Eric wrote:
> This is correct, but it is not the only factor. Let's take the case of a
> list with 3200 subscribers, 100 postings a day and an average posting
> size of 3k. In a worst case scenario, that's roughly 7.8 gigabits of
> data. We're doing orders of magnitude here, so let's say 100kbps in use
> 24h a day (I know the traffic isn't spread evently, but again this is an
> order of magnitude).
Well, here's the real cost data for my bandwidth usage (I do
accounting at the ISP, -- the numbers are real):
I tried sending out my list over my 28.8 line without using a
smarthost. I sent a message of typical largest digest length (40k)
and it flooded the link at full-bandwidth (I wasn't using sendmail,
and I tuned the MTA to work at full bandwidth -- note, even so, it
barely registered loadwise on my PC) for 8 hours straight. Basically
rendering my link useless for any other use. To upgrade to a 56k
frame relay would run me, oh, maybe $500/month. The cost of this same
usage at my ISP is about $6/month or $72/year. Almost 100 times
cheaper. Your figures are off by about 10 because my bandwidth usage
is less than 40k/day, not 300k. Ever since I made the daily digest
be the default (rather than then the message-by-message distribution),
very few of my subscribers choose the non-digest. Used to be half and
half when non-digesting was the default. With the digest the default,
only 3% choose to switch.
> I find this a bit confusing as typically the bulk of the system resource
> usage is for mail delivery, with the list management chores being totally
> negligible.
Not in my case. I ask a lot from my mailing list processor. Listserv
might well be more efficient, but it's a lot more expensive than
buying a cheap PC with the power to run my probably less efficient but
free sofware (smartlist). Not to mention that I can (and have) hacked
smartlist to do every little esoteric thing that I desired. I still
have cpu to burn on my home machine.
> I have to disagree here as well. The cost of CPU is lowest on small,
> cheap desktop machines.
Yup. That's why I moved the mailing list processor to my home machine
(a PC) and off of the ISP sun machines.
--
Michelle Dick artemis@rahul.net East Palo Alto, CA
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