[Fot] new server

[Mark J Bradakis]

On 2/16/19 11:41 PM, van.mulders.marcel at telenet.be wrote:
> MJB wrote : "...I'll give fair warning...(when bringing a new server online)." : that should be a sign for us to donate some money, eventually for a professional grade server.
> How much money is such a server?
> Marcel
>

I changed the subject line, see no need to keep advertising a private 
email address.

A nice, state of the art server would run about 3 - 4 thousand. But 
these days Team.Net doesn't do the volume of email and web services as 
it did back in its prime, the first decade or so after coming online 
back in 1991.  Back then it took serious hardware and expertise to 
provide such services, and high capacity network connections to private 
residents were rare and expensive.  In those early days I'd do annual 
fund drives, and out of the 15 - 16 thousand subscribers would get a 
couple thousand dollars which covered the monthly charges and hardware 
maintenance.  At that time if every subscriber sent me like 5 bucks a 
year Team.Net would have been my full time job, and I would have been 
able to spend more time on my Triumphs.

Nowadays anybody and their dog can easily set up a web page, Team.Net is 
not the only game in town.  Back then some of the popular lists had a 
thousand or so folks on them, and saw a dozen or more messages per day.  
Peak traffic would be about 5 million email transactions a month.  As I 
recall when I attended the Silver Anniversary SCCA Solo II Nationals in 
1997, roughly two thirds of those entered in the event were subscribed 
to the autox list here.

So now it is a lot less hectic for me, still have to deal with hundreds 
of spam messages a day, constant bounces and such.  But it it 
manageable.   No need for annual fund drives, computers and a network 
connection are something I would have anyway.  So the bottom line is we 
don't need a several thousand dollar machine. An appropriately 
configured PC intended for the home market would have the necessary 
computing power to handle the current Team.Net load.  I plan on going to 
Best Buy to get a new clock radio later today, maybe I'll take a stroll 
though the computer section, see what's out there.

mjb.