Ben Koenig(techkoe...@gmail.com)@Fri, Sep 21, 2018 at 06:17:30PM -0700: > Nevermind. I just realized that math isn't all that hard. > > I got get myself a cabinet over here: > https://www.portlandcolocation.com/colocation/secure-cabinets/ > (Totally reasonable math snipped) > Am I missing anything for this 500 user self-hosted email/collab/fileshare > server? Is $6k scary enough to send me running back in Google's open arms? > --Ben
Speaking as a self-hosting enthusiast, that looks totally reasonable, except for one problem: what happens when the machine blows up? Something like losing a RAID card takes you down until you get a replacement (hopefully a day or two, given the power of the internet), losing a motherboard maybe a bit longer, but what if (say) the power supply blows up in just the right way and fries the drives? Suddenly you have to buy hardware, reconfigure, and set up again, all while your mail (and that of your 500 friends) is not flowing. Or, as happened to me once, what happens if the datacenter decides you're not worth it anymore at the end of your contract? You've got a month or two to find a new hosting space, build up a second machine (or pair, since you have a hard backup as above), and pivot everyone over to it. You could just move the machine and swap IPs, finding out in the process which big mailers have long DNS TTLs, and you'll be ok but not great. Hope you don't jar the drives too much in the process... Or, even better, you get DOSed because of a user and the hosting company decides you're not worth it _now_ and null routes you. No matter what you do, I'd put real thought into your DR plan and how you'll communicate status to your users. For me it's a matter of running it all in some cloud provider (meaning the hardware blowing up is less my problem) and not having commercial users, but that's probably not the easiest plan for you :) Yes, in case you're wondering, I've made some poor hosting choices over the years. -- Bill Weiss _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list PLUG@pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
