[HCoop-Discuss] Cooperation among cooperatives - colocation

[Graham Freeman]

Hi, folks,

So, you may know that I run the Cernio Technology Cooperative, which  
is a for-profit[1] co-op that provides its clients and members with  
technology expertise and infrastructure to sustain and enhance their  
professional, academic, and personal lives.  So far, that mostly  
means we pool resources on colocation so that we each get a better  
price than we would in small groups or as individuals.  Right now  
we're getting close to filling up a 7-foot cabinet in a San Francisco  
datacenter, and that has me looking at the best expansion options.

One thing I'd like to do is to establish geographic redundancy for  
our essential services, and I think that Hcoop might be a great way  
to do that for North America-East.


So, I'd like to colocate the following equipment in Hcoop's quarter- 
cab in New York:

* My 1U Dell PowerEdge 1750 server.   I'd retain ownership of this,  
use it as a Xen server, and pay Hcoop my fair share of the power/ 
cooling/space/bandwidth/IP address expenses.  (How much would that be  
for 128Kbps at 95%, ~1.5Amps of power, 1U of space, and 8 IPv4 addresses?)

* My 1U APC PDU AP7900[2].  This device has 8 NEMA 5-15R (United  
States household standard 15-Amp 3-prong) power outlets, each of  
which can be remotely controlled via an SSH or HTTPS interface.  You  
can assign specific username/password combos to specific outlets, so  
for example User A can't power off User B's equipment.  It also  
allows you to monitor the total current draw (power consumption),  
although unfortunately it doesn't show you per-outlet usage.


I'd prefer to sell the PDU to Hcoop in exchange for credit toward my  
colocation expenses, but I'd be happy to consider alternatives.   
CDW.com has the AP7900 new for $427, and the cheapest eBay "Buy it  
now" listing that I see is $300.   I'd be fine with $300+shipping in  
"store credit", and I'd give a 30-day warranty.  Also, as I've  
mentioned in the "Fixing warped rails" thread thread on this list, I  
have an extra set of rails for a Dell PowerEdge 2850.  I'd like to  
get rid of these, but would prefer to get something for them.  Maybe  
$50 (including shipping) in credit toward colocation expenses?

If we agree that this is worth pursuing, I'd ship the PE2850 rails in  
early January (when I get back from vacation in Canada) and plan to  
ship my server & the PDU in late Jan or early Feb.

Likewise, I'd encourage Hcoop to consider colocating equipment in  
Cernio's cabinet in San Francisco.  I'd be happy to do the legwork in  
setting it up and performing on-site maintenance, and if you'd like I  
can donate some old (Pentium-II or Pentium-III) 2U equipment.


Thanks!

Graham Freeman
Cernio Tech Co-op
+1 415 462 2991
graham.freeman at cernio.com
Jabber: graham at jabber.org


[1] Stop frothing at the mouth.  :)  We direct any co-op profits  
toward reducing shared expenses and otherwise providing greater value  
to our members.

[2] http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm? 
base_sku=AP7900