[olug] Community Colo Project

Thu Apr 2 22:12:07 UTC 2009

http://www.vorteon.com/

We got out of the Floral Arrangements business last year so that we can
focus solely on IT now.

Dan Clough wrote:
> Sounds like a reasonable possibility.  Could you provide some
> information on your company or a URL?  Something in the IT sector would
> be best, mainly because "John's Floral Arrangements and Datacenter"
> doesn't flow quite as nicely as I'd like it to.
>
> David Walker wrote:
>   
>> 03601- at bxe1115.bisx.prod.on.blackberry>	<49D50F08.5060109 at brutsche.us>	<49D5102B.9070006 at roweware.com> <49D512E9.7070608 at gmail.com>
>> In-Reply-To: <49D512E9.7070608 at gmail.com>
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>> One possibility is running it through my company.  Obviously we would
>> want to make sure that we structured everything financially so the risk
>> to my company would be low and so that there would not be an undue load
>> on us, but we have an accounting and billing system in place and we have
>> been around for 9 years this summer.
>>
>> I do believe that proper governance and accountability are essential to
>> this venture.  For all of the "community" aspects, such as lower cost,
>> relaxed specs on rackmount vs tower, there definitely needs to be an
>> organized structure to keep everything going.
>>
>> Setting up and LLC is not too hard but someone would have to manage it
>> and it would have to be determined who held how many shares and what
>> that meant.  Someone would definitely have to be responsible for billing
>> and for enforcing the billing requirements
>>
>> Dan Clough wrote:
>>     
>>> Figuring out a pricing structure is a priority at this point in time,
>>> but that's currently on hold until we find out what the damage is for
>>> the Pinpoint cage and power circuits.  With all the pledges of equipment
>>> we've seen so far, I doubt our expenses will exceed that of the cage
>>> space, power and bandwidth.
>>>
>>> While we're on the subject of finances, we *really* need to decide what
>>> we're going to do about legal entities.  I've been juggling ideas which
>>> include forming our own nonprofit corporation, piggybacking on another
>>> organization or just dumping it on one person's shoulders.  The last one
>>> is an obvious no-no as I doubt anyone would want to take sole fiscal
>>> responsibility of the venture if it went tits-up.  Ideas?
>>>
>>> Dave Rowe wrote:
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> Phil Brutsche wrote:
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>>>> People should be allowed to bring in anything they want (given
>>>>> reasonable hardware constraints - ie 4U or smaller rackmount) as long as
>>>>> they maintain their machine(s) properly and bay their bill.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm just making sure people are performing reality checks, we shouldn't
>>>>> be getting any grandiose ideas and ordering a 50Mbps line under the
>>>>> assumption that there will be that many "clients".
>>>>>
>>>>> Dan Clough wrote:
>>>>>       
>>>>>           
>>>>>> Well, that's just it.  Hopefully it won't just be us, hopefully we
>>>>>> can get people who want colocation or even local web hosting but
>>>>>> can't find it... Even if it means inviting the WUG in... ;)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We want enough capacity for us to fill and for any other "clients"
>>>>>> we'll hopefully bring on board.  20Meg should be fine.
>>>>>>         
>>>>>>             
>>>> With that in mind, does someone who has an idea (ballpark is even 
>>>> valuable) as to what the monthly cost (+ setup? ie, to help cover the 
>>>> Cogent installation?) per U is?  Then, people who might use it can 
>>>> evaluate (reply to the list) with what they'd want (no obligation). 
>>>> Then, you'd have a better idea of how big the client base is, and what 
>>>> the estimated usage would be.
>>>>
>>>> I've throughly enjoyed following this, and see myself as a potential 
>>>> 'client' of this, but without knowing the monthly cost, I'm not fully 
>>>> 'sold' on it.
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> OLUG mailing list
>>>> OLUG at olug.org
>>>> https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> OLUG mailing list
>>> OLUG at olug.org
>>> https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
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>> <head>
>>   <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type">
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>> One possibility is running it through my company.  Obviously we would
>> want to make sure that we structured everything financially so the risk
>> to my company would be low and so that there would not be an undue load
>> on us, but we have an accounting and billing system in place and we
>> have been around for 9 years this summer.<br>
>> <br>
>> I do believe that proper governance and accountability are essential to
>> this venture.  For all of the "community" aspects, such as lower cost,
>> relaxed specs on rackmount vs tower, there definitely needs to be an
>> organized structure to keep everything going.<br>
>> <br>
>> Setting up and LLC is not too hard but someone would have to manage it
>> and it would have to be determined who held how many shares and what
>> that meant.  Someone would definitely have to be responsible for
>> billing and for enforcing the billing requirements<br>
>> <br>
>> Dan Clough wrote:
>> <blockquote cite="mid:49D512E9.7070608 at gmail.com" type="cite">
>>   <pre wrap="">Figuring out a pricing structure is a priority at this point in time,
>> but that's currently on hold until we find out what the damage is for
>> the Pinpoint cage and power circuits.  With all the pledges of equipment
>> we've seen so far, I doubt our expenses will exceed that of the cage
>> space, power and bandwidth.
>>
>> While we're on the subject of finances, we *really* need to decide what
>> we're going to do about legal entities.  I've been juggling ideas which
>> include forming our own nonprofit corporation, piggybacking on another
>> organization or just dumping it on one person's shoulders.  The last one
>> is an obvious no-no as I doubt anyone would want to take sole fiscal
>> responsibility of the venture if it went tits-up.  Ideas?
>>
>> Dave Rowe wrote:
>>   </pre>
>>   <blockquote type="cite">
>>     <pre wrap="">Phil Brutsche wrote:
>>     </pre>
>>     <blockquote type="cite">
>>       <pre wrap="">People should be allowed to bring in anything they want (given
>> reasonable hardware constraints - ie 4U or smaller rackmount) as long as
>> they maintain their machine(s) properly and bay their bill.
>>
>> I'm just making sure people are performing reality checks, we shouldn't
>> be getting any grandiose ideas and ordering a 50Mbps line under the
>> assumption that there will be that many "clients".
>>
>> Dan Clough wrote:
>>       </pre>
>>       <blockquote type="cite">
>>         <pre wrap="">Well, that's just it.  Hopefully it won't just be us, hopefully we
>> can get people who want colocation or even local web hosting but
>> can't find it... Even if it means inviting the WUG in... ;)
>>
>> We want enough capacity for us to fill and for any other "clients"
>> we'll hopefully bring on board.  20Meg should be fine.
>>         </pre>
>>       </blockquote>
>>     </blockquote>
>>     <pre wrap="">With that in mind, does someone who has an idea (ballpark is even 
>> valuable) as to what the monthly cost (+ setup? ie, to help cover the 
>> Cogent installation?) per U is?  Then, people who might use it can 
>> evaluate (reply to the list) with what they'd want (no obligation). 
>> Then, you'd have a better idea of how big the client base is, and what 
>> the estimated usage would be.
>>
>> I've throughly enjoyed following this, and see myself as a potential 
>> 'client' of this, but without knowing the monthly cost, I'm not fully 
>> 'sold' on it.
>> _______________________________________________
>> OLUG mailing list
>> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:OLUG at olug.org">OLUG at olug.org</a>
>> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug">https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug</a>
>>     </pre>
>>   </blockquote>
>>   <pre wrap=""><!---->_______________________________________________
>> OLUG mailing list
>> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:OLUG at olug.org">OLUG at olug.org</a>
>> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug">https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug</a>
>>
>>   </pre>
>> </blockquote>
>> <br>
>> </body>
>> </html>
>>
>> --------------020907050803020109050906--
>> _______________________________________________
>> OLUG mailing list
>> OLUG at olug.org
>> https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
>>     
> _______________________________________________
> OLUG mailing list
> OLUG at olug.org
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>
>   