[olug] Community Colo Project

[Dan Clough]

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>
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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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> 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>
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> 
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