RE: [cobalt-users] [WANTED] RaQ2 Consulting

[Rodolfo Paiz <rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> If you don't have a much time or money, I would highly recommend
> reconsidering your business plan.  Do you have the skills and 
> the funding necessary to run a successful hosting company?  There
> is very little room (IMHO) for low-end providers, as there can
> only be one least cost provider--and usually that is someone with
> lots of VC capital to burn.
> 
> You may still be able to make a go at it, but I would make 
> very sure that it fits in with your core business.

Actually, once you leave the USA, the market changes somewhat. In
Central and South America, for example, bandwidth tends to get
rather expensive (read, up to $25,000 per month for a satellite E1
or $20,000 per month for a T1). So, many times international
bandwidth is somewhat restricted since providers buy only as much
as they need. The predominant reliance on satellite links also
introduces 500-600 ms worth of latency which makes quick web
downloads rather more difficult for the average customer.

For the Central American markets, I estimate that we would only
face four or five significant competitors in hosting, and by
"significant" I mean with 100-200 customers each.

I've also redefined "low-end" to mean two new RaQ 3i with 128 MB
of RAM. Of course, I do have redundant links to the Internet and
a 2 KVa UPS... so although I'm definitely low-end and small, I
should be able to offer at least a 99% uptime guarantee while
reducing costs since the site and most of the browsers are local
and thus don't incur satellite costs.

> Well, it will actually offer very little redundancy in and of 
> itself.  It would require a minimum of effort to have them back
> each other up for email, dns, but load balancing for web is a bit
> trickier.  Do you have plan for how you are going to do this?

No, but I'm going to have to make one, I know. I'm considering
StaQware from Cobalt (you'll notice a post to the list asking for
opinions on it), and I'll need to learn a lot before we go live.

Any suggestions in this area, Kris?
 
> I don't want to get you down at all, but running a hosting 
> company is not easy or cheap--to do it correctly.  I just
> want to warn you ahead of time of the costs, time, knowledge
> that are involved.

Thanks; the intent was clear. However, I have bandwidth, rack,
and UPS capacity already. I need to buy two RaQ's at least to
get started, and I have two friends who run hosting companies
in Mexico who are willing to help me get off the ground and 
don't mind me competing. They will admin the boxes for $6 per
month per site, which is fine by me. Everything else I get to
keep. I will happily reinvest all profits to improvement and
growth; then, if I can manage to put 100 sites on each RaQ and
get each box to generate $2,500 per month, I'll revise the
operating model for the business. If it's a bad idea, I'll
have to sell the RaQ's, and give the customers to my friends.

As always, ideas, suggestions, and more constructive criticism
are welcome.

------
Rodolfo J. Paiz
rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>