Spare server in DataCenter, Lets have some fun

[McxCZE]

O.k. Guys so here I was laying in bed, getting ready to get some sleep and checked if someone replied on my thread.... 

 

Armageddon happened here, so just some quick answers to y'all. 

 

1 Gbps, 1 ms connection statement = Maybe the language barrier, What I meant was, I have enough head-room for quite a few games and I dont think, some game could be that hungry that it would eat it up. And I was trying to say that I have 1 Gbps Ethernet connected on server, and its using its full potential and it is not bottlenecked in either way. 

 

The Ping argument : 

 

Yes, the cache is sitting in IX, and no, we do not have Google-cache servers as ISPs in our rack, because they gave us pretty bad terms and yadayada, we just use one for Facebook, and thats the max info I can tell you without me breaking the NDA, Even showing to the whole world, my IPs is a risk. But if someone brave enough tries to push through the FW :3, We'll see, the worst that can happen, my chief-technician will pull an all-nighter, filling the holes in FW with some putty. :3

 

 

8 hours ago, mynameisjuan said:

Yes, tier 1s are considered a backbone but that concept is fading away as more ISPs emerge and can peer with each other. Almost every ISP is directly connected (peered) to a tier 1. Other ISPs will have similar results. Point being is this connection is not special. 

 

So I have to and must reply to this. Because this obviously looks like you have no Idea how does it work here in Europe, I dont blame you dont take this as an insult. 

 

Small ISPs buy connection from bigger ISPs, and the Bigger ISPs have basically spine networks and sitting on them, there are no ways in crowdy europe to build around Spine networks since it does not make sense financialy. We use railroads to line in Fibre optics for instance, because there is no room anywhere, without it being too expensive. And we do Wireless a lot, our company for instance specialize in using Mikrotik technology to deliver Internet to people, and we are getting 100Mbps over Wi-Fi, with pretty good results. (I am already prepared for argument that it is impossible, quick answer here : We bought frequencies from a Radio-dont-know-the-english-word-Telecomunication Bureau of Czech republic.)

 

So in conclusion, nope, that doesnt work, Monopoly still crushing smaller ISPs making them buy through the "spine" network connectivity.. If I speek country-wise. If I speak city-wise. Yes there are some enthusiast, which connect small villages and than go to local ISP and buy some rack-space and connectivity from them, and then push their connections to city-IX. 

 

You are right in one way, There is a spawn of new datacenters, that are basically piggybacking on the original Spine-networking, and it is diverting a lot of traffic through different places (seznam.cz for instance, biggest search site in Czech-republic also news, they made their own Data-Centre), meaning that its getting broader, since its more in a private sector, but we are far from the utopy, you typed above. Still getting crushed by the "Big-man". Still monopolized, still Politicians changing laws as they need for example to push Wi-Fi out etc. etc. And yes, the Carrier-Neutrality argument here, Allright I get it but still. In CZE Alone, there are like really few datacenters. You could count them on a finger on hone hand... We are still behind you guys, I wish it was like you said, I wish :((

 

 

7 hours ago, AngryBeaver said:

Now if the OP has a less than stellar ST cpu like he does, but plenty of ram... then minecraft servers could be a good options. It is a game that is still vastly popular, but this relies on him having little to no costs to keep these machines in the data-center. If he does have an associate cost with them then he won't be able to compete with the much larger companies already doing it. Voice servers are also a possibility, but the licensing cost would be a pretty big upfront investment he might not want to make and with no promise of being able to sell the servers to make that money back.

 

Thank YOU ! AngryBeaver, Now we are getting somewhere, Assume no-cost machine in datacenter, that already paid for itself over a lifetime and now its time to have some fun with it. :3. Ill look up into Minecraft, Already have a TS running on a free licence, Tried to get any good deal, but TS staff is just  .... Grrr. Great way to talk to friends since I do not really like the idea of discord, I love the possibility for encrypted voice chat but still. I wonder if Ventrilo could be good. 

[mynameisjuan]

33 minutes ago, McxCZE said:

1 Gbps, 1 ms connection statement

Our argument was that ms is really irrelevant with speed for your use. That is all

 

33 minutes ago, McxCZE said:

So I have to and must reply to this. Because this obviously looks like you have no Idea how does it work here in Europe, I dont blame you dont take this as an insult. 

 

Small ISPs buy connection from bigger ISPs, and the Bigger ISPs have basically spine networks and sitting on them, there are no ways in crowdy europe to build around Spine networks since it does not make sense financialy. We use railroads to line in Fibre optics for instance, because there is no room anywhere, without it being too expensive. 

I dont take it as an insult because I am in the use and things work a bit differently here. We dont have the constraints where construction is limited to that extent. Us and other ISPs can lay fiber where we please and bury it without a problem. 

 

33 minutes ago, McxCZE said:

You are right in one way, There is a spawn of new datacenters, that are basically piggybacking on the original Spine-networking, and it is diverting a lot of traffic through different places (seznam.cz for instance, biggest search site in Czech-republic also news, they made their own Data-Centre), meaning that its getting broader, since its more in a private sector, but we are far from the utopy, you typed above.

That was my point and the "spine" is slowly disappearing. We peer with 4 other ISPs with one being a T1. That single T1 is our leased used trunk and really only used for international or VOIP traffic. Yes we could use them more as they used to be one of the main T1 covering the east coast but most out traffic and most our peers go through each other.

 

We have 4 peers, so do our peers and theirs, this spidering out is eliminating that need or dependency on T1s. Its only growing and with T2/3 trunks costing far less that T1s, the reliance on each other is bigger than ever. Sorry this is not the same for EU.

 

Route cost for us to go through peers now is equal to our T1 route. I will take cheaper routes will same performance any day. 

 

33 minutes ago, McxCZE said:

And we do Wireless a lot, our company for instance specialize in using Mikrotik technology to deliver Internet to people, and we are getting 100Mbps over Wi-Fi, with pretty good results

We use Mikrotik heavily because its good rep from how heavy EU ISPs utilize it. But we do not use it in our core, I can't imagine trying to use RouteOS and configuring VLANs at that scale. Their wireless for us is...OK...but its not really the wireless part that is the problem, its the RouterOS bugs that are, especially with Apple devices.

 

33 minutes ago, McxCZE said:

Assume no-cost machine in datacenter, that already paid for itself over a lifetime

What would be better is to make it a production server for people to rent out. Do this for a few months and the higher cost for production use means you can make insane profits meaning you can purchase more equipment for similar use. The use VMs to spread it out over the cluster dedicating some to gaming servers.

[AbsoluteFool]

8 hours ago, mynameisjuan said:

 

 

What would be better is to make it a production server for people to rent out. Do this for a few months and the higher cost for production use means you can make insane profits meaning you can purchase more equipment for similar use. The use VMs to spread it out over the cluster dedicating some to gaming servers.

And there you're on it again to take it to a "business" perspective. If you want to do things for "fun" you don't earn money on it. This is second time you've talked about earning money. And you've said one time that you didn't want to earn money on it.

 

Every country have a sort of game server hosting company that is already well established. Probably with better servers, connection and infrastructure than you offer. So the idea of making money on game servers was kinda dead in 2010 ish.

 

But hey, it's your server you can do what you want with it. If you actually succseed i'd like to know. But i also want to know how badly you fail if that is the case.

[AngryBeaver]

9 hours ago, McxCZE said:

So I have to and must reply to this. Because this obviously looks like you have no Idea how does it work here in Europe, I dont blame you dont take this as an insult. 

 

Small ISPs buy connection from bigger ISPs, and the Bigger ISPs have basically spine networks and sitting on them, there are no ways in crowdy europe to build around Spine networks since it does not make sense financialy. We use railroads to line in Fibre optics for instance, because there is no room anywhere, without it being too expensive. And we do Wireless a lot, our company for instance specialize in using Mikrotik technology to deliver Internet to people, and we are getting 100Mbps over Wi-Fi, with pretty good results. (I am already prepared for argument that it is impossible, quick answer here : We bought frequencies from a Radio-dont-know-the-english-word-Telecomunication Bureau of Czech republic.)

 

So in conclusion, nope, that doesnt work, Monopoly still crushing smaller ISPs making them buy through the "spine" network connectivity.. If I speek country-wise. If I speak city-wise. Yes there are some enthusiast, which connect small villages and than go to local ISP and buy some rack-space and connectivity from them, and then push their connections to city-IX.  

 

You are right in one way, There is a spawn of new datacenters, that are basically piggybacking on the original Spine-networking, and it is diverting a lot of traffic through different places (seznam.cz for instance, biggest search site in Czech-republic also news, they made their own Data-Centre), meaning that its getting broader, since its more in a private sector, but we are far from the utopy, you typed above. Still getting crushed by the "Big-man". Still monopolized, still Politicians changing laws as they need for example to push Wi-Fi out etc. etc. And yes, the Carrier-Neutrality argument here, Allright I get it but still. In CZE Alone, there are like really few datacenters. You could count them on a finger on hone hand... We are still behind you guys, I wish it was like you said, I wish :((

 

So that makes much more sense then.

 

Here in the USA we have vast fiber networks. I mean yes if you are communicating outside your network then at some point you will hit a "spine" in that process. So being closer to the spine reduces the router hops you make and reduces your round trip time a few MS. The biggest advantage to the spine is just the sheer amount of data it can move.

 

So for example lets say you are using a 1gb connection from a cable company here. You are going to be on a segment with other people which could hurt your ping or bandwidth if it gets congested, but that doesn't happen much with docsis 3.1. That segment will run to a node that will be wired to fiber. From there it can do several things, but generally it will make a hop(s) and hit the "spine". My home connection for example hits makes 2 hopes before it hits a "spine" outside of my lan of course. So for me there isn't a huge difference between my connection and that of one directly on the "spine." The only thing is that being cable to my home does mean I can have other issues in connection quality, but I haven't dealt with many issues over the years in that regard. I also haven't had issues with congestion in my area, but I know that isn't the case for everyone.

 

So I think this is where a lot of the perspective that the being on a "spine" isn't as important as it use to be. In the early docsis days of cable it was much more important and it has only been in the last handful of years that fiber is making its way closer and closer to the consumer. I expect the Cable companies for example will be running fiber to many more homes within this decade or risk losing out to fiber companies. That is a strategy that big DSL companies have already started using.

 

Anyways I just wanted to dive in to this one in a little more detail.

[AngryBeaver]

17 minutes ago, AbsoluteFool said:

And there you're on it again to take it to a "business" perspective. If you want to do things for "fun" you don't earn money on it. This is second time you've talked about earning money. And you've said one time that you didn't want to earn money on it.

 

Every country have a sort of game server hosting company that is already well established. Probably with better servers, connection and infrastructure than you offer. So the idea of making money on game servers was kinda dead in 2010 ish.

 

But hey, it's your server you can do what you want with it. If you actually succseed i'd like to know. But i also want to know how badly you fail if that is the case.

I have successfully (in the last 2-3 years) ran a small specialized game hosting venture. I ran a handful of servers from my home fiber connection at first, then when demand increased I paid for dedicated machines from a certain company that offered the specialized setups I was looking for. It was the fact I was using machines that targeted the hosting needs for this game that made me successful.

 

Now the truth was this was just a side venture and not a primary source of income, but I later had twins and lost any extra time I had for doing this on the side. I ended up giving everyone a free 60 days and full access to grab their save files to take to another host. I didn't get rich and I think at my best I only had 75-100 game servers up and running. In the end after equipment and data-center costs I would average an extra 2500-3500 a month. That doesn't sound like much (and it isn't) but for the amount of work it required after the initial push it was great money. I didn't automate server spin ups, so it might take me a few minutes to spin up a new account a few times a week. Overall I probably spent less than 8 hrs a month on it.

[mynameisjuan]

38 minutes ago, AbsoluteFool said:

And there you're on it again to take it to a "business" perspective. If you want to do things for "fun" you don't earn money on it. This is second time you've talked about earning money. And you've said one time that you didn't want to earn money on it.

 

But hey, it's your server you can do what you want with it. If you actually succseed i'd like to know. But i also want to know how badly you fail if that is the case.

I dont think you quoted the right person. I never brought any of that up before. 

[AbsoluteFool]

22 hours ago, mynameisjuan said:

I dont think you quoted the right person. I never brought any of that up before. 

You are completely right! Apologies about that.

[AbsoluteFool]

23 hours ago, AngryBeaver said:

I have successfully (in the last 2-3 years) ran a small specialized game hosting venture. I ran a handful of servers from my home fiber connection at first, then when demand increased I paid for dedicated machines from a certain company that offered the specialized setups I was looking for. It was the fact I was using machines that targeted the hosting needs for this game that made me successful.

 

Now the truth was this was just a side venture and not a primary source of income, but I later had twins and lost any extra time I had for doing this on the side. I ended up giving everyone a free 60 days and full access to grab their save files to take to another host. I didn't get rich and I think at my best I only had 75-100 game servers up and running. In the end after equipment and data-center costs I would average an extra 2500-3500 a month. That doesn't sound like much (and it isn't) but for the amount of work it required after the initial push it was great money. I didn't automate server spin ups, so it might take me a few minutes to spin up a new account a few times a week. Overall I probably spent less than 8 hrs a month on it.

Well i'm not saying it can't be done. I'm just saying it's very very hard without a customer base. Honestly if you use 8 hours a month and sit with 2500-3500$ in profit that is quite decent. But as you said you're not getting "rich" on it as there is actually very little demand for game servers.

 

Alike you i do run a small venture from my home aswell. Only difference is that i loan out servers free to local teams for pratice and things like that.

[AngryBeaver]

8 minutes ago, AbsoluteFool said:

Well i'm not saying it can't be done. I'm just saying it's very very hard without a customer base. Honestly if you use 8 hours a month and sit with 2500-3500$ in profit that is quite decent. But as you said you're not getting "rich" on it as there is actually very little demand for game servers.

 

Alike you i do run a small venture from my home aswell. Only difference is that i loan out servers free to local teams for pratice and things like that.

Right now the only real way to do hosting as an individual is to find a niche market and appeal to it. My Niche Market was for ARK Survival Evolved which runs like crap on high pop servers if you don't have extremely high ST performance and good drive performance for the saves that happen. I have also spun up a handful of minecraft servers, but these started as just something for my kids/nephews and then their friends... i didn't make anything here lol.

 

On the note of ark I would really like to give a ton of info on the cool/groundbreaking things I did, but I am pretty firm on keeping this identity separate from RL. I only mention this because things like that are what can make a small self run business possible/successful.  For example if you make a huge minecraft network of connected servers and start advertising that with some kind of in game incentive for early adopters... then chances are you can get something moving. You can then put in some kind of VIP sub or a cash shop of sorts to generate revenue. This puts you in the creation process though and not as just a host.