What is it?

We are a collective of people that manage a co-lo facility together. Originally there were a number of people that wanted to put servers on the internet, but didn't have DSL in their area. We found someone that did, and had a lot of basement space. That was many years ago. Now we are various and sundry oddballs that run a little machine room in someone's old deli... all on a T1 line.

We currently provide:

• T1 connectivity
• UPS protection
• 100M Etherswitched local network
• Shelf space for twenty or so computers
• A social and friendly gathering every month or so.

We aren't incorporated. We aren't official. We're all just friends that do everything on a handshake. Trust rules.

What do people do with their hosts?

Basically, anything that won't use too much bandwidth. We really, really, really want people's projects to be so successful that they have to leave the collective and get real bandwidth at a real co-lo. However, until that day, we're glad to have a place for us losers to call our own.

Some example projects:

• web hosting services to friends of the host's owner
• extremely light-duty web hosting, such as space for drafts of other sites
• mailing list services to friends and non-profits
• email boxes for people (some by IMAP, others by ssh)
• light-duty file service
• DNS service

Costs involved?

We divide all costs (hardware, software, services, etc.) evenly each month, unless the hardware is donated. However, certain equipment is not communal. For example, the individual computers on our network are each owned by an individual member. Items like the router, the UPSs, and the network switches (except those that were "donated") are communally owned.

When you join, you will be expected to buy into your share of our assets. We maintain a depreciated value of all of our equipment. Your share could be about $35. When you leave the collective you will receive your share of the current depreciated value of the communal equipment.

Lately, people have been paying about $28 a month.

How much bandwidth do I get?

We do not do any monitoring or metering, nor do we evenly divide the bandwidth by the number of hosts. The idea is that the services provided here don't take too much bandwidth and everyone "plays nicely" with each other. If we ever do feel that we're running out of bandwidth, we may (1) ask the members to cut down their use, (2) ask the more successful services to find their own connectivity, (3) collectively decide to get more bandwidth.

We do plan, at some point in the future, to get "smart" switches so users can monitor how much bandwidth they use, and such. It's more out of curiosity's sake than anything.

What the collective ISN'T

• A way to get internet connectivity in your house.
  • You have to put your computer in our co-location facilitiy, we don't bring the internet to you.
• A place for mission-critical services
  • There is no Service Level Agreement.
• A place for high-bandwidth applications
  • A T1 divided by a lot of people isn't a lot of bandwidth.
• A place for non-technical people
  • Everything is basically "do it yourself"; we all help each other in our areas of expertise, but we all bring something to the table.

-- TomLimoncelli - 10 Jul 2003

Updated prices

-- PhilSalkie - 17 Mar 2006

Updated bandwidth & such.

-- GlennSieb - 26 Jan 2009
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