[GNC] [MAINT] Unplanned network outage
David G. Pickett
dgpickett at aol.com
Thu Apr 29 13:05:15 EDT 2021
$5/mo. for not having to worry about disk crash, ups, obsolescent CPUs, video cards, dust in my box, hackers, etc. seems nice. I use GNUCash on a Linux, so XWindows either way! But of course there is loss of control. It'd be nice to back up files on a second cloud vendor, and maybe on your own pc of the moment! I wonder if they rent a virtual machine that can host my wife's AOL Gold desktop and libreOffice. If I could get them to do the app updates for me, it's be really nice! :D
Best,
David
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: [MAINT] Unplanned network outage (Derek Atkins)
2. Re: [MAINT] Unplanned network outage (Chris Green)
3. Re: [MAINT] Unplanned network outage (Robert Heller)
4. Re: [MAINT] Unplanned network outage (Derek Atkins)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2021 08:18:57 -0400
From: "Derek Atkins" <derek at ihtfp.com>
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Re: [GNC] [MAINT] Unplanned network outage
Message-ID:
<51b258a796aadd772c1d57587349ee49.squirrel at mail2.ihtfp.org>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=utf-8
On Thu, April 29, 2021 7:51 am, Liz Dodd wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 12:03:56 -0400
> Glenn Fowler <gfowler1 at outlook.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Derek,
>>
>> Wouldn't it be advantageous to move to a cloud server to relieve you
>> of maintaining hardware and issues with network & power outages and
>> the risk of natural disasters such as fire?
>
> "Cloud" is simply a euphemism for someone else's computer.
> I suspect Derek is of my vintage, and we are happy dealing with
> managing our own stuff and not parking it on someone else's computer.
Indeed. A cloud service has the same kind of outages. Just look at all
the times that Microsoft, Google, FB, etc services go offline. It's rare,
but it happens. Moreover, if data gets moved into the "cloud" (i.e., onto
someone else's computers), then your (our!) data is at their mercy.
Worse, you don't know *where* your data lives (or who has access to it!!)
Another alternative is putting a piece of hardware into a colo facility.
That could provide better connectivity and power -- but it's much more
expensive on an ongoing basis, and frankly I DO have my hardware on a UPS
that lasts over 2 hours at current loads.
I acknowledge that there have been several incidents recently, which is
actually quite unusual. But I've been running these services myself for
well more than a decade now (probably getting closer to 2 decades).
Outages are, on average, few and far between -- and we have full control
over the security of our data.
Thanks,
> Liz
-derek
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
-derek
--
Derek Atkins 617-623-3745
derek at ihtfp.com www.ihtfp.com
Computer and Internet Security Consultant
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2021 13:27:04 +0100
From: Chris Green <cl at isbd.net>
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Re: [GNC] [MAINT] Unplanned network outage
Message-ID: <20210429122704.GA2590921 at esprimo>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
On Thu, Apr 29, 2021 at 08:18:57AM -0400, Derek Atkins wrote:
>
> On Thu, April 29, 2021 7:51 am, Liz Dodd wrote:
> > On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 12:03:56 -0400
> > Glenn Fowler <gfowler1 at outlook.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Derek,
> >>
> >> Wouldn't it be advantageous to move to a cloud server to relieve you
> >> of maintaining hardware and issues with network & power outages and
> >> the risk of natural disasters such as fire?
> >
> > "Cloud" is simply a euphemism for someone else's computer.
> > I suspect Derek is of my vintage, and we are happy dealing with
> > managing our own stuff and not parking it on someone else's computer.
>
> Indeed. A cloud service has the same kind of outages. Just look at all
> the times that Microsoft, Google, FB, etc services go offline. It's rare,
> but it happens. Moreover, if data gets moved into the "cloud" (i.e., onto
> someone else's computers), then your (our!) data is at their mercy.
> Worse, you don't know *where* your data lives (or who has access to it!!)
>
> Another alternative is putting a piece of hardware into a colo facility.
> That could provide better connectivity and power -- but it's much more
> expensive on an ongoing basis, and frankly I DO have my hardware on a UPS
> that lasts over 2 hours at current loads.
>
> I acknowledge that there have been several incidents recently, which is
> actually quite unusual. But I've been running these services myself for
> well more than a decade now (probably getting closer to 2 decades).
> Outages are, on average, few and far between -- and we have full control
> over the security of our data.
>
More of a half-way house as it were would be a virtual server, where
you (Derek) have complete control of the system but nasty basic things
like power supplies and continuous operation of the hardware is
someone else's problem. Like a colo facility but much cheaper. My
little virtual server costs only a little over ?5/month. That's
probably still rather more than a computer sitting at home (though it
might well be a close run thing if you take into account power costs).
--
Chris Green
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2021 09:07:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com>
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Cc: "gnucash-user at gnucash.org" <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>, Robert
Heller <heller at deepsoft.com>
Subject: Re: [GNC] [MAINT] Unplanned network outage
Message-ID: <20210429130713.BF8E1223A44 at sharky4.deepsoft.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At Thu, 29 Apr 2021 21:51:22 +1000 gnucash-user at gnucash.org wrote:
>
> On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 12:03:56 -0400
> Glenn Fowler <gfowler1 at outlook.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi Derek,
> >
> > Wouldn't it be advantageous to move to a cloud server to relieve you
> > of maintaining hardware and issues with network & power outages and
> > the risk of natural disasters such as fire?
>
> "Cloud" is simply a euphemism for someone else's computer.
> I suspect Derek is of my vintage, and we are happy dealing with
> managing our own stuff and not parking it on someone else's computer.
Well, I am probably of about the same "vintage" and yes I too am happy dealing
with managing my own stuff, but also see the advantage of using someone else's
data center. I still manage my own VPS, but don't have to deal with network &
power outages, etc.
>
> Liz
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>
>
>
--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
heller at deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2021 10:37:26 -0400
From: "Derek Atkins" <derek at ihtfp.com>
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Re: [GNC] [MAINT] Unplanned network outage
Message-ID:
<3ddfc87256f93f240876d79732000eb8.squirrel at mail2.ihtfp.org>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=utf-8
Hi,
On Thu, April 29, 2021 8:27 am, Chris Green wrote:
> More of a half-way house as it were would be a virtual server, where
> you (Derek) have complete control of the system but nasty basic things
> like power supplies and continuous operation of the hardware is
> someone else's problem. Like a colo facility but much cheaper. My
> little virtual server costs only a little over ?5/month. That's
> probably still rather more than a computer sitting at home (though it
> might well be a close run thing if you take into account power costs).
There is still the security concern (where are the bits stored? Who has
access to the underlying spinning media/SSD)? Is it encrypted? Who has
access to the encryption keys? (NB: For the system to boot itself
unattended for emergency response then it needs to have access to any
encryption keys.)
As for the electricity, I would say that the two "machines" I run for
GnuCash (code and the win32 builder) cost me $1-2/mo in electricity.
MAYBE $3 during summer. And that's for TWO systems. I can spin up new
ones cheaply (if necessary).
(Note: I put "machines" in quotes because I run a VM infrastructure here,
so I'm amortizing the estimated cost to run the VM hardware over all the
VMs that run on it -- on the other hand, you're right that these costs do
not amortize the original cost of the hardware itself, which works out to
about $3/VM over the past 5 years, but that cost will go down over time or
as more VMs get run on it -- or up if I add more hardware).
I've just had bad luck with landscapers nicking my fiber cable.
Thanks,
> --
> Chris Green
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
-derek
--
Derek Atkins 617-623-3745
derek at ihtfp.com www.ihtfp.com
Computer and Internet Security Consultant
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