From:	Phil Levis <pal@**.BROWN.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Server Prices (was Re: Hacking Security Tallies)
Date:	Wed, 27 May 1998 03:38:26 -0400

On Tue, 26 May 1998, Mike Elkins wrote:

> 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.

I'd personally lower the multipliers for excellent and rock-sold
reliability, and raise the base costs. <shrug>

These prices seem pretty reasonable to me, not as a 'mainframe' per se,
but as the cost of a *host*. So, some orange host for 40 users costs =Y=
1.25 mill, and it's pretty reliable. In that cost are, a la Matrix 1.0,
SANs, SPUs, a CPU, all that sort of jazz; it's a distributed system with
five or six physical boxes all linked up. By Matrix 2.0, it's an orange
sculpted host.

Phil