[olug] Community Colo Project

Thu Apr 2 21:50:35 UTC 2009

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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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:
<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>
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