> With this new setup, I'd like to give them access to the rack... he.net > will manage access for me, so they can go down and screw with it > without waking me up.
Ahh, I understand what you're looking to do now - Yeah, you're pretty well screwed(tm) for your business plan. As you're probably aware/finding out, the electrical industry gear is designed for a minimum of 1...@120v for power distribution - for "cheap" gear - if your pocketbook can handle it, they'll do custom stuff. :-) The silver lining: There are electrical boxes that you can get which hold a single circuit breaker and an outlet socket - but be prepared that they can cost hundreds of dollars each (as pretty well anything in the electrical business that's slightly uncommon), then you've got cabling, breakers, plugs, receptacles, the initial breakout from a cdu (where's that installed - someone's 1/4 rack?) etc. Ask your local electricians about building a custom length extension cord with a breaker in the receptacle - since that's what you want to do really. BTW: Are you getting the rack pre-installed in 1/4s? Because you generally can't get conversion kits - since split racks are custom with isolated cable access to each part. So this could be all a moot idea since you're now offering unsecured/shared access, and people will use someone else's plug. Also you might find that the main colo provider has issues with you doing your own custom electrical/network installation between rack spaces. 95% of colo 1/4 racks do not have intra-rack distribution, so you need to go external - and then you might then be forced to use things like armored/waterproof electrical cabling if you're allowed at all. > this is something I'd not thought of, thanks. I guess maybe I could > structure it as a setup fee with a 'last month free' deal? > or something. I guess I'd have to talk to someone about that. It more of a case of how do you deal with unused account holdings and refunds. The rules got changed recently because of people complaining about expiring gift cards for your local store (ie: holding payment for undetermined services/products not yet rendered) - so now they can't expire, and funds need to be held in some kind of trust. (NB: I'm canadian, we changed our rules to match/be close to your rules, hence the "check local government" comment initially.) > First: I can get bandwidth on plans where I have a 100Mbps commit on > a 1000Mbps connection. I can overrun my commit with no more > consiquence than paying more money. You can get a big (eg 60amp/208v/3phase) circuit and only pay for usage with a minimum commit (watts) in some places, so it becomes almost exactly like a burstable network pipe. > second: if the pipe is overran momentairly, the consiquence is that > some packets are dropped. If the power is overran momentairly, > all servers on the circut fail. This isn't the 'cloud' - people > expect their co-located servers to stay up. Auto resetting breakers and slap a UPS on the 3.5a plug! :-) You burst, circuit blows, UPS gives you an alarm and hopefully lasts until the circuit resets and you unplug your overage item. (^- This is bad advice btw) > Yeah. 208v would actually be fine, if I could find it cheap. but > the opportunity I see now is a reasonable (not awesome but reasonable) > cost per watt at he.net, which gets me lots of rackspace (which is nice > to have, even though it's not really essential) and he.net has pretty > smooth remote hands and access control policies, if I can set it up such > that people can be trusted to deal withstuff. 208v is horrid for "cheap colo" - people commonly bring 120v only devices to be installed since they don't know the difference, and then when faced with a C14 receptacle, you need to solve the problem of different plugs and power. DCs have generally smartened up and now bill based on watts, and can give it via whatever voltage you want/need. They have re-discovered why the electrical company bills in kWh and not amperage. :-) The days of amperage based billing (regardless of voltage) is long gone - except for the lucky SOBs that have old power circuits under those old contracts. > I've got a friend who conned some local ISP into hosting his 10 CPU > sun enterprise for $65/month. This is how the cheap colo works - you're not on an independent power circuit, it's common access (eg: server on a physical shelf somewhere, not locked in a rack), and you cross your fingers that the machine next to you doesn't blow up and destroy your box as well. And since it's in the office, the provider can easily get to the machine if remote hands are needed since it's "down the hall". Meanwhile they hope that 3am work isn't required so someone doesn't have to come into the office after hours (not that they pay overtime, but that's a different discussion or rant). Finally once the colo space is full, you start kicking out the boxes that don't make enough money. Cheers, Ross. -- _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list Tech@lopsa.org http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
