San Mateo, California Skills preferred, but not mandatory * Basic to intermediate knowledge level of installing and maintaining Linux * Experience with Compaq server equipment and management tools * Cisco Hardware * MS SQL Database * MS Exchange and MS Outlook clients * Knowledge and interest in scripting and programming languages (i.e. C++, Java, HTML, Visual Basic) is also a big plus! From dsmith at FinancialEngines.com Thu Aug 18 08:30:10 2005 From: dsmith at FinancialEngines.com (David Smith) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 08:30:10 -0700 Subject: Looking for Secure High-Density Datacenter space Message-ID: <17D60EFECB2C044097D6C4336DD8ED7524F4DD@INF-EXCH-SJC-01.fngn.com> Does anyone have recommendations on highly secure (same grade as Equinix in SJC) datacenter space that can support high-density configurations? I'm looking to power a few racks with 2 primary/2 redundant 208 3ph/60Amps. That's roughly 23KvAs/rack. Thanks, Dave ---- David Smith Voice: 650-565-7750 Fax: 650-565-4905 432F 465C 5866 FC46 5B19 EAC6 AED3 E032 F49B 62CF From michael at halligan.org Thu Aug 18 13:31:17 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 13:31:17 -0700 Subject: Musings on hardware prices Message-ID: <4304F015.9080601@halligan.org> All of a sudden it seems that hardware has become cheap. I'm quoting out a managed services offering for a new customer, with 10 servers. The specs are 2GB memory, dual 400gb sata drives (it's a very low-IO app), dual xeon 2ghz procs.. Even with a padded estimate on power consumption costs, and hosting (before bandwidth) my base costs ends up being something like $1200 per month. Is it me, or are we getting old? From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Thu Aug 18 14:08:19 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 14:08:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Musings on hardware prices In-Reply-To: <4304F015.9080601@halligan.org> Message-ID: On Thu, 18 Aug 2005, Michael T. Halligan wrote: > I'm quoting out a managed services offering for a new customer, with 10 > servers. The specs are 2GB memory, > dual 400gb sata drives (it's a very low-IO app), dual xeon 2ghz procs.. > Even with a padded estimate on power > consumption costs, and hosting (before bandwidth) my base costs ends up > being something like $1200 per month. $200 generic 2U rackmount case $250 generic dual-xeon mb $300 2x Xeon-2G ( Xeon-2.8 @ $250 ) $280 2GB DDR ecc $600 seagate 300GB sata $100 misc fanc ----- $1730 ( cheaper for them to buy hw and rent the fractional ds-3 ?? ) - add additional custom widget costs as needed > Is it me, or are we getting old? nah... price is stable over time ... its just getting faster and faster c ya alvin From rick at linuxmafia.com Thu Aug 18 17:43:26 2005 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 17:43:26 -0700 Subject: 18 Aug 2005: "Solaris Networking: Today and Tomorrow", Sunay Tripathi, BayLISA monthly Message-ID: <20050819004326.GY25979@linuxmafia.com> Date: Thursday, 18 Aug 2005 (today) Where: Apple Computer, Town Hall Building, upstairs meeting room http://www.baylisa.org/locations/current.html 7:30 pm Introductions and announcements 8:00 pm Formal presentation 9:45 pm After-meeting dinner/social outing (BJ's, next door) Sunay Tripathi, of Sun Microsystems, will present "Solaris Networking: Today and Tomorrow" Full abstract online: http://www.baylisa.org/events/ _______________________________________________ baylisa mailing list: baylisa at baylisa.org rsvp for meeting: rsvp at baylisa.org baylisa board (request to sponsor or present): blw at baylisa.org From michael at halligan.org Thu Aug 18 19:24:16 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 19:24:16 -0700 Subject: Musings on hardware prices In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <430542D0.5060506@halligan.org> >>I'm quoting out a managed services offering for a new customer, with 10 >>servers. The specs are 2GB memory, >>dual 400gb sata drives (it's a very low-IO app), dual xeon 2ghz procs.. >>Even with a padded estimate on power >>consumption costs, and hosting (before bandwidth) my base costs ends up >>being something like $1200 per month. >> >> > >$200 generic 2U rackmount case >$250 generic dual-xeon mb >$300 2x Xeon-2G ( Xeon-2.8 @ $250 ) >$280 2GB DDR ecc >$600 seagate 300GB sata >$100 misc fanc >----- >$1730 ( cheaper for them to buy hw and rent the fractional ds-3 ?? ) > - add additional custom widget costs as needed > > Ahh, typos and unclear statements on my part. The processors are actually Dual Xeon 3ghz procs with 2mb cache. The $1200 per month is our base cost for leasing all 10 servers from (cough) dell, with a $1 buyout, including rack-space, power, and "extras" (fractional switch, console server, remote PDU, etc costs). We leased 5 last month for our own hosted infrastructure, only to turn 4 of them into a quick managed prototype for a new customer. I ordered 5 today, and then started working on a new proposal, realized that the 6 I'll have will be 4-short for this new proposal when it's signed.. I'll never get my hostd infrastructure upgraded :) >>Is it me, or are we getting old? >> >> > >nah... price is stable over time ... its just getting faster and faster > >c ya >alvin > > I'm not so sure about that. 5 years ago I purchased 200 valinux servers, really haggling on the price. I remember the configs were 2x 1GB dimms (which were hugely expensive back then), dual 80 gb IDE drives, dual p3 800mhz procs, I believe dual power supplies, and dual Intel gigabit cards (though that company never owned anything gigabit). This was after about 3 weeks of shopping the price around to IBM/HP/Dell, as well as 1/2 dozen local vendors. We were really, really happy with the price, which I seem to remember was around $525k, including shipping, taxes, etc. We certainly weren't using Xeons which were far too expensive, and not even the fastest processors (I believe VA had 1.3ghz p3s at that point). For an example, I could buy 200 of the dell servers, with some haggling, for about $280k, with taxes and shipping (and 1/6th of that will be the rack rails!) Michael From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Thu Aug 18 20:32:09 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 20:32:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Musings on hardware prices In-Reply-To: <430542D0.5060506@halligan.org> Message-ID: On Thu, 18 Aug 2005, Michael T. Halligan wrote: > >$200 generic 2U rackmount case > >$250 generic dual-xeon mb > >$300 2x Xeon-2G ( Xeon-2.8 @ $250 ) > >$280 2GB DDR ecc > >$600 seagate 300GB sata > >$100 misc fanc > >----- > >$1730 ( cheaper for them to buy hw and rent the fractional ds-3 ?? ) > > - add additional custom widget costs as needed > > > > > > Ahh, typos and unclear statements on my part. The processors are > actually Dual Xeon 3ghz procs with 2mb cache. > > The $1200 per month is our base cost for leasing all 10 servers from > (cough) dell, with a $1 buyout, that's not too bad costwise, but its dell, and if something goes wrong, its cheaper/faster to get a new box than it is to get dell warranty to replace the bad part ... > including rack-space, power, and > "extras" (fractional > switch, console server, remote PDU, etc costs). if they include that with the costs ... thats nice but i guess it'd depend on which colo where its located hard to beat dell's pricing ... ( a semi-monopoly w/ the big 3 boyz ) > I'm not so sure about that. 5 years ago I purchased 200 valinux servers, > really haggling on the price. they expensive for its time .. now, every tom-dick-n-harry-pc-shop has the same parts for cheaper than their cousins c ya alvin From michael at halligan.org Thu Aug 18 21:54:24 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 21:54:24 -0700 Subject: Musings on hardware prices In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43056600.7090003@halligan.org> Alvin Oga wrote: >On Thu, 18 Aug 2005, Michael T. Halligan wrote: > > > >>>$200 generic 2U rackmount case >>>$250 generic dual-xeon mb >>>$300 2x Xeon-2G ( Xeon-2.8 @ $250 ) >>>$280 2GB DDR ecc >>>$600 seagate 300GB sata >>>$100 misc fanc >>>----- >>>$1730 ( cheaper for them to buy hw and rent the fractional ds-3 ?? ) >>> - add additional custom widget costs as needed >>> >>> >>> >>> >>Ahh, typos and unclear statements on my part. The processors are >>actually Dual Xeon 3ghz procs with 2mb cache. >> >>The $1200 per month is our base cost for leasing all 10 servers from >>(cough) dell, with a $1 buyout, >> >> > >that's not too bad costwise, but its dell, and if something goes wrong, >its cheaper/faster to get a new box than it is to get dell warranty to >replace the bad part ... > > Yeah, Dell is pretty miserable. I never buy any spiffy warranties from Dell except for when somebody made the mistake of buying Dell storage products, and in general buy 10-15% more than we need for that reason. When you pay for the 4 hour response-time, they (Unisys) tends to be pretty good. Unfortunately, everything before means some jerk with a 20 page long scripts as to why you shouldnt' get a replacement. The way I look at it, the cheap dell servers (sc1425s) are better quality than buying your own components (which really, really sucks to do.. especially if you have to do a lot of them) and building your own whitebox.. At surprisingly much better prices. >>including rack-space, power, and >>"extras" (fractional >>switch, console server, remote PDU, etc costs). >> >> > >if they include that with the costs ... thats nice but i guess it'd depend >on which colo where its located > >hard to beat dell's pricing ... ( a semi-monopoly w/ the big 3 boyz ) > > > Well, what I'm saying, is that price of $1200 per month includes my costs for the datacenter & related gear (I host a few racks @ a couple of datacenters). That's also before a fair mark-up, any setup fees, and management contracts, etc. >>I'm not so sure about that. 5 years ago I purchased 200 valinux servers, >>really haggling on the price. >> >> > >they expensive for its time .. now, every tom-dick-n-harry-pc-shop has >the same parts for cheaper than their cousin > Back in the day, VALinux was great. Reasonable prices, quick turnarounds, and they were really interested in going the extra mile.. I liked to support them because they put so many great projects into the OSS world, alike SystemImager, and nfsroot boot. Nowadays, though, as california digital, they're in a different (and more viable) niche. For the most part, I don't deal with small shops, way too many headaches.. It's fun to go into small shop that happens to build rackservers, and say "I need 50 servers with these specs, what kind of a price can you give me?" and have them show you their price sheet and multiply by 100. I do deal with one local smaller vendor, monkeybrains (they're GREAT for very quick emergency requirements). From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Thu Aug 18 22:31:23 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 22:31:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Musings on hardware prices In-Reply-To: <43056600.7090003@halligan.org> Message-ID: hi ya On Thu, 18 Aug 2005, Michael T. Halligan wrote: > Yeah, Dell is pretty miserable. yup.. cheap but sometimes good .. sometimes bad .. good for me, if they give up on dell and hireout somebody to come fix it for them .. after a few unisys folks just show up and call home and dont(can't) fix anything > The way I look at it, the cheap dell servers (sc1425s) are better > quality than buying your own components i rather use my own junk than dell ... ( own junk == stuff i buy from distributors ( not webstores ) ) > Well, what I'm saying, is that price of $1200 per month includes my > costs for the datacenter & related > gear (I host a few racks @ a couple of datacenters). yup.. good pricing .. > Back in the day, VALinux was great. Reasonable prices, quick > turnarounds, and they were really interested in going the extra mile.. just penguin left from that era ... I liked to support them because they put so many > great projects into the OSS world, alike SystemImager, ez enuff to make > and nfsroot boot. ez enuff to create > For the most part, I don't deal with small shops, way too many > headaches.. to me... big shops is bigger headaches .. there's no "one shop has everything", just depends on what the part is and where you're accustomed to getting it - i need my parts within an 1hr of placing my orders and i can usually get it at still below retail pricing - but fries rebate pricing is next to impossible to match, except, you have a 50/50 chance you dont get a rebate anybody wanting 50 or 100 systems would need to walk in with a check in hand vs a PO in our world before we jump an inch today's funky meeting was the standard, new kid on the block, ie big company wanting to create a biz unit and wants a 1,000 systems per month on net 30 or net 60+ :-) and yet they're nickel and diming for the first 25 prototypes ... - umm .. what's wrong with this picture ?? ( they're collecting part numbers and manufacturers ) c ya alvin From michael at halligan.org Fri Aug 19 06:02:47 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 06:02:47 -0700 Subject: Musings on hardware prices In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4305D877.6030704@halligan.org> >yup.. cheap but sometimes good .. sometimes bad .. > >good for me, if they give up on dell and hireout somebody >to come fix it for them .. after a few unisys folks just >show up and call home and dont(can't) fix anything > > Cheap is always bad.. I guess in the end with Dell >>The way I look at it, the cheap dell servers (sc1425s) are better >>quality than buying your own components >> >> > >i rather use my own junk than dell ... > ( own junk == stuff i buy from distributors ( not webstores ) ) > > One of the disadvantages of small distributors like Acma/Malabs, is they really don't bargain well at quantity.. And the disadvantage iin general is financing is quite a bit harder. The Only two appeals Dell has given me is I know I can call them up for the right project, tell them to extend my credit line another $50k for a new order, and they will with no questions asked.. which is good and bad. >just penguin left from that era ... > > > They're still around? > I liked to support them because they put so many > > >>great projects into the OSS world, alike SystemImager, >> >> > >ez enuff to make > > > Who would want to? There are better solutions now. For it's time, SI was good. And given all of your "easy enough to make" comments, I wonder how much free time you might have? The whole building/writing everything in-house idea is nice in theory.. Actually, no it's not. Who has the time for that kind of crap? 100 hours of development time versus $10k and instant gratification, give me the instant gratification. >to me... big shops is bigger headaches .. > >there's no "one shop has everything", just depends on what the part is >and where you're accustomed to getting it > - i need my parts within an 1hr of placing my orders > and i can usually get it at still below retail pricing > > - but fries rebate pricing is next to impossible to match, > except, you have a 50/50 chance you dont get a rebate > >anybody wanting 50 or 100 systems would need to walk in with >a check in hand vs a PO in our world before we jump an inch > > Fry's is for hobbyiests and bad hacks. Brent Chapman likes to say that if he's buying it from BlackBox, there is something wrong in the design. I'll extend that to saying if I'm buying it from Fry's, I might as well shoot myself in the head and quit this industry. Rebate pricing is a joke. Sure you can get good pricing on a hard drive here or there.. so what? I walk into fry's and ask for 50 servers, I'm going to get some out of work dotcommer who thought they'd make it big in the tech industry by getting their MCSE, gawking at me. If I asked them to finance, they'd stumble through a neanderthalic sales-pitch of "Uhhh, we have a credit card now". I'm getting these funny images of a 250-server project that we're trying to sell for Q1 2006, with me sending in 250 people to get their "one part" rebate special from fry's, and writing a massive distributed system to calculate the "cost savings" of filling out the rebates, hiring the parts buyers, and keeping track of the rebate status. >today's funky meeting was the standard, new kid on the block, >ie big company wanting to create a biz unit and wants a 1,000 >systems per month on net 30 or net 60+ :-) and yet they're nickel >and diming for the first 25 prototypes ... > - umm .. what's wrong with this picture ?? > > ( they're collecting part numbers and manufacturers ) > > Yeah. If you have a 1K server order, you have no need to nickel and dime, all you have to do is set your price and walk away if the vendor flinches. -- Michael T. Halligan Chief Technology Officer ------------------- BitPusher, LLC http://www.bitpusher.com/ 1.888.9PUSHER 415.724.7998 (Mobile) 415.520.0876 (Fax) From rsr at inorganic.org Fri Aug 19 08:40:21 2005 From: rsr at inorganic.org (Roy S. Rapoport) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 08:40:21 -0700 Subject: Musings on hardware prices In-Reply-To: References: <430542D0.5060506@halligan.org> Message-ID: <20050819154021.GA26438@puppy.inorganic.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2005 at 08:32:09PM -0700, Alvin Oga wrote: > that's not too bad costwise, but its dell, and if something goes wrong, > its cheaper/faster to get a new box than it is to get dell warranty to > replace the bad part ... I know it's fashionable to give Dell crap for its service. I won't argue for some sort of general "Dell service is good," but I will say that, anecdotally, the one time I called them, I spent about 10 minutes on the phone and they were here the day after to replace the affected part. -roy From ulf at Alameda.net Fri Aug 19 03:41:12 2005 From: ulf at Alameda.net (Ulf Zimmermann) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 03:41:12 -0700 Subject: Musings on hardware prices In-Reply-To: References: <43056600.7090003@halligan.org> Message-ID: <20050819104112.GU10572@evil.alameda.net> On Thu, Aug 18, 2005 at 10:31:23PM -0700, Alvin Oga wrote: > > hi ya > > On Thu, 18 Aug 2005, Michael T. Halligan wrote: > > > Yeah, Dell is pretty miserable. > > yup.. cheap but sometimes good .. sometimes bad .. > > good for me, if they give up on dell and hireout somebody > to come fix it for them .. after a few unisys folks just > show up and call home and dont(can't) fix anything > > > The way I look at it, the cheap dell servers (sc1425s) are better > > quality than buying your own components > > i rather use my own junk than dell ... > ( own junk == stuff i buy from distributors ( not webstores ) ) > > > Well, what I'm saying, is that price of $1200 per month includes my > > costs for the datacenter & related > > gear (I host a few racks @ a couple of datacenters). > > yup.. good pricing .. > > > Back in the day, VALinux was great. Reasonable prices, quick > > turnarounds, and they were really interested in going the extra mile.. > > just penguin left from that era ... > > I liked to support them because they put so many > > great projects into the OSS world, alike SystemImager, > > ez enuff to make > > > and nfsroot boot. > > ez enuff to create > > > For the most part, I don't deal with small shops, way too many > > headaches.. > > to me... big shops is bigger headaches .. > > there's no "one shop has everything", just depends on what the part is > and where you're accustomed to getting it > - i need my parts within an 1hr of placing my orders > and i can usually get it at still below retail pricing > > - but fries rebate pricing is next to impossible to match, > except, you have a 50/50 chance you dont get a rebate > > anybody wanting 50 or 100 systems would need to walk in with > a check in hand vs a PO in our world before we jump an inch > > today's funky meeting was the standard, new kid on the block, > ie big company wanting to create a biz unit and wants a 1,000 > systems per month on net 30 or net 60+ :-) and yet they're nickel > and diming for the first 25 prototypes ... > - umm .. what's wrong with this picture ?? > > ( they're collecting part numbers and manufacturers ) > > c ya > alvin A bit more then 2 years ago I did some calculations, Supermicro against HP. Supermicro comes just with a 1 year send-in warranty, while HP comes with 3 years next business day on-site. Did pricing for some pure simple compute server and the pricing of us at least was like HP being $300 more. But then you look at service (3 years on-site) and technical options (man I just LOVE iLO in the HPs), it was a no brainer to go all HP. Nowadays it is pretty much all HP (http://www.alameda.net/~ulf/colo), we got about a 100 machines in our two offices, main colocation in Fremont and failover site in Phoenix. -- Regards, Ulf. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ulf Zimmermann, 1525 Pacific Ave., Alameda, CA-94501, #: 510-865-0204 You can find my resume at: http://seven.Alameda.net/~ulf/resume.html From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Fri Aug 19 12:16:12 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 12:16:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Musings on hardware prices - opps In-Reply-To: <4305D877.6030704@halligan.org> Message-ID: hi ya mike On Fri, 19 Aug 2005, Michael T. Halligan wrote: > One of the disadvantages of small distributors like Acma/Malabs, is they yeah... they are 3rd or 4th level distrib... go to the bigger outfits that actually carry stock ... - i buy from one distributor, that tends to have what i need in stock that i can pick up within the hr > >just penguin left from that era ... > > > They're still around? for those that like bigger ( small shops ), yeah, they're arround, but they too are suffering from the use cheaper parts to increase margins problems ... - ie .. there's no margins in hw > Who would want to? i do ... i prefer machines i spec'd myself ... vs getting the phone call at 3am to come fix it ... or stay up till its fixed .. there's too many of that on 3rd party junk ... > There are better solutions now. its always a toss up of: price vs performance vs reliability ( pick 2 of the 3 ) and add brandname if you/the customers like to pay extra for that name brand hardware ----- odd part ... - i havent seen any dead/broken ibm boxes ... - i havent seen too many dead/broken hp boxes - i have seen too too too many dead/broken dells and compaqs > For it's time, SI was > good. And given > all of your "easy enough to make" comments, I wonder how much free time > you might have? i have tons of free time ... bescause i do it my way ... hw is micky mouse ... and only 10% of the problem ... > The whole building/writing everything in-house idea is nice in theory.. > Actually, no it's not. Who > has the time for that kind of crap? 100 hours of development time versus > $10k and instant > gratification, give me the instant gratification. depends on ones skill level and where you want to spend your time and charge for it ... hw is the cheapest part of any deal we charge for time spent in labor charges to config/setup... and hardware is free under the right terms/conditions > Fry's is for hobbyiests and bad hacks. i meant, buy stuff there only for your own use .. not for customers ... Brent Chapman likes to say that > if he's buying it > from BlackBox, there is something wrong in the design. there usually is something wrong with most peoples specs and requirements and pricing ... at least the ones i see > Rebate pricing is a joke. yup > Sure you can get good pricing on a hard drive > here or there.. so what? I walk > into fry's and ask for 50 servers, hopefully, nobody buys more than 1 of anything at fries ... me thinks you're entertaining yourself by mixing consumer stuff vs industrial strength goods > Yeah. If you have a 1K server order, you have no need to nickel and > dime, all you have to do is set your price > and walk away if the vendor flinches. that's my point ... esp when they dont know what parts to buy from where and how much each retailer/distributer sells each item c ya alvin From rayw at rayw.net Fri Aug 19 14:30:35 2005 From: rayw at rayw.net (Ray Wong) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 21:30:35 +0000 Subject: Musings on monitoring/alert options Message-ID: <20050819213035.GX3407@notfound.rayw.net> Hi folks, haven't been paying enough attention to the list, but hadn't noticed the subject recently, so figure it's a good time to bring it up again... I'm curious if anyone's found compelling reason to CHANGE monitoring from something that previously "basically" worked? There's always the classics, BigBrother/BigSister, Nagios/NetSaint, etc, but I haven't noticed any really good comparisons of configuration/complexity options... i.e. If I've got more than 12/100/1000 redundant servers, I probably don't need to get a pager/SMS alert until at least 5% (or some arbitrary number) are down... Does anything opensource support this? To this point, I've always made do with messaging about down servers without alerts, and doing criticals/alerts on the aggregated(i.e. load balanced) function getting slower/intermittent, or just dealt with large numbers of alerts to roll over and go back to sleep from. :) Of course, having a 24/7 noc staff screen it out before calling would be nice, but I doubt too many of us are holding our breath for those days. So, what's everyone else doing? Had a chance to do anything new/interesting with it? Ray From bill at thecrookes.com Mon Aug 22 09:57:19 2005 From: bill at thecrookes.com (Bill Crooke) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 09:57:19 -0700 Subject: Peninsula Linux Users' Group Meeting, Thursday, August 25th, 2005 Message-ID: <430A03EF.5060800@thecrookes.com> Peninsula Linux Users' Group, Thursday, August 25th, 2005 We have a meeting of the Peninsula Linux Users' Group (PenLUG) this week! Here are the details about the next meeting. For more information or directions go to http://www.penlug.org/ Our website is a TWiki; please feel free to create a user account and modify the website if you have something to contribute. Date: Thursday, August 25th, 2005 Time: 7:00 - 9:00 PM Location: 100 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 Room 104 Agenda: ======= 7:00 - 8:30 PM: Presentation by Mark Summer: "Bringing Wireless Internet and VOIP to Remote Communities" 8:30 - 9:00 PM: Members' Minutes 8:45 - 9:00 PM: Adjourn to IHOP (Belmont) for social & food time Presentation by Mark Summer: "Bringing Wireless Internet and VOIP to Remote Communities" ====================================================================== Invenio (invenio.org) is a non-profit organization that brings Wireless Internet and VOIP technology to remote communities in developing countries. Mark will talk about Invenio's mission and their first deployment in Uganda. Members' Minutes ================ Members will have an opportunity to take a few minutes to... * Describe their latest Linux discovery * Ask questions and get help from other members * Discuss Linux projects You can just stand up and talk, or give a short demo or presentation. If you need audio/visual support for your Members' Minute, please contact me in advance to arrange for your needs. We have a limited number of books courtesy of Prentice-Hall and O'Reilly to give away as an added inducement to participate in this portion of the meeting. :-) RSVP ==== Although it is NOT required, we like to have an idea of how many people to expect, so if possible please email rsvp at penlug.org if you are planning to attend. Bill Crooke PenLUG Speaker Coordinator From michael at halligan.org Tue Aug 23 12:46:58 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 12:46:58 -0700 Subject: Musings on hardware prices - opps In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <430B7D32.4040602@halligan.org> >>One of the disadvantages of small distributors like Acma/Malabs, is they >> >> > >yeah... they are 3rd or 4th level distrib... go to the bigger outfits >that actually carry stock ... > - i buy from one distributor, that tends to have what i need > in stock that i can pick up within the hr > > Which distributor? The only large distributor I know that's easy to deal with is Ingram.. I believe they bought everybody else. Acma is a tier down from Malabs. I'd be happy to find out how to work in-between MA & Ingram. >for those that like bigger ( small shops ), yeah, they're arround, >but they too are suffering from the use cheaper parts to increase >margins problems ... > - ie .. there's no margins in hw > > Hardware sucks. In a perfect world I'd have a $10M IBM Mainframe, and just provision VMs for my customers, not have to deal with hardware. >its always a toss up of: > >price vs performance vs reliability ( pick 2 of the 3 ) > >and add brandname if you/the customers like to pay extra for that >name brand hardware > > > Unfortunately, this is a lot more of a grey area nowadays, even in the commodity arena. Intel hardware sucks. Plain and simple, every cheap x86 box pales in comparison of reliability and performance to big Iron. Unfortunately, the pricing is several magnitudes cheaper. If you're going with x86, then it's a given fact that pricing is paramount in your purchasing decision. On the low-end, I can buy 30 servers from Dell for the same price as 10 IBM or HP's low-end servers (I'm talking IBM's x336 or HP's DL14X line.. Not their better gear). My assumption with Dell is usually to expect the worst, 30% of servers to be in some state of failure at any time. Even then, for the same price as IBM, I have 2x as many servers. As much as I despise Dell's component choices and technical support, it's a financial AND technical decision dell is making really hard. >----- > >odd part ... > - i havent seen any dead/broken ibm boxes ... > - i havent seen too many dead/broken hp boxes > - i have seen too too too many dead/broken dells and compaqs > > > Then you haven't worked in a large enough installation. Hardware dies. Commodity hardware is cheap, no matter who is selling it to you. IBM's is the best . Their onboard server diagnostics is awesome. Their MIBS are also the easiest to work with MIBS out of any of the PC server vendors. You also pay 3x for it compared to dell, and twice what HP is on anything lower than about a 40 server purchase, going through a var, and waxing their cars. HP servers are awesome. The iLO-2 (or whatever it's name is today) is absolutely the best remote server management solution. Unlike Dell's DRAC, it actually works, is reasonably fast, is browser independent for the remote desktop, and is easy to deal with. Unfortunately, even a good VAR pushing a "big deal" letter through, the price for equivalent gear tends to be about 80-120% higher than Dell. >i have tons of free time ... bescause i do it my way ... > >hw is micky mouse ... and only 10% of the problem ... > > If you follow the thread, your statement here was responding to the software tools that VALinux had written, not hardware. And if you really do have so much free time to re-invent the wheel, you should be selling more. >>The whole building/writing everything in-house idea is nice in theory.. >>Actually, no it's not. Who >>has the time for that kind of crap? 100 hours of development time versus >>$10k and instant >>gratification, give me the instant gratification. >> >> > >depends on ones skill level and where you want to spend your time >and charge for it ... hw is the cheapest part of any deal > >we charge for time spent in labor charges to config/setup... >and hardware is free under the right terms/conditions > > Can you give me a list of your customers then? If you're doing things the hard way, building servers by hand, writing your own tools instead of utilizing existing free and commercial ones, you are probably not doing right by your customers. I personally couldn't look a customer in the face, and tell them that it makes sense for me to bill an extra 300 hours on a 300 server deployment, so that we could develop new toolsets in house and build anything that we could have gotten pre-assembled and supported. Not in a million years. Maybe we're just talking about different sized projects.. This is, the LISA list, though, so my assumption is that we're not. > > >>Fry's is for hobbyiests and bad hacks. >> >> > > >i meant, buy stuff there only for your own use .. not for customers ... > > > > Ahh, that makes a lot more sense then. > Brent Chapman likes to say that > > >>if he's buying it >>from BlackBox, there is something wrong in the design. >> >> > >there usually is something wrong with most peoples specs and >requirements and pricing ... at least the ones i see > > Isn't it our job to gather requirements, and understand specs, then make recommendations? That's certainly part of how I operate. >>Rebate pricing is a joke. >> >> > >yup > > The rebate thing is funny. I love all of the mom & pop ISPs that talk big about their services. They also talk about how great it is to use fatwallet.com to buy hard drives and components with rebates and price matches.. I like to call them up, give them a spec on 100+ servers and ask what their deployment timeframe would be like, hear their jaws drop and their words fumble. >>Sure you can get good pricing on a hard drive >>here or there.. so what? I walk >>into fry's and ask for 50 servers, >> >> > >hopefully, nobody buys more than 1 of anything at fries ... > >me thinks you're entertaining yourself by mixing consumer stuff vs >industrial strength goods > > > >>Yeah. If you have a 1K server order, you have no need to nickel and >>dime, all you have to do is set your price >>and walk away if the vendor flinches. >> >> > >that's my point ... esp when they dont know what parts to buy >from where and how much each retailer/distributer sells each item > > I think you put a lot of faith on parts selection. Building your own servers is never a good idea, in my opinion, for a production infrastructure. Michael T. Halligan Chief Technology Officer ------------------- BitPusher, LLC http://www.bitpusher.com/ 1.888.9PUSHER 415.724.7998 (Mobile) 415.520.0876 (Fax) From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Tue Aug 23 15:15:18 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 15:15:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: server room - rack spacing - AC Message-ID: hi ya thought i'd post here again ... ( for fun ) - we're looking at building out a server room with 42U cabinets and telco racks - what is the minimum spacing in front of the racks and cabinets to allow the 1Us to be pulled out ?? - their "server room expert" ( aka interior designer at the real estate outfit ) wants to use 30" or 39" in front of the cabinet, it was fun to google their names to check their backgrounds - some of the dell box is 29" deep plus additional say 6-12" of cables and gap so you can hook up to the box that is extended out of the cabinet - at 39", you cannot stand in front of the cabinet and racking things from the sides is too much work to hold up 30lb or 100lb rackmounts while you align it into the slides - cabinets are 40" or 50" deep ... which means whatever goes inside can be up to 40" long too and will extend out of the cabinet by about 40" + clearances for cables and adjustments for different types of slides - i'm hoping there's some eia/osha footprint standards - we're using 2x 220VAC per rack ... but that too is being cut down ... - we've calculated by counting AC outlets ( P = iv ) or counting the "power supply wattage" and came up with about 50KW of power of existing systems - AC tonage: ( rounded answers ) BTU/hr = (((I * V )*0.8)/1000) * 3413 ===>> 136,000 BTU/hr AC tons = ( BTU/hr ) / 12000 =============>> 10 Ton AC and that too is being downgraded to a standard 4-ton AC ... c ya alvin From jxh at jxh.com Tue Aug 23 15:52:38 2005 From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 17:52:38 -0500 Subject: server room - rack spacing - AC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <512DEAAF50C296A771D18A4C@[10.9.18.3]> > - at 39", you cannot stand in front of the cabinet > and racking things from the sides is too much work > to hold up 30lb or 100lb rackmounts while you align > it into the slides You'll want a mechanical lift, these days. From pozar at lns.com Tue Aug 23 16:00:34 2005 From: pozar at lns.com (Tim Pozar) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 16:00:34 -0700 Subject: server room - rack spacing - AC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <430BAA92.7010808@lns.com> Alvin Oga wrote: > hi ya > > thought i'd post here again ... ( for fun ) > > - we're looking at building out a server room with > 42U cabinets and telco racks > > - what is the minimum spacing in front of the racks > and cabinets to allow the 1Us to be pulled out ?? Typically 36 inches. I have seem some Sun gear (ie 450) that will take every inch of that to put it in a rack. > - their "server room expert" ( aka interior designer at the > real estate outfit ) wants to use 30" or 39" in front of the > cabinet, it was fun to google their names to check > their backgrounds Demand at least 36 inches. > - some of the dell box is 29" deep plus additional say 6-12" > of cables and gap so you can hook up to the box that > is extended out of the cabinet > > - at 39", you cannot stand in front of the cabinet > and racking things from the sides is too much work > to hold up 30lb or 100lb rackmounts while you align > it into the slides Bingo! Although, I find rack rails are more trouble than they are worth. Also, just try to get all vendors to agree on the spacing between the front and back rack supports. :-) > - cabinets are 40" or 50" deep ... which means whatever > goes inside can be up to 40" long too and will extend > out of the cabinet by about 40" + clearances for cables > and adjustments for different types of slides When you mean 40 to 50 inches deep, then you are not counting the outside dimensions? If so, take at least 4 to 6 inches off of that depth for how deep the gear can be. Rack rails will be recessed in to accomidate handles, buttons and switches in the front. > - i'm hoping there's some eia/osha footprint standards Depends on the rack you order. > - we're using 2x 220VAC per rack ... but that too is being > cut down ... > > - we've calculated by counting AC outlets ( P = iv ) > or counting the "power supply wattage" and came up > with about 50KW of power of existing systems > > - AC tonage: ( rounded answers ) > > BTU/hr = (((I * V )*0.8)/1000) * 3413 ===>> 136,000 BTU/hr > > AC tons = ( BTU/hr ) / 12000 =============>> 10 Ton AC > > and that too is being downgraded to a standard > 4-ton AC ... I have a spreadsheet I can send you that you can crank in square footage, power etc. and get a cost per rack and A/C needs if you want. We use it for planning our colo deployments at UnitedLayer. Tim From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Tue Aug 23 16:04:19 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 16:04:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Musings on hardware prices - opps In-Reply-To: <430B7D32.4040602@halligan.org> Message-ID: hi ya michael - wow.. long reply .. :-) - simple summary .. - there's no $$$ in hardware ... maybe 3% -5% margin so you spend $1,000 up front to make $50 bucks when they pay up - the way dell makes $$$ is they charge their 10% or 30% of prepaid maintenance On Tue, 23 Aug 2005, Michael T. Halligan wrote: > Which distributor? The only large distributor I know that's easy to deal > with is Ingram.. ingram is a joke in my book .. but that's just me > I believe they bought everybody else. nah ... maybe the dying distributors ... and it also depends on if we're talking "component" distributors vs "PC" distributors ( see below ) > Acma is a tier down from Malabs. I'd be happy to find out how to > work in-between MA & Ingram. Malabs is worst than ingram in terms of ontime delivery and pricing and they're what i call a consumer store without a physical store - other thing that would help is for folks to stop advertising parts they do NOT have in stock in the silly computer mags ( compuser ) - - they all get those parts within an hr at a couple of - the distributors - > Hardware sucks. or can be fun .. depends ... on point of view > On the low-end, I can buy 30 servers from Dell for the same price as 10 > IBM or HP's low-end > servers (I'm talking IBM's x336 or HP's DL14X line.. Not their better > gear). DL series is compaq ?? and they're 1 level above dell's worst performance boxes > My assumption > with Dell is usually to expect the worst, 30% of servers to be in some > state of failure at any time. yup... seems to be par ... and i say one gets what one pays for ?? > As much as I despise > Dell's component choices and technical support, it's a financial AND > technical decision dell is making really hard. yup...if one is interested in pricing ... dell is hard to beat if the customer is intested in performace/reliability ... than dell is out of the loop in my book > > - i havent seen any dead/broken ibm boxes ... > > - i havent seen too many dead/broken hp boxes > > - i have seen too too too many dead/broken dells and compaqs > > > Then you haven't worked in a large enough installation. maybe ... i deal with x,000's of boxes ... > Hardware dies. yup... the $100M question is ... - why does it die - is there any pattern to these dead boxes - how does it die ... > Commodity hardware is cheap, no matter who is selling it to you. cheap is good .... google also proved that beyond any doubts > IBM's is the best . and you pay for that "name brand" too and supposedly get the knowledgeable world famous ibm support instead of the unisys zombies though i ran into 1 knowledgeable unisys dude that knows how to rebuild a dead hw raid system with 3 out of 12 disk failures ( it's actually super-flaky dell hw ( 1tb of storage at $20K ) that has since been decommisioned/replaced by a $6K linux box, but at least it works even if its over priced ) > And if you really do have so much free time to re-invent > the wheel, you should be selling more. i re-invent the wheel when the current products out in the market doesn't solve the customers problems people like to use name brand or actually been there done that, and now they come looking for "me" ... which i like, whether its me or you guys that can also deliver custom solutions too and yes... i do have free time, because i do things "my way" since its my time and $$$ that they will have to pay ... but sometimes i eat the big one... live and learn .. > Can you give me a list of your customers then? i will assume that you will trade your customers list ?? :-) > If you're doing things > the hard way, building servers > by hand, writing your own tools instead of utilizing existing free and > commercial ones, you are probably > not doing right by your customers. that'd depend on the customer specs and budget and expectations ?? > I personally couldn't look a > customer in the face, and tell them that > it makes sense for me to bill an extra 300 hours on a 300 server > deployment, i dont pre-assume anything like that to make a pointless point ?? but i do say .. bring me a (signed) legit offer and i will match it or tell them to go with the other deal > Isn't it our job to gather requirements, and understand specs, then make > recommendations? That's certainly part of how I operate. that's the point ...and offer complete ( working ) solutions in addition to "recommendations" that meets their specs and/or fix their specs/requirements > I think you put a lot of faith on parts selection. i do ... that is precisely the difference between bying from tom-dick-n-harry and their gorilla vs buying the same identical parts from some other distributors and NOT having these so called "hardware problems" one hopefully learns over the 30yrs of building hardware and systems > Building your own servers > is never a good idea, in my opinion, for a production infrastructure. depends on the solution the customer is trying to solve - heat flow and cooling is the biggest problem for which some existing solutions doesnt work ... ( just measure the temps .. no way to argue ) - dead parts ( unreliable parts ) is equally bad or worst ... - some of the distributors http://www.Linux-1U.net/Distributors/ c ya alvin From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Tue Aug 23 16:20:44 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 16:20:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: server room - rack spacing - AC In-Reply-To: <430BAA92.7010808@lns.com> Message-ID: hi ya tim On Tue, 23 Aug 2005, Tim Pozar wrote: > Typically 36 inches. i want 4' ( 48" ) so that i don't bump into the adjacent racks behind me and an extended dell comes out that far too > Bingo! Although, I find rack rails are more trouble than they are > worth. Also, just try to get all vendors to agree on the spacing > between the front and back rack supports. :-) double bingo .. - same goes for whose slides you use will make the thingie stick out more or less too in addition to hand room for connecting to the back of the server that is sticking out > When you mean 40 to 50 inches deep, then you are not counting the > outside dimensions? the cabinets outside dimension > If so, take at least 4 to 6 inches off of that > depth for how deep the gear can be. yup or you leave the back cover off and let it stick out > Rack rails will be recessed in to > accomidate handles, buttons and switches in the front. yup > > - i'm hoping there's some eia/osha footprint standards > > Depends on the rack you order. triple bingo ... racks/cabiners are made by chatsworth ( the ibm of racks/cabinets ) > We use it for planning our colo deployments at UnitedLayer. nah... the proint is that we're calcuting our existing systems at 10ton AC... but the "server room experts" ( aka real estate agents and or interior designers ) wnat to use 500BTU/hr as if it was s regular cubicle - also, the current 4-ton AC that they have allows the server room temp to go over 80F ... at nights ... instead maintaining at 65F - and i keep telling them it's not a 4-ton ac .. and at least the real estate agents laughed too when they say the AC unit - the AC has official looking part# and manufacturer but if you google for it, it'd show a non-existing model# and if you look closely at the AC, it is a home-brew AC built with spare parts ( imho ) - the entertaining part ... - their "server room experts" are clueless interior decorators per the google results of their names c ya alvin From pozar at lns.com Tue Aug 23 16:29:02 2005 From: pozar at lns.com (Tim Pozar) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 16:29:02 -0700 Subject: server room - rack spacing - AC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <430BB13E.3010807@lns.com> Alvin Oga wrote: > hi ya tim Howdy! > On Tue, 23 Aug 2005, Tim Pozar wrote: >>Typically 36 inches. > > i want 4' ( 48" ) so that i don't bump into the > adjacent racks behind me Yup, that is the spacing in our new facility at 200 Paul. We rarely get someone or thing that needs it, but we had the space. :-) > and an extended dell comes out that far too > >>Bingo! Although, I find rack rails are more trouble than they are >>worth. Also, just try to get all vendors to agree on the spacing >>between the front and back rack supports. :-) > > double bingo .. > - same goes for whose slides you use will make the > thingie stick out more or less too in addition to > hand room for connecting to the back of the server > that is sticking out > >>When you mean 40 to 50 inches deep, then you are not counting the >>outside dimensions? > > the cabinets outside dimension > >> If so, take at least 4 to 6 inches off of that >>depth for how deep the gear can be. > > yup or you leave the back cover off and let it stick out You may or may not want to do that depending on how your air will flow through the rack. For example, if you have computer flooring and forced A/C then this is not a good idea. >>>- i'm hoping there's some eia/osha footprint standards >> >>Depends on the rack you order. > > triple bingo ... > > racks/cabiners are made by chatsworth ( the ibm of racks/cabinets ) Uh... Not sure what you mean by "the IBM of racks", as they don't meet many standards such as Zone 4 (ie. The Bay Area) earthquake standards and electrical bonding. >>We use it for planning our colo deployments at UnitedLayer. > > nah... the proint is that we're calcuting our existing systems > at 10ton AC... but the "server room experts" ( aka real estate > agents and or interior designers ) wnat to use 500BTU/hr > as if it was s regular cubicle > > - also, the current 4-ton AC that they have allows the server room > temp to go over 80F ... at nights ... instead maintaining > at 65F Ya... Not good. What does it do during the day when the system's efficiency goes way down with the rising outside temp? > - and i keep telling them it's not a 4-ton ac .. > and at least the real estate agents laughed too > when they say the AC unit > > - the AC has official looking part# and manufacturer > but if you google for it, it'd show a non-existing > model# and if you look closely at the AC, it is > a home-brew AC built with spare parts ( imho ) OMG... You are considering these folks? > - the entertaining part ... > - their "server room experts" are clueless interior > decorators per the google results of their names I can point you at a number of other places (including us) that will be much more clueful. :-) Good luck. Tim From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Tue Aug 23 17:04:01 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 17:04:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: server room - rack spacing - AC In-Reply-To: <430BB13E.3010807@lns.com> Message-ID: hua d tim On Tue, 23 Aug 2005, Tim Pozar wrote: > > i want 4' ( 48" ) so that i don't bump into the > > adjacent racks behind me > > Yup, that is the spacing in our new facility at 200 Paul. We rarely > get someone or thing that needs it, but we had the space. :-) good ... that is sorta what i was looking for, if some folks are crazy like me in wanting mroe space in front of the rack when its available ( as it is in our new server room ) > > yup or you leave the back cover off and let it stick out > > You may or may not want to do that depending on how your air will flow > through the rack. For example, if you have computer flooring and forced > A/C then this is not a good idea. ummm... me thinks i'm dumb but not stupid or stupid but not dumb ??? and yeah... sometimes one does see open backs on subfloor-t0-ceiling cooling .... more whacky "getups" we're using plain ole split ducts ( intake and exhaust ) with the AC unit on the roof > > racks/cabiners are made by chatsworth ( the ibm of racks/cabinets ) > > Uh... Not sure what you mean by "the IBM of racks", as they don't meet > many standards such as Zone 4 (ie. The Bay Area) earthquake standards > and electrical bonding. SF bay area has whacky building standards .. as does LA ... maybe the market for racks/telco that meets those standards is not big enough for chatsworth to go after ?? lots of server rooms that i've seen does NOT mean "earthquake" standards as the so called reinforcement means will just wiggle out since its just itty-bitty nails vs screwed into studs in the wall > Ya... Not good. What does it do during the day when the system's > efficiency goes way down with the rising outside temp? during the work week, the server room temp is normal at about 67 since the building ac is on but goes up to 80F at nights implying the AC in the server room is not working and they wonder why their servers are acting flaky and dying randomly :-) > > - and i keep telling them it's not a 4-ton ac .. > > and at least the real estate agents laughed too > > when they say the AC unit > > > > - the AC has official looking part# and manufacturer > > but if you google for it, it'd show a non-existing > > model# and if you look closely at the AC, it is > > a home-brew AC built with spare parts ( imho ) > > OMG... You are considering these folks? not my choice ... the big bosses left it in the real estate agent's hands who probably hired their buddies and bro of their gf or something as they are obviously not qualified based on: ( that's always my conspiracy theory of how bozo's get into the picture ) - they wanted to use 2' - 3' of spacing in front of the racks - they wanted 4ton ac cause thats what we have now even if it's more like a 1ton home-brew unit - they did not show hot air exhaust and cold air intake - they have the racks back-to-back with the hot air in between the racks in a space of 2'-3' where you and/i would normally be between the racks working on it - more fun stuff in the rest of the floor plans too - they are probably billing (us) by the hour which i wouldn't pay their invoices since it violated our initial specs - their layout is sorta like: "back" of rack "front" of rack each rack/cabinet is say 4' deep wall -- F-racks-B -- 3' aile -- B-rack-F -- wall - my layout using their scheme : wall -- B-racks-F -- 4' aile -- F-rack-B -- wall ( we have 14' or 16' depending on orientaion of the racks in the room to play with ) but that doesn't leave "walking" room between the walls and the racks which brings us to a single row of nicely spaced racks along the wall .. no spacing problem anywhere > > - the entertaining part ... > > - their "server room experts" are clueless interior > > decorators per the google results of their names > > I can point you at a number of other places (including us) that will be > much more clueful. :-) hopefully, after the big bosses figure out that they dont want these interior designers, i'll see about getting some "real" server room experts" into the meetings instead of me pissing into the hurricane c ya alvin From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Tue Aug 23 18:50:08 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 18:50:08 -0700 (PDT) Subject: custom hw vs cots Message-ID: hi ya michael - you're right in most things you're saying for cots vs reinventing the wheel but since i gave you the impression we prefer to "reinvent the wheel" and/or avoid dell/hp/ibm/metoo, here's some whacky background info for more poking and shaking of the fingers :-) - in the days before *.com, there were very few ( 2 ) vendors of reasonable 1U chassis, so we made our own custom chassis per customer requests to solve the heat problem of p3-500 and AMD athlons and provide more than 1 disk - there were 2 very very bad 1u chassis from the industry standard rackmount vendors - there was NO 1U power supplies so we designed our own ... and of course, by the time we finished the prelim designs, we could buy $150 prototype 1U power supplies which we did and placed orders for more which dropped in price overnight - now of course, everybody has rackmounts chassis and if you look closely, its mostly the same chassis re-branded as antoher "me too" vendor - there are those that make their own chassis ( dell, tyan, mb-vendors, ibm, hp, etc ) - for tommorrow's market: - we're reinventing the wheel again, for blade boxes that will support 10 independent systems with 15TB in 4U of space or about 160TB per cabinet - i'm again, assuming we'd have to design our own custom 24port gigE switch since the budgets doesn't allow $$$ for fancy cots 24-port gigE switches but, that is the minor hangup for now ... where we do twiddle dee.. twiddle dah to see who comes up with a cheap 24-port gigE that has the sustained performance between any 2 nodes - i think plugging 16 disks into one motherboard will be serious bottleneck for managing 15TB of disks - can you/we buy a 100TB system off the shelf ??? - yes .. but its not cheap ... and we're way underpriced so we're hoping to get the hw contract add back in for the marketing/sales and tradeshow costs and we'd be in the same price point as everybody else ... ( 100x mark up of hw costs ) - it's targeted for a major colo facility - than add "services" to the custom hardware and hopefully everybody are happy campers c ya alvin From michael at halligan.org Tue Aug 23 20:34:22 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 20:34:22 -0700 Subject: Musings on hardware prices - opps In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <430BEABE.2020007@halligan.org> >- wow.. long reply .. :-) > > You should read my project plans. It could be worse. My father was the equivalent of an infrastructure architect consultant at EDS for a decade. The proposals he wrote just to quote the scoping of a large project were usually 50 pages. I think my way of rebelling as a teenager was by focusing on SMB instead of fortune-100. >- simple summary .. > - there's no $$$ in hardware ... maybe 3% -5% margin > so you spend $1,000 up front to make $50 bucks when they pay up > > - the way dell makes $$$ is they charge their 10% or 30% of > prepaid maintenance > > Dell has a brilliantly designed manufacturing technique, and apparently treats their staff very well. William Deming would be in awe at their efficiency.. and rolling in his grave over their quality problems. Dell is something like 37% profitable overall. I've heard (but not researched) that they are somewhere around 20% profitable on average for every piece of hardware they sell. I can *somewhat* believe that, given the difference between sales-type quotes, and web quotes. I can think of at least 20 companies I've helped start-up (as a consultant) who had no idea about negotiation with vendors. The typical response seemed to be, "You can do that?? But the price they..." It's a lot like the car industry in that respect. When everything changed, the new guys on the block, selling their cars for 2/3 of what the big-5 were selling them for, were also 3x as profitable per car.. Eventually they retro-fitted quality, and destroyed America's auto-industry. Imagine if they had listened to Deming & the Theory Z guys BEFORE they entered this market. My prediction is that Dell is either going to have to change their thoughts on quality, and stop their low-end price-wars, or sell off their server manufacturing arm.. The next HP merger screw-up maybe? >>Which distributor? The only large distributor I know that's easy to deal >>with is Ingram.. >> >> > >ingram is a joke in my book .. but that's just me > > > Who is left? I haven't really researched this in quite a while, but I know (or rather, think I know) that IM purchased Avad, Nimax, D&H, Tech Pacific, I might be mistaken, but I thought they also acquired Synnex, and GnR. >and it also depends on if we're talking "component" distributors >vs "PC" distributors ( see below ) > > >> Acma is a tier down from Malabs. I'd be happy to find out how to >>work in-between MA & Ingram. >> >> > >Malabs is worst than ingram in terms of ontime delivery and pricing >and they're what i call a consumer store without a physical store > >- other thing that would help is for folks to stop advertising > parts they do NOT have in stock in the silly computer mags ( compuser ) > - > - they all get those parts within an hr at a couple of > - the distributors > > My experience has been entirely the opposite. Ingram barely returns your phone calls if you're not doing $50k per month with them. Until recently, I dealt with MAlabs via AIM, which was pretty convenient. On the last 100 purchases I've made through MAlabs, all but 5 arrived the next day. Those 5 arrived within 3 days (beating their 5-6 business day estimate) and weren't items they kept in stock. We've also done a few same-day purchases from MA. MA isn't the best at volume pricing discounts, but they're OK. The rest of the small dealers I've dealt with in the bay area aren't even worth calling. Acma does OK, but I've just been happier with MA. It was always nice knowing I could IM my MA rep, and get 48 hard drives, 4 3ware controllers, and the rest of the gear to build a pair of 6TB file servers 24-hours later, at wholesale prices. If there's a better option for small things like this, I'd love to know. I maybe build two servers a year at this point, and only for a customer who really wants to accept the pain of custom-built servers. I won't even build my own gear. I'd rather focus on my business, and I am not in the business of building servers. >>Hardware sucks. >> >> > >or can be fun .. depends ... on point of view > > Fun? Hardware has always been designed for functionality. Assembling computers is just a nightmare. A real infrastructure requires a massive amount of documentation, process development, and testing. I could build 200 servers with decent specs for $300k. I'd rather spend $450k, lay the responsibility of warranty, parts replacement, etc, on the vendor, and focus on building well-managed infrastructure. >>On the low-end, I can buy 30 servers from Dell for the same price as 10 >>IBM or HP's low-end >>servers (I'm talking IBM's x336 or HP's DL14X line.. Not their better >>gear). >> >> > >DL series is compaq ?? and they're 1 level above dell's worst performance >boxes > > DL is Compaq/HP. I've never known anybody to complain about reliability on the DL's. I've got a dozen DL145s (dual opteron) deployed in 2 datacenters for an IP Anycast DNS service, and they're rather awesome. IPMIv2, a working remote console (ssh into it and you've got a built-in terminal emulator). Easy to work with, cheap, and very powerful. A bit higher up, the DL380s are workhorses. The rILO makes life a lot easier. >>My assumption >>with Dell is usually to expect the worst, 30% of servers to be in some >>state of failure at any time. >> >> > >yup... seems to be par ... and i say one gets what one pays for ?? > > > Yes. Now the math here works out that 1000 servers from Dell cost $1M 1000 HP servers cost $2.M 1000 IBM servers cost $2.8M If you buy those 1000 servers, using the 30% rule, that means you only "needed" 769 servers, and over-bought those 231 servers for redundancy, and extra performance just in case. A project I helped a VAR bid out two years ago made for a great example. $1.5M - 1000 servers from Dell $1M - Implementation/development/support for one year $250k - networking gear $200k - Backup solution $300k - Storage solution $525k - Power for three years for all gear ------------ 3.8M The company itself ended up folding, but the spec that was written was pretty good. The VAR itself actually sold HP and IBM gear, and found out that the cost would be $1.3M higher for HP, 1.9M higher for IBM gear.. These were the numbers with their markup. For a service that cared about bandwidth and compute power from their individual nodes, good hardware was not justifiable. In actuality, the Linux/cheap sever model was perfect for this, since the redundancy was already designed to scale out rather than up. >>As much as I despise >>Dell's component choices and technical support, it's a financial AND >>technical decision dell is making really hard. >> >> > >yup...if one is interested in pricing ... dell is hard to beat > >if the customer is intested in performace/reliability ... than dell is >out of the loop in my book > > Blanket statements are really hard to make on imperial evidence. My rule of thumb is to expect Dell gear to be down 30% more often than HP or IBM. That's to build in room for problems. In actual experience, I can look over uptime reports for two customers in 2004. One of them had 100 Dell servers. One of them had 45 HP servers. The dell environment, overbuilt, had 99.99% uptime. The HP environment, if I adjust the #s, had about 99.95% uptime. Service uptime during a 12 hour business day, both archived 5 9s. The difference? The Dell environment was more of a pain to install initially, and had more server failures. Adjusted, the HP environment cost about $70k more than Dell. Staffing costs were similar. Dell is cheap. Hardware is cheap. If you build right, hardware is not important. >>> - i havent seen any dead/broken ibm boxes ... >>> - i havent seen too many dead/broken hp boxes >>> - i have seen too too too many dead/broken dells and compaqs >>> >>> >>> >>Then you haven't worked in a large enough installation. >> >> > >maybe ... i deal with x,000's of boxes ... > > > In a single infrastructure? I find it hard to even imagine either mentality.. The mentality of building your own, or the mentality of overpaying a magnitude for hardware that in the end is just cheap commodity crap. >>Hardware dies. >> >> > >yup... > >the $100M question is ... > - why does it die > - is there any pattern to these dead boxes > - how does it die > ... > > Depending on the app, does it really matter? A lot of my work has been in large environments with small classes of functionality.. Where 1000 servers may only have 6 functions. In other environments, all of my statements are pointless. We talked to a company a few months ago (Hi Jim) with several thousand servers.. Each server in itself is important, running a unique simulation. If the simulation crashes, then money is lost. In that situation, both expensive vendor support, and very stable, expensive hardware is a necessity. >>Commodity hardware is cheap, no matter who is selling it to you. >> >> > >cheap is good .... > >google also proved that beyond any doubts > > They also proved that power is expensive :) The last speculation I heard was that they have 300k servers. I read somewhere they average $1k per server. That means $300M in hardware. I estimate $16 per server per month in power & AC. That's $57.6M per year just in power.. I like to use N/30 to estimate the monthly cost for financing a piece of hardware. With these numbers, Google is paying $10M per month for their servers, 4.8M per month for their power & A/C. In the bay area, a Sage Level I admin makes a salary of $40k per year. He/she costs you $55k after benefits and taxes, or $26 per hour. A server costs Google $49 per month before bandwidth, development costs, etc. Hardware is very, very cheap. > > >>IBM's is the best . >> >> > >and you pay for that "name brand" too and supposedly get the >knowledgeable world famous ibm support instead of the unisys zombies >though i ran into 1 knowledgeable unisys dude that knows how to >rebuild a dead hw raid system with 3 out of 12 disk failures >( it's actually super-flaky dell hw ( 1tb of storage at $20K ) that has > since been decommisioned/replaced by a $6K linux box, but at least > it works even if its over priced ) > > If you follow my thread back, I admit I'm talking a lot, you'll see that I specifically mention IBM's (or I believe I did.. too zealous on the quote-deletion) Embedded diagnostics. Brand name, or not, no other PC based server comes close. And, yeah, Unisys sucks. Dell uses them, IBM uses them. HP probably uses them. That's really where Dell falls apart. Their "professional services" and "enterprise support" would be better staffed through ManPower Inc. $20k for 1TB of Dell hardware must be rather old. Last year I was buying 1.8TB scsi jbods from Dell for around $8k a piece. I was paying $7,999.10 too much for them. The ONLY piece of storage I would consider buying from Dell are their tape libraries (remanufactured from Quantum). But I'd buy an external support contract, and probably figure out who else remanufactures them & try to get their firmwares. Dell likes to release broken firmware, as you'd know if you've ever called up Dell support only to be read a script of "did you upgrade this firmware? Did you upgrade this firmware? I can't help you until you flash this ". I think it's their hobby. >i re-invent the wheel when the current products out in the market >doesn't solve the customers problems > >people like to use name brand or actually been there done that, >and now they come looking for "me" ... which i like, whether its >me or you guys that can also deliver custom solutions too > >and yes... i do have free time, because i do things "my way" >since its my time and $$$ that they will have to pay ... > > As a consultant, I have to put my customer's needs first, and foremost. If I can save my customer $100k of my implementation time, by recommending software that does everything they need, but I personally think isn't the greatest, I've got to do right by my customer. My example is configuration management systems. They all suck. The best option out there is the most labor intensive, CFEngine. Unfortunately, if it comes down between 400 hours to setup CFengine perfectly in a large environment, or 200 hours + $40k in licensing fees for Altiris, Altiris it is. I have to just accept that there are always several right ways, and there is usually only one that makes the right compromise between perfection, and budget. >but sometimes i eat the big one... live and learn .. > > > >>Can you give me a list of your customers then? >> >> > >i will assume that you will trade your customers list ?? :-) > > Only the ones who's long-term management contracts aren't expiring soon *grins* >>If you're doing things >>the hard way, building servers >>by hand, writing your own tools instead of utilizing existing free and >>commercial ones, you are probably >>not doing right by your customers. >> >> > >that'd depend on the customer specs and budget and expectations ?? > > I guess, depending on the circumstance, that's true. I avoid "BIG" business, I don't like the politics, the paperwork, and the long sales-cycle. A good friend of mine works in a completely different world. He's a VP at a very large bank. When I tell him I saved a customer $400k in staffing costs with a re-design, he'll look at me, and say "Money? We can always make more of that". >>I personally couldn't look a >>customer in the face, and tell them that >>it makes sense for me to bill an extra 300 hours on a 300 server >>deployment, >> >> > >i dont pre-assume anything like that to make a pointless point ?? > >but i do say .. bring me a (signed) legit offer and i will match it >or tell them to go with the other deal > > My experience might be a bit skewed. I've walked into far, far too many contracts in the bay area, with the opening words of "the last consultant".. Looking at other people's specs, questionable billing practices, and in general just sloppy work, I find it odd that businesses in the bay area hire consultants period. I won't even let money be mentioned until I really understand the situation. For larger projects, the process is first bid the scope, then bid the design, then bid the implementation. Hourly billing is avoided as much as possible. My opinion is if that you can't fix-bid the project in a way that you profit comfortably, the price is agreed to be reasonable, and the scope is quickly definable, then either you shouldn't be bidding it, or the project needs full-time employees. >>Isn't it our job to gather requirements, and understand specs, then make >>recommendations? That's certainly part of how I operate. >> >> > >that's the point ...and offer complete ( working ) solutions in addition >to "recommendations" that meets their specs and/or fix their >specs/requirements > > > Agreed. >>I think you put a lot of faith on parts selection. >> >> > >i do ... that is precisely the difference between bying from >tom-dick-n-harry and their gorilla vs buying the same identical parts >from some other distributors and NOT having these so called "hardware >problems" > >one hopefully learns over the 30yrs of building hardware and systems > > In the end, we're talking commodities. A long time ago I worked for a turn-key beowulf provider. While trying to create a better, and cheaper (the beowulf industry sucks. There is no industry. It only pushes hardware, the rest of the work is done by slave-labo.... err, grad students) parts pipeline. We discovered hardware brokers. There are hardware brokers out there who buy and sell hardware like a commodity.. It's no different than porkbellies or soybean futures. The product you see is the same product that 100 different manufacturers put out. You can buy 100 Nvidia graphics cards. You can buy 100 Intel ethernet boards. I don't believe that there is any massively significant deviation between most standard components at scale. As long as the parts you're buying are manufactured with "Server" tolerances (which drastically limits your selection) you're OK. Either way, the big box pushers have FAR better economies of scale than you or I. From michael at halligan.org Tue Aug 23 20:51:03 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 20:51:03 -0700 Subject: custom hw vs cots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <430BEEA7.60800@halligan.org> >- you're right in most things you're saying for > cots vs reinventing the wheel > > but since i gave you the impression we prefer > to "reinvent the wheel" and/or avoid dell/hp/ibm/metoo, > here's some whacky background info for more > poking and shaking of the fingers :-) > > That's fair :) Excuse me if I come off confrontational, most conversations on this list have tended to be children having temper tantrums. Most threads on all the mailing lists I'm on, except for the Infrastructures list (which has very few threads) tend to be people basing wild assumptions on very small practices/implementations. That, and it's been a long weekend. >- in the days before *.com, there were very few ( 2 ) > vendors of reasonable 1U chassis, so we made our own > custom chassis per customer requests to solve > the heat problem of p3-500 and AMD athlons and > provide more than 1 disk > > - there were 2 very very bad 1u chassis > from the industry standard rackmount vendors > > - there was NO 1U power supplies so we > designed our own ... and of course, by > the time we finished the prelim designs, > we could buy $150 prototype 1U power supplies > which we did and placed orders for more > which dropped in price overnight > > Interesting. My approach would have been quite different, however. I'd have found a manufacturer who already made power supplies, give them the requirements, then make enough calls to show that the demand would exist if they provided the part. Manufacturing is a rough industry. I grew up in that world. You stop losing economies of scale in some areas very, very quickly. I remember when 1U chassis' became the thing in the beowulf world, and all of a sudden power, heat, and floor requirements mattered (it was rather fun to throw 38 45lb 1Us into a 42U chassis that had 50lbs of other gear, and weighed 75lbs, box it up into a crate, and try to safely put that into a truck backed-up to a non-functioning loading dock, then hope it wouldn't fall through our customer's floors) >- now of course, everybody has rackmounts chassis > and if you look closely, its mostly the same chassis > re-branded as antoher "me too" vendor > - there are those that make their own chassis > ( dell, tyan, mb-vendors, ibm, hp, etc ) > > Until 3 years ago, Dell purchased their chassis from Synnex I believe. IBM, I'm pretty sure, still buys their chassis from an asian supplier.. I know a company that sells thousands IBM-equivalent servers without the IBM logo, that they didn't buy from IBM.. I'm pretty sure that they even use the same motherboards, but don't include drivers for the on-board diagnostics or management. >- for tommorrow's market: > > - we're reinventing the wheel again, for blade > boxes that will support 10 independent systems > with 15TB in 4U of space or about 160TB per cabinet > > - i'm again, assuming we'd have to design our > own custom 24port gigE switch since the budgets > doesn't allow $$$ for fancy cots 24-port gigE switches > > but, that is the minor hangup for now ... > where we do twiddle dee.. twiddle dah to see > who comes up with a cheap 24-port gigE that has > the sustained performance between any 2 nodes > > - i think plugging 16 disks into one motherboard > will be serious bottleneck for managing 15TB of disks > > > How could there possibly be any good reason to design your own blade system? Explain the business reasoning here. I'm still not sold that Blades are a good idea. Power is expensive, very expensive. PCs are lousy at power usage.. Maybe a G5 based blade system, yeah, but x86? Space is very cheap. The premium on blades far outweighs the cost of space. The only good reason I could see for blades is theoretically reduced latency.. But if latency is that important, Numa equivalents might be an equivalent solution in speed and pricing, especially factoring in reliability. Is gigE necessary? For what reasons? If it's throughput, then you should look into Myrinet or Quadrics. 16 disks on one motherboard is a bad solution. Managed Jbods, or a SAN with their own controllers are probably better ideas. >- can you/we buy a 100TB system off the shelf ??? > > - yes .. but its not cheap ... > > and we're way underpriced so we're hoping to > get the hw contract > > add back in for the marketing/sales and tradeshow costs > and we'd be in the same price point as > everybody else ... ( 100x mark up of hw costs ) > > - it's targeted for a major colo facility > >- than add "services" to the custom hardware and hopefully > everybody are happy campers > > > Really depends on the 100TB. Speed, reliability, or just space? Disk storage solutions might be one where building your own solution isn't too bad... Mainly after doing a lot of research on disk prices/margins. Still, you just answered your own question about marketing, sales, support, etc. I'm sure you've realized that unless you sell N of these, your margins approach zero, and you need to make it up with services or consulting. Perhaps partnering with a larger provider, and getting a good VAR discount would be a better use of time while providing a stronger profit margin. From michael at halligan.org Tue Aug 23 21:01:38 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 21:01:38 -0700 Subject: custom hw vs cots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <430BF122.3080200@halligan.org> >- can you/we buy a 100TB system off the shelf ??? > > - yes .. but its not cheap ... > > and we're way underpriced so we're hoping to > get the hw contract > > add back in for the marketing/sales and tradeshow costs > and we'd be in the same price point as > everybody else ... ( 100x mark up of hw costs ) > > - it's targeted for a major colo facility > >- than add "services" to the custom hardware and hopefully > everybody are happy campers > >c ya >alvin > > On the note of Storage, Capricorn's offering looks pretty good. 80TB in one rack, according to their #s means 30 AMPS.. at least at my datacenter, that's about $500/month for power.. I don't know their pricing, but my wild guess is 100TB would be somewhere around $1600/node (50 nodes) which is like $80k.. $1.22 per gigabyte. If those numbers are accurate, then before bandwidth/networking/manpower, you're looking at $4k/month including power and space. From dannyman at toldme.com Tue Aug 23 21:28:10 2005 From: dannyman at toldme.com (Danny Howard) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 21:28:10 -0700 Subject: custom hw vs cots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050824042810.GQ51748@ratchet.nebcorp.com> I vote for cots any day. Napping is underrated. -danny -- http://dannyman.toldme.com/ From jxh at jxh.com Tue Aug 23 21:39:33 2005 From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 23:39:33 -0500 Subject: custom hw vs cots In-Reply-To: <430BEEA7.60800@halligan.org> References: <430BEEA7.60800@halligan.org> Message-ID: <3E4EC023165E082BAFEA4194@[10.9.18.3]> > I remember when 1U chassis' became the thing in the beowulf world, > and all of a sudden power, heat, and floor requirements mattered (it > was rather fun to throw 38 45lb 1Us into a 42U chassis that had 50lbs > of other gear, and weighed 75lbs, box it up into a crate, and try to safely > put that into a truck backed-up to a non-functioning loading dock, then > hope it wouldn't fall through our customer's floors) That which is old is new again. :-) Cray Research used to slide things (like a Cray-1) across raised floors on very large, quite thick aluminum plates, to spread the load. Not to mention heat dissipation. Next time you're in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, be sure to check out the CFMIT (www.cfmit.org), what's left of the Cray corporate museum. I made my pilgrimage recently. It's amazing how much of this stuff is practically a lost art (hiding in plain sight in museums), and seems to be reinvented over and over and over. From michael at halligan.org Tue Aug 23 21:39:52 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 21:39:52 -0700 Subject: custom hw vs cots In-Reply-To: <20050824042810.GQ51748@ratchet.nebcorp.com> References: <20050824042810.GQ51748@ratchet.nebcorp.com> Message-ID: <430BFA18.8050304@halligan.org> Danny Howard wrote: >I vote for cots any day. Napping is underrated. > >-danny > > My definition for cots was always either Customer Owned Telephone Switch/System or Connection-Oriented Transport Service.. Too many acronyms (TMA) From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Wed Aug 24 00:12:22 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 00:12:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: custom hw vs cots - power In-Reply-To: <430BF122.3080200@halligan.org> Message-ID: hi ya michael On Tue, 23 Aug 2005, Michael T. Halligan wrote: > On the note of Storage, Capricorn's offering looks pretty good. 80TB in one > rack, according to their #s means 30 AMPS.. at least at my datacenter, ... > If those numbers are accurate, then before > bandwidth/networking/manpower, you're looking > at $4k/month including power and space. lets see ... i didn't calculate power costs/estimates but let's see for the fun of it .. 20A == at 12V DC per 4U ( 2A per blade * 10 blades ) but it'd needs 5A surge for about 1 second to spin up the disks which we'll ignore for simplicity here but, additionally, the power supply must be able to provide that extra surge current during power on of the blade - the above numbers are measured numbers with ammeters and scope 200A == typical power requirement to run 160TB of storage ( 10x 4Us ) 2400W == estimated power per 150TB rack ( 200A * 12V DC ) nice numbers in my book, which is why we're building custom systems instead of COTS that cannot meet the customers specs - the trick is to get a reliable 500A at 12V DC power supply which is available off the shelf and of course, get 2 of um to do load sharing at these current levels is not a trivial problem c ya alvin From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Wed Aug 24 00:29:24 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 00:29:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: custom hw vs cots In-Reply-To: <430BEEA7.60800@halligan.org> Message-ID: hi ya On Tue, 23 Aug 2005, Michael T. Halligan wrote: > That's fair :) Excuse me if I come off confrontational it's good, in my book, to have an strong opinion on what one thinks is the "right way" for them but, but, but it does NOT mean it's the right way for others to do the same way > Interesting. My approach would have been quite different, however. I'd > have found a manufacturer who already made power supplies, give them like i said... there was NO 1U power supplies back than and i went around to say 50 power supply manufacturers to find out who's making a 1U sized ps - 3-6 mon's later, all hell broke loose w/ 1U rackmounts the problem with big-boys in an 25 year reackmount market is that they move slow, and they have their SBC ( single board coputers ) marked up to selling to telco and medical markets, so they didn't need a new *.com market to tell them we need "1Us" there was only 1 or 2 manufacturers of 1U chassis back than > Until 3 years ago, Dell purchased their chassis from Synnex I believe. dell outsources their specs and designs to outsiders, ( mechanical designers ) and is manufactured/built/assembled offshore ( you can guess where ) and they import it back to their hq and than ups' out to their customers > IBM, I'm pretty sure, still buys their chassis from an asian supplier.. i think they have their own chassis and they license others to use it ( intel, dell, etc ) > I know a company > that sells thousands IBM-equivalent servers without the IBM logo, that that's highly probable > How could there possibly be any good reason to design your own blade > system? it's a long and detailed story and reasoning and big gambles... and customers ... and r/d budgets.. and forecasting ... blah .. blah > I'm still not sold that Blades are a good idea. yup ... but i think it's gonna pick up speed .. > Power is expensive, > very expensive. blades uses no more power than 1Us and in fact, should be using less power than 1Us of equivalent combined number of units > Is gigE necessary? For what reasons? If it's throughput, then you should > look into Myrinet or Quadrics. gigE is fast enough to keep up with disks ... 100Mbps is too slow for scsi/ide disks myrinet/et.al are too expensive for the same price/performance/reliability > 16 disks on one motherboard is a bad solution. bingo !!! Managed Jbods, or a SAN > with their own controllers are > probably better ideas. yup... so than who provides JBODs on their own controller and for that matter own cpu/memory/gigE > >- can you/we buy a 100TB system off the shelf ??? > > - yes .. but its > not cheap ... > > and we're way underpriced so we're hoping to > get > the hw contract > > add back in for the marketing/sales and tradeshow > costs > and we'd be in the same price point as > everybody else ... ( > 100x mark up of hw costs ) > > - it's targeted for a major colo > facility > >- than add "services" to the custom hardware and hopefully > > everybody are happy campers > > > Really depends on the 100TB. Speed, reliability, or just space? performance, costs, failure rates, etc .. > Disk storage solutions might be one where > building your own solution isn't too bad... bingo !! > Mainly after doing a lot of > research on disk prices/margins. Still, you just answered your own > question about marketing, sales, support, etc. yup... so we minimize our marketing/sales/advertise/tradeshow budgets :-) > I'm sure you've realized > that unless you sell N of these, your margins approach zero my dumb rule ... we must be profitable on each sale/project if the customers wants "1" ... they better have the budget for that "1" or a damm good reason why they cannot buy from COTS ( dell/hp/ibm/etc ) > and you need to make it up with services or consulting. we always make our $$$ on that ... that is where the $$$ is ... parts costs is free by comparison > Perhaps partnering with > a larger provider, and getting a good VAR discount VAR/VAD has that 30year old mentality and want 90% discount and net-90 ( 90/90 syndrome ) unfortunately, most major corp buyers have their favorite VAR/VADs and we must wait till they get tired of their suppliers and find alternative vendors and solutions c ya alvin From guy at extragalactic.net Wed Aug 24 00:41:39 2005 From: guy at extragalactic.net (Guy B. Purcell) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 00:41:39 -0700 Subject: Musings on hardware prices - opps In-Reply-To: <430BEABE.2020007@halligan.org> References: <430BEABE.2020007@halligan.org> Message-ID: <57F1B974-DD0B-42AA-82AC-DCAEAF8AAA98@extragalactic.net> On Aug 23, 2005, at 20:34, Michael T. Halligan wrote: >> yup... seems to be par ... and i say one gets what one pays for ?? >> >> >> > Yes. Now the math here works out that > 1000 servers from Dell cost $1M > 1000 HP servers cost $2.M > 1000 IBM servers cost $2.8M > > If you buy those 1000 servers, using the 30% rule, that means you > only "needed" 769 servers, and > over-bought those 231 servers for redundancy, and extra performance > just in case. All that has me thinking (again) about the hidden costs of hardware on the cheap. Let's look again at those figures for the 1000 servers. If you're saying that Dell's stuff fails 30% more often than HW from HP, IBM, or SUN, then you really should be comparing 1000 servers from Dell with 700 servers from the "premium" players (where'd you get 70% of 1000 = 769?). So that'd be 1000 servers from Dell cost $1M 700 HP servers cost $1.4M 700 IBM servers cost $1.96M Still, the HP boxes cost 40% more than those from Dell, and IBM's are about twice as much as Dell's, but things aren't quite so heavily weighted as you made them seem, Michael. [...snip...] >>> As much as I despise >>> Dell's component choices and technical support, it's a financial >>> AND technical decision dell is making really hard. >> >> yup...if one is interested in pricing ... dell is hard to beat >> >> if the customer is intested in performace/reliability ... than >> dell is out of the loop in my book >> >> > Blanket statements are really hard to make on imperial evidence. My > rule of thumb is > to expect Dell gear to be down 30% more often than HP or IBM. > That's to build in room for > problems. In actual experience, I can look over uptime reports for > two customers in 2004. One > of them had 100 Dell servers. One of them had 45 HP servers. The > dell environment, overbuilt, > had 99.99% uptime. The HP environment, if I adjust the #s, had > about 99.95% uptime. Service > uptime during a 12 hour business day, both archived 5 9s. > > The difference? The Dell environment was more of a pain to install > initially, and had more server failures. Ah, now there's the rub: what do you do with those 300 extra (and now dead) Dell boxes that you had to buy due to the higher failure rate of Dell products? You get 'em fixed/replaced, of course--Dell's great at it with their service tag thingy! OK, but _someone_ still has to make all the phone calls (hey, they don't all fail at once), pack the returns, unpack the replacement parts, install 'em, perhaps rebuild entire boxes, and so forth. Ick! It doesn't stop there, either, because 30% of the replacement equipment also will fail, nullifying 100 of the 300 needing repair and costing even more in time/effort--and, of course, 30 of those 100 will break, and 10 of those 30, which may get you down to the failure rate of the HP gear (don't know--haven't ever been in a position to work with such numbers). The thing is that if, as is my current situation, your colo is 30 minutes away without traffic, you're talking about three hours at least per repair/replacement, factoring in phone, travel, part receipt, replacement, & return times. The average to-fix time could be significantly higher, depending on the particular HW involved & how it failed (eg. disks are easy if things are mirrored, but you reinstall everything if not). As you see, this can significantly increase the cost of going with Dell boxen (say we need to fix those 300 + 100 = 400 systems, at an average repair time of 4 hrs each, and sysadmin time costs $100 / hr--all somewhat mushy figures, but you have to pick _something_). As if all that wasn't hard enough to quantify, there's the morale of dealing with failing HW. You said, "hardware sucks," Michael, and that you preferred to essentially ignore the HW & concentrate on the infrastructure. I agree, mostly: from my point of view, HW is part of that infrastructure, and doing a job as well as possible to me means using HW that doesn't suck. I like to see well-designed HW as much as I like to see well-designed software or a well-designed architecture. When things suck, sysadmins move elsewhere; when they don't, we stay put. Training new sysadmins in an environment adds to the cost of purchasing crappy HW. It's not something that's easy to measure, but it exists nonetheless. -Guy From alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com Wed Aug 24 01:04:41 2005 From: alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com (Alvin Oga) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 01:04:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Musings on hardware prices - opps - longer In-Reply-To: <430BEABE.2020007@halligan.org> Message-ID: hi ya hummm... more babbles from me :-) On Tue, 23 Aug 2005, Michael T. Halligan wrote: > Dell has a brilliantly designed manufacturing technique yup.. build lots of it cheap, and sell cheap ... to flood the market with their own propiertory stuff ... folllowing the lead of ibm and hp and compaq ... > and rolling in his grave over their quality problems. and bad support too > Dell is something like 37% profitable overall. I've heard (but not > researched) that they are somewhere around 20% > profitable on average for every piece of hardware they sell. yup.. because they make their own systems - they make their own case - they make their own motherboard - they make their own bios - they make their own cables - they make their own cables - they haggle down the $$$ for cpu/mem/disks due to their shear volume and upfront commitments - watch out when they start to maek their own cpu, memory, disks > My prediction is that Dell is either going to have to change their > thoughts on quality, and stop their low-end price-wars, or sell > off their server manufacturing arm.. The next HP merger screw-up maybe? manufacturing is outsourced dell is a "marketing/sales" company .. with some proprietory toys like chassis, motherboard and "DELL" logo > Who is left? I haven't really researched this in quite a while, but I > know (or rather, think I know) that IM purchased Avad, Nimax, D&H, Tech > Pacific, > I might be mistaken, but I thought they also acquired Synnex, and GnR. i don't buy from any of them .. and obviously nobody else either lately ??? ingram used to be good 20+ years ago ... when taiwan/china wasn't in the distribution and computer business other local hw companies also use synnex for their contract manufacturing whom have also left them .. job shopping onto the next CM that will either give them a good price or better service or something else ?? > My experience has been entirely the opposite. - so they like you ... that's good .. but i do know where they get lots of their parts too ... i see their van and driver almost each and every time i go shoppping > Ingram barely returns your phone calls if > you're not doing $50k per month with them. that is whats gonna kill ingram, because now there's competitors to their 20+ year of old style marketing/sales mentality Until recently, I dealt with > MAlabs via AIM, > which was pretty convenient. On the last 100 purchases I've made through > MAlabs, and i bet if you were to show up in 1hr, they wont have it in stock what they and all PC stores does is to go and order or pickup the item at the distributor and tell you to show up "tommorrow" after the distribors delivered the items to the store you can get almost any time in 1hr now days ... as long as its still being made vs discontinued items like a p3 cpu > If there's a better option for small things like this, I'd love to know. depends on what you like to do .. and how much you're willing to pay, since they obviously is making a profit too on your sales but luckily, there's little margin on pc parts, so again, as oyu say, is better to buy parts from vendors you know will deliver to you or buy dell at discounts > Fun? Hardware has always been designed for functionality. Assembling > computers is just a nightmare. depends ... some folks like to cook .. some folks like to eat .. some folks like to cleanup .. > A real infrastructure requires a massive amount of documentation, > process development, and testing. that's whent eh "real fun" starts ... - how good are the specs and docs - how accurate are the labor time and hourly fees - how accurate are the production line estimates ... > I > could build 200 servers with decent specs for $300k. I'd rather spend > $450k, lay the responsibility of > warranty, parts replacement, etc, on the vendor, and focus on building > well-managed infrastructure. i'll take the $150K difference in hw costs ... > DL is Compaq/HP. I've never known anybody to complain about reliability > on the DL's. i've run across a few pesky compaqs ( to fix ) for the customers > > > >if the customer is intested in performace/reliability ... than dell is > >out of the loop in my book > > > Blanket statements are really hard to make on imperial evidence. it's called, who calls me to come fix their PCs/servers... guess what brand it is ??? > My rule > of thumb is > to expect Dell gear to be down 30% more often than HP or IBM. That's to 30% more downtime is like 10x too high for what i like to see/use hardware failures should be 3-5% per year ... and most all vendors are roughly the same with a few exceptions of brands and/or models or specific parts or "the specific gorrilla" > The difference? The Dell environment was more of a pain to install > initially, and had more server failures. :-) bingo ... > Dell is cheap. Hardware is cheap. If you build right, hardware is not > important. bingo !! > is just cheap commodity crap. try to convince google of the value of "commodity crap" or not .. there some of us that like cheap pc class cpu/memory/disk/mb .. and one does need to know how to fiddle with it to get it working right > We talked to a company a few months ago (Hi Jim) with several thousand > servers.. sounds like cadence... > Each server in itself is > important, running a unique simulation. If the simulation crashes, then > money is lost. In that situation, both > expensive vendor support, and very stable, expensive hardware is a > necessity. that is what i did for 15 years ... day or weeklong simulations of TB of data ( even 5-10 years ago ) reliability is important ... and dead/downtime is not acceptable under any condition other than scheduled downtime > Hardware is very, very cheap. yup... and ez to replace and provide for provisions to get around anything that is "dead" or broken or flaky > And, yeah, Unisys sucks. Dell uses them, IBM uses them. HP probably > uses them. That's really where i thought ibm used their own crew ... hp uses their own crew in certan countries > Dell falls apart. Their "professional services" and "enterprise support" > would be better staffed through ManPower Inc. exactly ...and she'd be more fun to talk with over coffee/pepsi while waitng for the ups truck to arrive with the 4hr delivery of the replacement part > Dell likes to release broken firmware, as you'd know if you've ever > called up Dell support only to be read a script of "did you upgrade > this firmware? hehehe .. you notice that too eh ... > Did you upgrade this firmware? I can't help you until you flash this > ". I think it's their hobby. %%%% %%%% that is precisely how they get to keep your 30% pre-paid support %%%% contract and NOT have to fix the problem %%%% > As a consultant, I have to put my customer's needs first, and foremost. always a good thing ... > The best option out there is the most labor intensive, CFEngine. you cannot get me to use cfengine ... though i know others that swear by it too what i notice is those that like to use it will not be writing another "cfengine" replacement for $10K cash if they could do it in a day .... its trivial to do the same thing differently and faster and better and more sanity checking > My experience might be a bit skewed. I've walked into far, far too many > contracts in > the bay area, with the opening words of "the last consultant".. Looking > at other people's > specs, questionable billing practices, and in general just sloppy work, > I find it odd that > businesses in the bay area hire consultants period. yup... always fun .. to walk in after other people messed up for whatever reasons .. > I won't even let money be mentioned until I really understand the > situation. yup... and that they have a budget for the wish list they just rambled off that needs to be done > is avoided as much as possible. My opinion is if that you can't fix-bid > the project in a way that you > profit comfortably, the price is agreed to be reasonable, and the scope > is quickly definable, then either > you shouldn't be bidding it, or the project needs full-time employees. exactly ... > The product you see is the same product that 100 different manufacturers where you buy parts makes all the difference in the world, in my world, failed parts is unacceptable ... period, unless its withing its MTBF c ya alvin From sigje at sigje.org Sat Aug 27 12:11:46 2005 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 12:11:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Sep 15, 2005: BayLISA General Monthly meeting, Security from the Trenches In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Date: Thursday, September 15, 2005 Where: Apple Campus, Building 4, upstairs meeting room (named Garage 1) http://www.baylisa.org/locations/current.shtml Free and Open to the General Public! 7:30 pm Introductions and announcements 7:45 pm Formal Presentation 9:45 pm After-meeting dinner/social outing (BJ's, next door) Anne Henmi from Juniper Networks, will be presenting "Security War Stories from the Trenches". ______________________________________________ baylisa mailing list: baylisa at baylisa.org rsvp for meeting: rsvp at baylisa.org baylisa board (request to sponsor or present): blw at baylisa.org From ahorn at deorth.org Tue Aug 30 09:46:50 2005 From: ahorn at deorth.org (Alan Horn) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:46:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: How much does power go for nowadays ? Message-ID: Folks, What do people expect to be a reasonable rate from colocation facilities for power circuits. e.g. How much for a 30A 110v, and how much for a 30A 240V single phase ? I'm getting various figures from different vendors and I just want to see what the market cost would be. I prefer to pay for what I'm getting (power), rather than have some extra amount tagged on so that they can run loss leaders on other parts of the operation. Cheers, Al From michael at halligan.org Tue Aug 30 10:19:56 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:19:56 -0700 Subject: How much does power go for nowadays ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4314953C.3090704@halligan.org> Alan Horn wrote: > > Folks, > > What do people expect to be a reasonable rate from colocation > facilities for power circuits. > > e.g. How much for a 30A 110v, and how much for a 30A 240V single phase ? > > I'm getting various figures from different vendors and I just want to > see what the market cost would be. I prefer to pay for what I'm > getting (power), rather than have some extra amount tagged on so that > they can run loss leaders on other parts of the operation. > > Cheers, > > Al > Alan, The datacenter I host at, which has comparatively expensive power, seems to be $16 per amp. From ulf at Alameda.net Tue Aug 30 11:36:34 2005 From: ulf at Alameda.net (Ulf Zimmermann) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:36:34 -0700 Subject: How much does power go for nowadays ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050830183634.GF10572@evil.alameda.net> On Tue, Aug 30, 2005 at 09:46:50AM -0700, Alan Horn wrote: > > Folks, > > What do people expect to be a reasonable rate from colocation facilities > for power circuits. > > e.g. How much for a 30A 110v, and how much for a 30A 240V single phase ? > > I'm getting various figures from different vendors and I just want to see > what the market cost would be. I prefer to pay for what I'm getting > (power), rather than have some extra amount tagged on so that they can run > loss leaders on other parts of the operation. > > Cheers, > > Al Several of the datacenters I spoke to before renewing with XO, told me their power prices were based on what they pay. I went and found somewhere burried in PG&E website the tarifs and verified XO and one other datacenter. XO is selling us the power at a loss if they are paying that PG&E tarif, the other datacenter (I doubled the amount of power we would draw to cover the power needed for cooling), it was pretty much that PG&E tarif. -- Regards, Ulf. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ulf Zimmermann, 1525 Pacific Ave., Alameda, CA-94501, #: 510-865-0204 You can find my resume at: http://seven.Alameda.net/~ulf/resume.html From pozar at lns.com Tue Aug 30 11:39:35 2005 From: pozar at lns.com (Tim Pozar) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:39:35 -0700 Subject: How much does power go for nowadays ? In-Reply-To: <4314953C.3090704@halligan.org> References: <4314953C.3090704@halligan.org> Message-ID: <4314A7E7.3090403@lns.com> Michael T. Halligan wrote: > Alan Horn wrote: >> Folks, >> >> What do people expect to be a reasonable rate from colocation >> facilities for power circuits. >> >> e.g. How much for a 30A 110v, and how much for a 30A 240V single phase ? >> >> I'm getting various figures from different vendors and I just want to >> see what the market cost would be. I prefer to pay for what I'm >> getting (power), rather than have some extra amount tagged on so that >> they can run loss leaders on other parts of the operation. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Al >> > Alan, > > The datacenter I host at, which has comparatively expensive power, seems > to be $16 per amp. It depends on how it is quoted. Is that with air conditioning costs? - Air conditioning can take up to twice the amount of power you use to suck out the heat on your load. Is that "breakable" or "usable" amps? - A typical drop into a cab will be one or more 20 amp circuits. For a 20 amp breaker, you can only use 2/3's of its rating or 16 amps. Many places will say you have a 20 amp circuit and give you a quote for "$16 per amp" and multiply this against the full 20 amp number. In this case $320 per 20 amp circuit. If they are figuring your use of 16 amps then the price will be $256. Also, most colos will assume you are pulling the full load when billing. A few Colos will have smart PDUs that can measure what you are using. You can try to arrange a deal where you only pay for what you are using. If you are leasing a bunch-o-racks, ask the colo to put a sub-tenet meter in for you that monitors your racks. This should be easy for the colo if you take up enough racks to fill your own breaker panel. BTW... As another data point, we (UnitedLayer) charges about $250 for a 20 amp drop. Tim From michael at halligan.org Tue Aug 30 11:50:32 2005 From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 11:50:32 -0700 Subject: How much does power go for nowadays ? In-Reply-To: <4314A7E7.3090403@lns.com> References: <4314953C.3090704@halligan.org> <4314A7E7.3090403@lns.com> Message-ID: <4314AA78.2060305@halligan.org> > > It depends on how it is quoted. > > Is that with air conditioning costs? - Air conditioning can take up > to twice the amount of power you use to suck out the heat on your load. > > Is that "breakable" or "usable" amps? - A typical drop into a cab > will be one or more 20 amp circuits. For a 20 amp breaker, you can > only use 2/3's of its rating or 16 amps. Many places will say you > have a 20 amp circuit and give you a quote for "$16 per amp" and > multiply this against the full 20 amp number. In this case $320 per > 20 amp circuit. If they are figuring your use of 16 amps then the > price will be $256. Also, most colos will assume you are pulling the > full load when billing. A few Colos will have smart PDUs that can > measure what you are using. You can try to arrange a deal where you > only pay for what you are using. > > If you are leasing a bunch-o-racks, ask the colo to put a sub-tenet > meter in for you that monitors your racks. This should be easy for > the colo if you take up enough racks to fill your own breaker panel. > > BTW... As another data point, we (UnitedLayer) charges about $250 for > a 20 amp drop. As an interesting comparison, 110v @ 365main runs about $16 per amp, and it is billed actual usage (They refuse to do fixed-price on power since their costs go up and down). It's pretty consistent. A customer of mine uses about 250 amps and gets just under a $4k per month power bill. 365 has one heck of a power setup, I'm actually surprised at how cheap their power is. Last month I used 30 amps of power, and I believe my last power bill was about $480. In the winter it seems to go down a bit. AFAIK, datacenters in California aren't allowed to mark-up power due to PUC regulation , so the price of power should be a good indication of the quality of your datacenter, or at least of their power infrastructure. Michael T. Halligan Chief Technology Officer ------------------- BitPusher, LLC http://www.bitpusher.com/ 1.888.9PUSHER 415.724.7998 (Mobile) 415.520.0876 (Fax) From jxh at jxh.com Tue Aug 30 11:57:27 2005 From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 13:57:27 -0500 Subject: How much does power go for nowadays ? In-Reply-To: <20050830183634.GF10572@evil.alameda.net> References: <20050830183634.GF10572@evil.alameda.net> Message-ID: <9F07F5C3BF4DF12AEB2F4799@[10.9.18.3]> > selling us the power at a loss if they are paying that PG&E tarif, the other > datacenter (I doubled the amount of power we would draw to cover the power > needed for cooling), it was pretty much that PG&E tarif. Surely a co-lo adds value in the form of a UPS, gen-set, etc., even if these things didn't consume any more power on their own. (OK, an automatic transfer switch doesn't dissipate a lot of power, but a UPS sure does.) I would expect to pay a fair bit more than the PG&E kilowatt-hour charge. Are co-lo's doing any sort of voluntary load-shedding, or time-sensitive billing, I wonder, to reduce their power cost? (Not that they really have much room to maneuver.) From pozar at lns.com Tue Aug 30 12:13:26 2005 From: pozar at lns.com (Tim Pozar) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:13:26 -0700 Subject: How much does power go for nowadays ? In-Reply-To: <9F07F5C3BF4DF12AEB2F4799@[10.9.18.3]> References: <20050830183634.GF10572@evil.alameda.net> <9F07F5C3BF4DF12AEB2F4799@[10.9.18.3]> Message-ID: <4314AFD6.1010809@lns.com> Jim Hickstein wrote: >>selling us the power at a loss if they are paying that PG&E tarif, the other >>datacenter (I doubled the amount of power we would draw to cover the power >>needed for cooling), it was pretty much that PG&E tarif. > > > Surely a co-lo adds value in the form of a UPS, gen-set, etc., even if these > things didn't consume any more power on their own. (OK, an automatic > transfer switch doesn't dissipate a lot of power, but a UPS sure does.) I > would expect to pay a fair bit more than the PG&E kilowatt-hour charge. > > Are co-lo's doing any sort of voluntary load-shedding, or time-sensitive > billing, I wonder, to reduce their power cost? (Not that they really have > much room to maneuver.) There is also the fact that every time you go through a transformer, UPS, battery set, etc. there is some effeciceny and loss that you have to build into the price. What PG&E charges is what goes into the building. What you get at your server may mean that another 25% or more was wasted as heat before it even got to you. Tim From pozar at lns.com Tue Aug 30 12:19:00 2005 From: pozar at lns.com (Tim Pozar) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:19:00 -0700 Subject: How much does power go for nowadays ? In-Reply-To: <9F07F5C3BF4DF12AEB2F4799@[10.9.18.3]> References: <20050830183634.GF10572@evil.alameda.net> <9F07F5C3BF4DF12AEB2F4799@[10.9.18.3]> Message-ID: <4314B124.9020802@lns.com> Jim Hickstein wrote: > Are co-lo's doing any sort of voluntary load-shedding, or time-sensitive > billing, I wonder, to reduce their power cost? (Not that they really have > much room to maneuver.) As they are major consumers they will typically be in the E20 or E19 rates. At 200Paul we are at E19 which sets us at $0.09 per kw hour. Tim From pf-baylissa1 at freret.org Tue Aug 30 12:53:39 2005 From: pf-baylissa1 at freret.org (Payne Freret) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:53:39 -0700 Subject: Efficiency Message-ID: 12:29 pm Tue 30 Aug 2005 Jim Hickstein wrote: > Surely a co-lo adds value in the form of a UPS, gen-set, etc., > even if these things didn't consume any more power on their own. > (OK, an automatic transfer switch doesn't dissipate a lot of > power, but a UPS sure does.) I would expect to pay a fair bit > more than the PG&E kilowatt-hour charge. and Jim Hickstein wrote > There is also the fact that every time you go through a > transformer, UPS, battery set, etc. there is some > effeciceny and loss that you have to build into the price. > What PG&E charges is what goes into the building. What > you get at your server may mean that another 25% or more > was wasted as heat before it even got to you. My experience is different. Well designed transformers are 95-98% efficient, and battery sets and UPS equipment behind transfer switches consume miniscule energy once the batteries are fully charged. Even the process of charging the batteries takes little energy. To recharge a fully discharged 100 ampere-hour automobile lead-acid batttery, for example, takes less than a quarter's worth of electricity. PF From jxh at jxh.com Tue Aug 30 14:25:58 2005 From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 16:25:58 -0500 Subject: Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <07AAD5C215AEBB3EB5A1F9D2@[10.9.18.3]> > My experience is different. Well designed transformers are 95-98% > efficient, and battery sets and UPS equipment behind transfer > switches consume miniscule energy once the batteries are fully > charged. My little APC units only kick in sometimes, yes. But true online UPSes rectify AC to DC and invert DC to AC at all times. (Thinking back to some Liebert sales literature I once saw.) That has to cost something. But my reasoning about added value seems to have been sucked into an alternate economic universe as soon as someone said "tariff". :-) As a student of history, particularly as regards telecom law, I know how different the universe can be when you start dealing with a regulated monopoly. Everything you learned about economics is out the window.