[TriLUG] Online Cloud Offsite Backup

Ron Kelley rkelleyrtp at gmail.com
Wed Dec 23 10:15:26 EST 2009


Hi Clay,

Your Celito option appears to be very nice.  In my opinion, this is targeted for those who are under a tight budget crunch or folks who have their own gear and the know-how to get it all done.

In our case, we started our project specifically to help out first-timers and start-ups.  We have already helped a few start-ups get off the ground by letting them focus on their core competency (software development, building store fronts, etc) while we handle the IT side of things.  This is why we have complete power/network redundancy with fiber-channel back-end storage in a highly-secured facility.  We run Cisco ASA firewalls and switches, and have ESX servers running multiple production VMs.

I am definitely not saying our service is better than yours :-)  I am merely pointing out the target audience is probably different.  In the case of the TriLUG guys, I thought we could offer some folks open rack space and unused bandwidth for a small price (just enough to cover our expenses).  We really just want to sit down with guys and understand what they need - perhaps over a cup of coffee...

BTW: Considering the real cost of a data-center footprint (Tier-1 provider, physical rack space, redundant power, and bandwidth costs), I think it is unrealistic to expect to pay $15-20/mo.  A more realistic price is probably $75-100/mo for 1-2 rack units with 256Kb/s.  Of course, you can jam as much as possible in those 2 rack units :-)


Thanks for listening (and sorry again for the salesman's pitch).  If anyone wants more information before the TriLUG meeting, please unicast me.


-Ron




On Dec 22, 2009, at 11:00 PM, Clay Stuckey wrote:

> OK, here comes a short novel....
> 
> I have been researching several options. One is that the owner of Celito has extended an offer to Trilug and it's members. It has to be for group/personal use. In other words, no money making. They have a 10MB connection and 1st class facility. For $120/mo, he will let us put what is needed in there. There would be no bandwidth or rack space limitations. Of course I wouldn't try to consume several racks. But I would think that 3-10 rack spaces would be fine. We would also get a /28 public subnet. With virtual hosting, DNAT and 13 usable IPs (assuming we implement a transparent firewall), we would have room for mucho stuffo.
> 
> For equipment, it really depends on how many people would want to get involved, their needs, plan for future growth and any redundancy desired. This is of course if it is decided to go this route. We could drop about $200-$600 on a firewall depending on if we went used or new. The biggest thing I have been looking at has been storage options. Looks like the best bang for the buck is to go with a 1 or 2u server with 4-8 cores, 12GB or more of RAM and  that has an available PCI-E expansion card. For  $200-$500 you can get a really nice PCI-E SATA/SAS raid card that supports host swap; and more importantly hot spares. Then add a 4.5TB external storage array (3 1.5tb drives in a raid 5 with 1 hot spare) for $650. This can be easily augmented or for about $2k we could start off with 15TB including redundancy and hot spares. All in all you could do a nice enclave for less than $2k. This should easily support 8 VMs with lots of space for backups. If we had 8 people buy in, it would be about $265 up front and $15/month. This is a big bang-for-the-buck option that would only consume 4u. Celito has a lesser hosting facility w/o UPS that goes for $75/mo flat rate. We would have about 1.5Mb bandwidth. If Trilug wanted to make it an official project and include it as a benefit for a paid membership, we could go much bigger and better.
> 
> I know the other option that has been presented looks to be a bit cheaper. I think that this one might be more for the money. It all comes down to the wants, needs, and budget of the suckers... I mean people... that get involved.
> 
> I think now might be a good time for interested parties to reply with what their needs might be and what they might be willing to pay up front and ongoing for said service.
> 
> Myself, I would like the following:
> 1) Online Backup - this would need to be a very lightweight dedicated VM with a 2TB encrypted volume. I would need exclusive access to the console assuming we run ESXi4. I could foresee needing to add space in the future.
> 2) Basic web services - apache,php,mysql,bind,sendmail for my personal site that could run on a shared VM. Nothing special here
> I would be willing to pony up $500 or maybe a little more as well as do lots of legwork (and fingerwork) to make it happen. I would pay $15-$20 a month. If I were to be one of the people doing a significant amount of the support and administration, I would be interested in talking about a reduced rate.
> 
> 
> Clay Stuckey
> 
> 
> On Dec 22, 2009, at 9:46 PM, Keith Woodie wrote:
> 
>> I would like to meet and discuss.  I think this could become a very good
>> option for a lot of us in the same situation!
>> 
>> If we did such a setup... what kind of storage infrastructure would we have
>> available?   I am assuming it would be internal drives.
>> 
>> Thanks.
>> Keith Woodie
>> Mike Ditka <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mike_ditka.html>  -
>> "If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn't have given us arms."
>> 
>> On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 2:08 PM, Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com>wrote:
>> 
>>> On Tuesday 22 December 2009 06:39:15 bak wrote:
>>>> Steve Litt wrote:
>>>>> On Monday 21 December 2009 22:35:45 Keith Woodie wrote:
>>>>>> Is there anybody using an online "rsync" or other type of backup at
>>>>>> home?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thanks.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Just one man's opinion -- I wouldn't be caught dead outsourcing backup.
>>>>> What if they crash? What if someone breaks in and steals your valuable
>>>>> and secret data?
>>>>> 
>>>>> I use rsync backup at home, but it's on a LAN, not over the net:
>>>>> 
>>>>> http://www.troubleshooters.com/lpm/200609/200609.htm
>>>> 
>>>> Sure, but what if your house burns down? When it comes to data, I like
>>>> the belt and suspenders approach -- use both.
>>> 
>>> That's where once or twice a month you make a couple DVD backups from your
>>> backup server, housing one in your house and one in the house of a very
>>> trusted friend or relative.
>>> 
>>> SteveT
>>> 
>>> Steve Litt
>>> Recession Relief Package
>>> http://www.recession-relief.US
>>> Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt
>>> 
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