On Nov 27, 2007 3:10 AM, Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se> wrote:
Is the blue (pmtpa = Florida) a cost for WMF, and the
green (knams
= Amsterdam) a cost for someone else (Kennisnet + Wikimedia
Deutschland)? How much could WMF save if there was a knams-like
installation in, say, Chicago, New York or San Francisco, paid for
by a Kennisnet-like sponsor?
When I donate to the WMF, do I help paying for the blue only, or
also for the green part of these diagrams?
Wikimedia Deutschland doesn't support infrastructure in this manner.
Their sponsorship at knams is the toolserver.
Space and connectivity at Knams is provided by Kennisnet. The
equipment is provided by the WMF. Yahoo has provided equipment and
connectivity in Korea for the Yaseo cluster. Traffic from Tampa is
paid for by Wikimedia at impressively low rates.
Spreading traffic out to many locations can reduce Wikimedia's ability
to lower costs by putting more traffic on smaller amounts of equipment
and by negotiating lower rates for the traffic (like many other things
Internet capacity costs much less per unit when bought in bulk). As a
result the whole costs must be considered and weighed carefully. The
increases in traffic actually make increased distribution more viable.
It must also be kept in mind that when Wikimedia accepts enormous
gifts of capacity it comes with the risk of dependence.
Fortunately, Mark has been building a long term plan for network
capacity which will continue to lower the incremental cost for
connectivity as Wikimedia's connectivity needs rise without
significant risks of dependence. There will be more announcements
related to this in the coming months.