going green (MythTV: build or RPM?)

[warlord at MIT.EDU (Derek Atkins)]

Quoting Rich Braun <richb at pioneer.ci.net>:

> Footnote:  I forgot to mention why, if I'm so concerned about electricity
> costs, I run two servers instead of one.
>
> The reason is security.  My mail server is far easier to hack into than my
> file server, owing to the variety of software running on the former.  If
> someone does break in, I want to limit the damage: little if any confidential
> data would be exposed to a break-in on the mail server.  I'd re-think this if
> I learned a good way to implement these as virtual servers with no ability to
> gain root access to the underlying filesystems.

VMware doesn't work?  If you run your mail server as a VM Guest
then someone who breaks into the mail server still can't usurp the
VMWare controls and get to the physical disks.

This is why I plan to build a single splufty VMware Host system so I can
just run that hardware and not need to run a bunch of other physical hardware
systems..   And then most of my servers can become VMs.

Unfortunately this doesn't work with Myth or Asterisk, because those
servers (or front ends) require special hardware.

> By running two servers at very different CPU clock speeds, I can have this
> level of security for a minimal annual cost (the file server only needs
> upgrades, other than disks, every 5 to 8 years and it burns about 
> $100/year of
> power).

$100/year at .20/KWH means you're burning 500KWH/year.  That's about
41KWH/mo which works to about 57 Watts.  That's pretty low!  Maybe I'm
over-estimating the cost of electricity (maybe it's less that .20/KWH).
But I would guess that a 200W system running 24/7 would cost more like
$350/year (1750 KWHs/year)

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available


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