[Asterisk-Users] ultra-cheap asterisk box - no such thing

Paul Mahler pmahler at signate.com
Sun Jan 18 10:00:08 MST 2004 

My Dell 400sc server was $318 delivered including tax. 

They are indeed servers, not a PC. They are engineered, built, configured,
and maintained as severs. They come with on-site maintenance, which is great
if the server is in a different location than I am in. 

There is no way you can build a comparable server class machine, that is a
real server, yourself from parts at this price. When it breaks, a real
company comes out and fixes it. Even if you could buy the parts for the same
amount of money, which you can't, you don't get the engineering and
maintenance. 

DELL, or other reputable manufacturer's servers, are distinguished by a lot
of engineering work over a large installed base that assures their utility
as a server. I have spent many hours finding out the hard way that there was
an incompatibility, hardware or software, in some server I had built myself.
So, even if you could build machines yourself from parts for this price,
which you can't, it is not going to be as well engineered or tested. 

Building your own server is probably fine for a non-critical application
where you are a small-time operator. If you are running a real business,
there is no substitute for buying a real server from a real company with
real maintenance. 

Even if you could save $50 or $100, why bother. You have to spend the time
to build and test the server. You are assuming in your cost calculation that
your time is free. Building a server yourself is only cheaper if you don't
value your own time. 

Your cost calculation also assumes the server won't ever break. The first
time you have to fix your home-brew box the cost difference disappears. Even
if your time is valueless, buying a new part will eliminate any cost
difference. 

Even when buying an industrial strength server from a reputable
manufacturer, I always stock a spare server with the identical configuration
in case something goes wrong. I also keep spare interface boards on-hand. If
something breaks in the business of one of my customers I can quickly fix
it. Running a hot spare insures that phone service is always available. 

Are you building toys or putting real systems in real businesses? If you are
building a toy system for a non-critical application, by all means build
your own server if you think that's a fun thing to do. Any putative cost
saving from building one's own server for a mission critical application is
fictive. 

Paul  

 
Paul Mahler 
mail:pmahler at signate.com
phone: 650.207.9855
fax: 877.408.0105

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Roy Sigurd
Karlsbakk
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2004 4:58 AM
To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] ultra-cheap asterisk box

this is $318 + taxes. my prices included two ISDN cards and 24% vat.
and dell 'servers' aren't more 'servers' than my home-built servers - at 
least not the low-end ones.

roy

Paul Mahler wrote:

>I have a Dell 400sc sever on order. It will be shipped on the 27th. It is a
>2.4GHz P4 with a 533 MHz front side bus, a 40GB disk, 128MB of memory,
sound
>card, ethernet, and year of on-site next day maintenance. 
>
>It is $318 delivered after rebates. Yes, $318.  
>
>This is a real server, by the way, not a desktop machine. It also makes NO
>noise. I can't hear a thing with my ear right next to it. 
>
>Why would you even THINK about getting anything else? 
>
>Paul
>
>Paul Mahler 
>mail:pmahler at signate.com
>phone: 650.207.9855
>fax: 877.408.0105
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com
>[mailto:asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Chris Albertson
>Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 9:32 AM
>To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
>Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] ultra-cheap asterisk box
>
>
>
>I'm looking to do about the same thing, build very low cost
>systems.  (I'm looking at putting Asterisk at some
>non-profit organizations.)   but one thing you can't make
>a compromise on is reliabilty.  It has to work and keep working
>for years to come.  I was able to keep the price of a new PC
>to about $300 ad still use an ASUS mainboard and an AMD XP2600+
>The trick is to add absolutly nothing not needed.  No floppy,
>no CDROM so you can run off a 200W P/S.  Next I'll experiment
>with a notebook sized IDE disk drives and to see if _underclocking_
>the CPU reduces it's power comsumption enough that we can save
>one fan.
>
>Ideally Asterisk will be ported one day to Linux/ARM or some
>other very low cost platform.  for VOIP you do not need the
>PCI slots.  In theory Asterisk could run on a Lynksys router
>box with re-flashed EEPROM.  After all Lynksys' latest wireless
>router runs Linux inside
>
>Low cost to me means "low total cost of ownership"  To get this
>I don't think buying the lowest priced parts is the way to go.
>I want quality mainboard, and a quality power supply and, this
>is importernt:  A low internal case temperature.  for this reason
>I'll spend the extra $50 to go with Antec cases and ASUS mainboards
>over the generic ones.
>
>What I'm finding is that the PCs are so cheap that the cost of
>electric power to run them is now a large part of the cost.
>(assume 0.20/kwh times 200W times 365 days = $350.  So you
>pay for the PC again every year in electric power to run it.
>Worse.  In an office with airconditioning _all_ of that PC's
>200W goes to heat and your A/C unit will use about 220W of
>power to remove that 200W of heat.)
>and at a small office they will not have a server room so noise
>from the fan is an issue.
>
>--- Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk <roy at karlsbakk.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>hi all
>>
>>what about this...
>>I just put together a box on a web shop (komplett.no) that will cost
>>me
>>NOK ~1850 (¤ 216) plus a small ¤50 drive and cables, so say ¤300.
>>This
>>consists of a cheap MB with a duron 1400, 256MB SDRAM and two HFC-PCI
>>cards (if capijod will finish off the zaptel-driver soon). This is
>>all
>>in a cheap PC case.
>>
>>What do you think? Should this be doable? as a product? With only IP
>>phones and potentially a fax solution? any ideas?
>>
>>thanks
>>
>>roy
>>
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>
>
>=====
>Chris Albertson
>  Home:   310-376-1029  chrisalbertson90278 at yahoo.com
>  Cell:   310-990-7550
>  Office: 310-336-5189  Christopher.J.Albertson at aero.org
>  KG6OMK
>
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