Re: Repository services and budget

[Hank Nussbacher <hank@ibm.net.il>]

On Fri, 3 Jan 1997, Dave Crocker wrote:

> >And its not a $200,000 contract.  You'll burn that just keeping the
> >appropriate network connectivity going for something of this importance.
> 
> 	Actually, this is probably worth discussing in some detail, as
> "pre-work" for CORE:  What is a legitimate basis for a repository
> operations sub-contract?  What are the services that should be contracted
> for and how much should it cost?
> 
> 	I assume the services are 2-3 instances of a distributed db server,
> with support sufficient to ensure high reliabilityand recovery from
> problems.  Probably should include some template development for db access
> and probably assorted other components of client (registrar) configuration
> support.  What else?
> 
> 	If the above is anywhere in the ballpark, here are some guesses
> about costs, with capital costs figured as straight expenses (not good
> bookeeping, but life somehow makes these amounts of capital expenses recur):

As an ISP that grew from 1 server to about 9 within a year I would suggest
adding the following: a test system (new OS versions, new DB versions,
etc.), a backup system (not simply tar to DAT), but something like ADSM
for networkign b/u's, 256Mb ot 512MB of memory for DB systems (most
software runs better with more memory and the DB systems are all memory
hogs), RAID or SSI disks so as to improve reliablity on the DB servers.
Basically $10K per server is too low in my opinion.  Look at $30K.
Then a test system at $30K and a backup system at $30K and your servers
have gone up from $30K to $150K.

> 
> 
>   3    PC Servers, heavily loaded @ $10K/machine	     US$ 30,000
> 
> 	 Server software					 30,000
> 
>   3    Co-located Internet attachments @ 12K/yr/machine	 36,000
> 
> 	 Supplies (tape, paper, etc.)				 10,000
> 
>   2	 Staff, 2 full-time equivalent				300,000
> 
>        Travel							 30,000
> 
>   2	 Workstations @ $8K/machine w/software			 16,000
> 
> 	 Office space						 20,000
> 
> 	 Telephone, utilities, etc.				 25,000
> 
> 						    TOTAL:  US$ 497,000

Is a secretary necessary?  There will be much admin work that needs to be
done so I would assume so.

> 
> 
> 	This can possibly be cut in half.
> 
> 	I doubt that a fulltime staff of two is really necessary.  I
> suspect that the co-location fees can be lower, possibly also the office
> and utilities, though i'd expect the phone bill to be pretty high.  Travel
> will either be much higher or much lower...  On the other hand, I left out
> the DNS servers, which must run on separate machines and will nodoubt be
> quite active.  Don't know whether they CAN be a Wesson-esque 3 linux boxes,
> but maybe.
> 
> 	Anyhow, thought it might be useful to try for some concrete numbers.
> 
> d/
> 
> ps.  The purpose of the above is not to assert that these numbers are
> "right" and, therefore, it won't help for someone to say they are "wrong".
> The purpose of the above is to initiate a discussion about a reasonable and
> acceptable set of services from the repository and to define the budget it
> ought to need to accomplish it.  Hence, helpful responses will tend to be
> of the form "item x needs to be (choose one) higher/lower and should
> actually be US$nnn", as well as "add an item for X at US$nnn".
> 
> 
> (read the last line, please)
> ----------------------------
> Dave Crocker, Director                                       +1 408 246 8253
> Internet Mail Consortium                                 (f) +1 408 249 6205
> 127 Segr&yod; Place                                             dcrocker@imc.org
> Santa Cruz, CA  95060 USA                               http://www.imc.org
> 
> Also:  IAHC member, expressing strictly (or loosely) personal opinions
> 
> 

Hank Nussbacher
IAHC member
[the views expressed above belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the other IAHC members]