[Web4lib] blue sky thinking

[K.G. Schneider]

> > 4) Now I installed the app I wanted to run, although it then needed
> > some changes to things like Apache, etc., to work properly. I spent
> > another day or so doing all of this. In the end, I actually was
> > able to start my app. But at that point I had run out of steam, and
> > the machine has been turned off since then. Maybe I'll spend my
> > summer actually getting the app up and running as a functioning
> > system. Then again, maybe not.
> 
> Unfortunately here also you are right. System Administration tends to
> be a full time job. It is tedious, fascinating, challenging and
> boring all at the same time. I feel like we have veered sufficiently
> OT though. :-) 


... That's not off-topic; that IS the topic. We have been discussing the
pros and cons of maintaining in-house servers. That it is a "full time job"
is a flag. At some point economies of scale kick in and it's worthwhile to
maintain a local server (and for some services, and not for others). But
even then, the operating system and software have to be appropriately scaled
and supportable in-house, however that support system is defined. 

Look at your resources, your goals, your obstacles, your opportunities...
and, of course, your budget... I read one of Karen C's points as being that
it's far more expensive than $600, something you corroborate by saying the
human behind that server is a FT position, in IT no less. At the loaded rate
(i.e. factoring in the overhead of a human body in an organization plus
salary plus benefits), we're easily talking $100k per year. That's
equivalent to one heckuva off-site server.

Karen G. Schneider
kgs at bluehighways.com