On 11/11/2010 7:34 AM, Sean Dague wrote:
On 11/10/2010 10:05 PM, Eric Myers wrote:
On Wed, 10 Nov 2010, Derek J. Balling wrote:
With linode virtual-servers running $20.00/mo, I no longer have any
clue why people insist on running servers on the ends of their home
cable/DSL/FiOS/etc. links. >
One reason for considering Fios is to cut costs, not just the better
bandwidth. So adding the expense of hosting elsewhere or so-called
business class service makes Fios less attractive.
One other thing to think about on the cost equation is power
consumption. Part of getting a linode for me was reducing the number
of always on things in the house. As a yard stick, 100 W of always on
ends up being about ~ $10 / month to our friends at central hudson.
My guess is an always on but idle system is consuming at least that,
where is an always on and heavily used system is at least double
(depending on the aux devices being powered). I haven't kill-o-watted
it to test however, so others that have might have some useful data.
I know Porkchop did a lot of analysis at one point, maybe he'll poke
his head up.
-Sean
Yes, the additional juice to run your system is often not considered.
You may incur additional costs beyond that. If, say, your extra electric
bill comes to $10 a month, most of that energy is going to become heat
in your home. During the winter, your IT equipment may become a welcome
space heater, but if you're displacing cheaper oil or gas heat (you
don't have electric heat), it becomes a (smaller) extra cost. That may
not be so bad if you would be turning down the thermostat house-wide and
needing an electric space heater in your work area any way, but do
consider the cost. In the summer, if you run A/C in your home, your IT
equipment is an extra burden. It can all add up to a pretty hefty bill,
which may tilt the equation in favor of external hosting. Don't simply
assume that because your cable or FiOS bill is lower than a hosting
service bill that it's a good deal.
Your power reliability is another matter. I have frequent outages where
I live, out in the sticks. Fortunately, most are no more than 5 seconds
or so, but if I were running a server, particularly one I wanted
available to the outside world, it would take a hefty UPS (and
conditioner) to keep the equipment happy. As these units run at well
less than 100% efficiency, that's more tribute to pay to Central Hudson.
I just have a small battery UPS/surge protector on my PC, that runs just
long enough for me to wrap up my work and do a clean shutdown. Speaking
of which, does your cable and/or FiOS stay up when the power is down?
DSL might have central battery backup, but cable amplifiers appear to
feed off the local grid. No point is keeping the equipment running if it
can't talk to the outside world.
Finally, do watch the Terms of Service. If you're running a light server
load, they may not even notice, but to run a business website from home
would arouse your ISP's suspicion. They have prohibitions on servers
connecting at residential rates for a good reason -- you're sucking up
the bandwidth without paying for it. With all the audio and movie
streaming (both legit and pirate) going on (not to mention nightly Linux
kernel downloads for some!), I wouldn't be surprised if soon, every ISP
starts charging for actual bandwidth used. It would be the only fair
thing to do. In such a case, they may not care if someone hooks up a Web
server, so long as the load isn't excessive.
_______________________________________________
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org
http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug
Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium
Dec 1 - IBM's Open Client Deployment
Jan 5 - Building a Comunity Site with Drupal
Feb 2 - Zimbra
