[Re: who offers cheap (personal) 1U colo?]

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Stephen J. Wilcox wrote:

if the market for this is nanog and you're just looking for smtp/shell surely we
can manage this between ourselves without charge (ask your nanog buddy for a
shell as a favour).. I know I can and will do this

Well, I do have motives beyond outbound smtp.

I actually looked at some of the mail only services, but I really want
someplace that will do IMAP and authenticated SMTP. I want to be able
to configure how I filter spam, which I don't want to do at the MUA
level because I'll need to access mail various ways from various locations.

Besides mail, I want to be able to create and control firewall rules on
the box. I also want to be able to setup Apache exactly like I want it,
etc. And sometimes its nice to have shell access on a machine in a
different location for troubleshooting purposes.

However, I do like the idea of setting up a community of like minded
individuals who would be willing to do secondary MX and/or DNS for each
other, and perhaps provide basic shell accounts... On the other hand,
I'm a little leary of giving someone I don't know access to one of my boxes.

I'm curious how a virtual colocation or dedicated server co-op could
work, with values statements on how servers must be run (secure, no
SPAM), etc. Would there be member fees? Would members have to
democratically vote to let new members in after some kind of vetting
process? Would anyone even be interested in such an idea?

It would also be interesting to see what kind of monitoring tools could
be developed with a diverse set of servers in different parts of the
world... could we set up a co-op version of keynote monitoring, where we
helped monitor each other?

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I have been aching for this now for about six years. In every
professional setting I've ever been in, a need for this kind of thing
arises and my advice to my employer/client is always the same: pay the
$x per month for a colo server for your network/system engineers to use
as an outpost for emergencies, external analysis, and monitoring.

Exactly! While route servers are great, sometimes I need the flexablity of an outside shell account to do troubleshooting. I know a few other people at work who also keep outside shell accounts somewhere for this very purpose.

It seems like approaching one of the larger colo providers and
coordinating some sort of "NANOG Discount" might be one quick route.

I'm of two minds on this. Obviously, if a group of us go to provider X and say we want Z amount of rack space, we can probably get a good deal. On the other hand, I'm also interested in a community of like minded folks with servers located in diverse environments who would trade access with one another. If we're all in one rack in one datacenter, there is more of a chance we'll all go down together. If we have a diverse footprint, that is much less likely to happen.

The discount could be restricted to those who are appropriately vetted.
This program would be of value to the colo provider because of the
potential for discount recipients to direct business their way.

How would this vetting process work? I'm willing to give other nanog folks shell accounts on my machine in return for same, but I really don't want to hand out accounts to packet kiddies.

Suffice it to say, I'm interested, both to address current work-day
issues and for personal use.

I'm also interested. I do currently have a dedicated FreeBSD server in Australia for personal use. Those of us who are running our own personal mail & DNS servers could get together to back each other up.

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Restrict it to people you've met or spoken to enough to think you know them..

Steve

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Hello Janet/List -

First, allow me to introduce myself, my name is Jonathan M. Slivko and I work for InvisibleHand Networks, Inc. (http://www.invisiblehand.net). Currently, we offer colocation and bandwidth services in the New York/New Jersey market (Telehouse and Equinix to be precise). The reason for this post is to put forth a suggestion:

InvisibleHand Networks, Inc. allows you to buy bandwidth "on demand" as needed without having to commit to any bandwidth level, 95th percentile or long term contract. We can colocate personal 1U servers at either facility for a set price per server and then you can purchase bandwidth on our "spot" market. All of our services are on month-to-month contracts and we can offer you some kind of discount if you buy in bulk. However, without having a valid consensus as to how many people would be interested in such a deal, I cannot/will not offer pricing on this list (contact me offlist if interested).

I look forward to talking to you soon.

Janet Sullivan wrote:

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<SNIP INTRO & SALES BLURB>

I look forward to talking to you soon.

Jonathan M. Slivko jslivko@invisiblehand.net
Sales/Network Operations Invisible Hand Networks, Inc.

I am currently doing a little of both sales/network admin at my company
which competes directly with Jonathan's in the NYC market. I have some ?s
about (network admins + sales people) for nanog folk:

- As much as I sympathize with JS's desire to get his company name
and information out, is this kind of E-mail encouraged/discouraged on
NANOG? (AUP: "Blatant product marketing is unacceptable." Does this fit?)

- Are more of the current network/system admins being asked to leverage
otherwise non-business relationships (like NANOG) to increase sales?

My initial reaction to his E-mail was sympathy for the effort, but I'm
curious if other netadmins are being handed a sales hat. I don't
mean the people who switched to the sales team totally.

- Do you still maintain your network equipment and now have the
responsibility to bring in new business for your company? (This assumes
the company is/was large enough to not need you to do both.)

- Where do we draw the line on NANOG discussions about steering a
conversation that hits close enough to your business to allow this?

I know from some of my previous posts there are a lot of marketing/sales
types subscribed to NANOG that can/will/ and do jump at an opportunity to
sell their product. I also know that sometimes we ask for that ourselves
like Paul's question about 1U that he is summarizing off list so there is
a place for these people to participate.

Will there soon be a place for North American Sales And Network Operators
Group NASA-NOG mailing list more focused on putting the techs in touch
with the sales guys?

Would NANOG as a group agree (I know...you can laugh now.) that requests
made here for suggestions are more often looking for technical people that
have purchased from a company than a slightly biased sales pitch from the
company you work for?

I'm not an anti-capitalist, but I do like to attempt to keep the SNR down
and if companies force sales hats to the networking staff this will become
much more prevalent. Jonathan this isn't intended to offend you either, so
I hope you don't take it that way.

SpamAssassin in place and filters setup so I can handle the replies for
anyone who wants to respond off the list.

Gerald Coon
Network Administrator
(Who also wears a sales hat at times for the same company)
Internet Channel

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** Reply to message from Gerald <gcoon@inch.com> on Wed, 17 Mar 2004
14:22:25 -0500 (EST)