Re: [cobalt-users] telnet access to users?

[Kris Dahl <kris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

on 1/20/00 10:43 PM, cfb@xxxxxxxxxxx at cfb@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Even in these post gold rush years, everyone thinks they've got the
> great American next best killer-app since sliced bread.  More often
> than not, they discover otherwise and occasionally they look for a
> scapegoat.  Even so, a lot of good ideas start out on the cheap (hosted
> on a RaQ with 100s of others, say) and I can point to numerous
> situations where business plans, floated by other people's noses
> without the benefit of a signed NDA, end up spawning off 2 or more
> copycats (sometimes on the same server... how odd...).
> 
> Can you say litigation?  If you can't, I guarantee you that your
> customer's lawyers can.  It's all meaningless without patents,
> copyrights, signed agreements and other legal instruments of torture,
> but it can be a bit hassle for the provider to get caught up
> in the legal system's technology illiterate vortex of confusion.

I agree that IP rights are a big issue on shared servers.  I am of the
opinion that anything that you don't want world readable, shouldn't be world
readable.  A decent analogy would be don't bring your internal prototypes to
the tradeshow if you don't want people looking at it.

>> Its just doesn't make sense to share servers anymore (IMHO).  I'm
>> kinda excited about the Cursoe chips--think instead of having a
>> virtual host, you have a real web server that is no larger than a
>> 3.5" hard drive.  Cheap too.
> 
> In my neck of the woods, it cost $400 per month to get 128kbps of 24/7
> connectivity with a static IP/subnet... and there are NO other options
> except co-location/web hosting.  Rack spaces goes for about $5000/month
> for 380mm of 10bT internet connected bandwidth.  1U shared is not only
> attractive, it's required.

Heh.  And I thought Golfing in Japan was expensive.  However, when I hear
the whole 'in my neck of the woods' issue regarding the Internet, I start to
wonder.  It seems blatantly obvious to me at least, that the 'geography' of
the internet is nothing more than a route.  Your main bandwidth
provider--kddnet(for example), has private peering arrangements with (at
least) AlterNet, SprintNet, and Savvis.  Those are only three of the 10 or
so major backbones in the US that I checked, and they had peering with each.
So your latency from the back and forth isn't too bad.  You don't have to
host your machines in Japan, I guess is what I am saying.

I would strongly recommend considering co-locating your servers in the
states, where bandwidth is cheap (relatively).  I would host with InterNAP,
if that is the costs you're talking about--you could get a 10Mb dedicated
connection to all of the major backbones in the states--with advanced BGP
routing, etc., that would provide you with the best possible route.  2 hops
to your user's network is a pretty sweet deal.  Its not cheap, but I sound
like a better deal that what you are talking about.

> Of course, we all know that you can fit 4 netwinders in the space of a
> singe 1U RaQ with exactly the same functionality; however, lower power,
> always on isn't going to mean a thing until flat-rate wireless happens
> with over 50% coverage.  In Japan, this is already happening; it's
> called iMode... but that's probably more than you wanted to know.

I like the idea of solid state technologies and long-term power protection.
Theoretically you could have servers that absolutely never crash, and remain
up even if the power is out for a week.  That is cool.  I am interested in
these 'Netwinders'--never heard of them.  Do you have a link?

Took a looksie at that FreeVSD proggy.  Looks really interesting--I might
try it out.

Thanks!
-k