[9327] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Cost vs benefit of internet services
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen Williams)
Wed Dec 29 14:39:58 1993
From: sdw@meaddata.com (Stephen Williams)
To: emv@garnet.msen.com (Edward Vielmetti)
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1993 14:39:49 -0500 (EST)
Cc: com-priv@uu.psi.com
In-Reply-To: <m0pEXG3-000EkTC@garnet.msen.com> from "Edward Vielmetti" at Dec 28, 93 00:46:00 am
>
> some small notes
>
> TCP/IP service belongs in dedicated equipment (smart terminal
> servers), not at the host. Good servers that do slip and ppp
> run about $75-$100 per port plus the cost of course of your modems.
Yep, although I'm starting with kernel based until I need a terminal server.
> The $2000 systems have ISA bus (yuck) and indifferent I/O. If you
> make it instead a $8000 system with a reasonable bus and good I/O
> controllers and BSDI you can easily support 30 users, maybe 40.
> Just make sure you keep adding memory so that you don't start to
> swap.
I haven't tried 30+ users yet, but I want to put in a plug for Linux:
it flies and seems pretty solid. My INN server 'puts away' news
articles from batches at better than 10 per sec. I'm running slip,
satellite, doorbell (it's my house doorbell, playing thousands of
clips through the audio card to my house sterio), etc..
You can do the first 8 ports for < $250 and two interrupts with
buffered ports. The Chase Research terminal server is my choice after
that: it has software (source included) that allows its ports to
appear to be local devices to getty's and other software (via pty's I
believe).
$2495 list for 16 ports, slip/ppp supported, callback, above software.
I can resell them at a discount.
> Can you build a cluster of these that will support 150 users? I
> certainly think so, at least for $250K, probably for a fraction
> of that.
>
> Beware the killer micros,
Yep...
> Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, Msen Inc. emv@Msen.com
> Msen Inc., 320 Miller, Ann Arbor MI 48103 +1 313 998 4562 (fax: 998 4563)
> msen info addresses: info@msen.com - Public access Internet
> occ-info@msen.com - Online Career Center jobs database
sdw
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