WHEN will PPRUNE get a decent server?

[drauk]

I am not completely independent, because I am in discussions with Rob about helping out with the hosting, but anyway...

A £2K server might have the "headline" spec, but one with large processor caches, SCSI disks, a hardware raid controller, dual power suppliers, dual network cards etc would likely cost double that.

Co-location is much cheaper than having someone else manage the server, but at many places you get some rack space, power and an Internet connection. As well as configuring the hardware, the operating system, the database and the application you have to deal with firewalling, backups, possibly DoS attacks etc. So "raw" co-location isn't for the faint hearted. Then you might want to consider having a standby machine available, not to mention some spare parts. None of this matters much if you don't care if your server is down for a few days if something goes wrong. Cabinet space (with generator and battery backed power, plus air-conditioning) is fairly cheap these days and a couple of servers, a network switch, a firewall, some kind of backup device and a spare server isn't going to cost much. A 1/4 cabinet is fine if physical security isn't a big concern - perhaps a couple of hundred pounds a month.

Bandwidth in small quantities (a single T1 is small in these terms) at a top-flight (no pun intended) UK co-location facility could cost anything between 150 and 500 per Mbs per month. Resellers would likely charge at the upper end of this scale.

Add the cost of the expertise to keep all this stuff up and running, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (i.e. at least two people who know what they're doing) with realtime monitoring, regular backups, etc.

We charge about £2-3,000 per month for hosting this type of application. We have commercial clients that do just that. How many clients do we have that are companies that run free services? None.