From:	Lehlan Decker <decker@****.FSU.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Server Prices (was Re: Hacking Security Tallies)
Date:	Tue, 26 May 1998 15:58:57 -0500

<SNIP>
>
> Well, you get what you pay for. $2000 gets you a PC. If you try to run
> server software on a PC it sort of works, but if you push the load on it
> up towards the maximum, it starts getting very flakey.
>
> Essentially there are 3 things that make a server a server, and not all
> servers have all three, but that it what to aim for:
> 1) Reliability. You can expect a server to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a
> week, for months or years at a time. Expect to pay at least $10,000 for
> a PC with this kind of reliability.
> 2) Capacity: The ability to add lots and lots of disk space, RAM, CPUs
> etc. You can add these to a PC, but expect to hit limits.
> 3) Speed: The least important of these, in some ways. Similar to
> Capacity.
>
> I haven't priced a mainframe lately, but my last company's mainframe
> cost $3.5 Mil, and it was a small one.
>
> Here would be my rule of thumb: Base cost: 1-3 users: $8000
> 4-10 users $15000, 10-50 users $40,000, 50-100 users: $100,000
>
> Excellant Reliability: price x 5
> Rock-Solid Reliability: price x 15-25
>
> Security: Green System: price x 1.5
> Orange System: price x 6
> Red System: price x 15
> Black System: GM's call
>
> Add some more money for higher system ratings, too.
>
> All of this is off the top of my head, and IMHO.
>
> Sanity Check: An Orange system for a small research group (25-50
> people), mission critical work: $40k*20*6 = $4.8 million. Yup, I can live
> with that.
>
I'll work with you on that. Although there are liable to be far more
smaller networks, vs mainframes. (The universities seem to be moving
away from mainframes and more towards clustering technology, at least FSU
is). The other key word there is mission-critical. If you can't live without
it being down for any length of time, it cost big bucks. If you can live
with the a few hours or days, you cost is much lower.
Of course the good stuff is always on the expensive toys. :)
(And actually depending on what your doing, I would rank speed higher,
people hate slow anything these days)



--
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Lehlan Decker 644-4534 Systems Development
decker@****.fsu.edu http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~decker
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The universe doesn't have laws, it has habits. And habits can be broken.