[Babase] A babase project server at Duke

Susan Alberts babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Sun, 21 Nov 2004 15:04:10 +0300


Hello all, especially Karl and Hunter,

I do see that getting our own server will solve (has solved) a number 
of important problems associated with getting our new database 
functional.

I don't see that it resolves the problems that Hunter raised when we 
talked about this last year. He pointed out that he can't maintain 
servers dedicated to "private" databases. This made sense. He also 
pointed out that maintenance is not trivial. No one in my lab has 
these skills or the time to do this, and Karl will not be around 
forever. I am very concerned about this and need some one to explain 
to me how we will deal with this.

I was unable to view the policy on departmental servers, the address 
Hunter sent 
(http://www/resources/administration/policies/projectserver.html) 
didn't connect to anything, and when i went to the biology website I 
couldn't find this one.

I am happy for us to buy our own server in principle but concerned 
about getting into a situation where we have a nonfunctional database 
because the skills involved in maintaining it are beyond our time 
resources and expertise.

Regarding the borrowed server, it will be best from my perspective to 
buy a new one in mid Jan when I am settled back at Duke. Can we have 
this one until then Hunter? If not, I will try to make this happen 
from here but will need help from Hunter and Karl. Off hand, I am not 
very interested in renting a managed computer, we know that this will 
be long term and I think we need to have control of the box in a way 
that we might not with a rented one.

Susan



>Hi Susan, et-al,
>
>I had a long phone conversation with Hunter before lunch today.
>He says the best way for him to support us is if we get
>our own server, and I belive him.
>
>He is loaning us a server temporarly until we figure out
>what to do.  It sounds like something you will have to
>deal with as soon as you return in Jan.
>
>Our server is named: albertslab.biology.duke.edu
>
>Hunter says he'll have it up by 6 tonight.
>
>Which is great!  Should get us converted now and
>carry us through to going live.
>
>This means spending money.  We'll know more of
>what our hardware requirements are as we get
>the data converted, and then again as we try
>out new programs.
>
>If we spend less than $5000 we have to give an additional
>50% to Duke (!), as the $5000 line determines
>"capital expendature".  Hunter says he can come up
>with something for as little as $1,200 (pre duke tax).
>We also have to get maintenance from Dell on the
>hardware.
>
>An alternative would be to rent a managed computer from the
>pros, something like this:
>
>http://rimuhosting.com/index.jsp
>
>They want ~$40/month for a (virtual) box with 256MB of RAM, which
>likely is not enough, but we'll see.  For 512MB we'd pay $120/month,
>which would likely take care of it, or $140/month for 576MB.
>($20/month/60MB RAM)
>
>This is probably worth it compared to $5,000, dunno.
>
>On advantage of hosting at Duke is that Hunter will keep
>up with security updates and, I suppose, even OS upgrades
>and other stuff.  We'd have to automate that, which is easy,
>but it's always nice to have a person looking after things.
>Also, Hunter will deal with recovery should somebody break
>into our computer.  The hosting company will only deal with
>recovery from hardware failure.  Hunter has a better backup
>system in that he keeps multiple days so if we destroy something
>they'll be an old backup available to recover the data.
>We would need to set something up to do this.  Not a big
>deal, but Hunter already has.
>
>Another alternative is re-purposeing some old computer
>and running it ourselves.  (Hunter would not be involved.)
>This is _not_ a good long-term solution but if there are
>zero dollars available it would buy time.  We could keep
>backups and it it probably would not break before we came
>up with the money to replace it.
>
>Right now we're running on a 1.8GHz Pentium 4 with 256MB
>RAM and what looks like a 7200RPM ATA drive.
>
>Karl <kop@meme.com>
>Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
>                   -- Robert A. Heinlein
>
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>Babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
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Susan Alberts, Department of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338, 
Durham NC 27708
919-660-7272 (phone), 919-660-7293 (FAX)