-----Original Message-----
From: Jimmy Wales [mailto:jwales@bomis.com]
This is really not a wikitech-l type of question, is
it? I don't
personally have a firm opinion about it.
1. On the one hand, we're always having a
fundraising drive in a
sense. We have enough funds right now, or nearly so, to buy a 4th
machine to either be used exclusively as our mail server, or to be
used exclusively as our load balancer, or to be used as our 3rd
webserver. Even after the new db server is installed, all three of
those will be legitimate needs. (We might combine some of those
functions at first, of course. But there are good arguments for
separating them all as soon as we can afford it.)
2. On the other hand, Mav's argument is (perhaps) that we can
maximize revenue by not having the request up there all the time,
and I think there's something to that.
--Jimbo
Re 2) Perhaps experimentation is in order. I think it is hard to tell
from here which method i.e. "continuous" or "periodic" style of
requesting will generate the most.
Re 1) The load-balancing recently introduced seems to have created an
almost miraculous speed compared with before. Obviously the monster
machine is going to have an effect as well. We should expect the upward
curve on bandwidth use to continue for a good while yet - regardless of
the purchase of a fourth machine and its purpose. Is cost of bandwidth
likely to become a great issue than now, where we are extremely grateful
to one person that it hardly seems to be an issue at all. It would be
terrible if we had lots of machines at some point in the medium-term but
not able to utilise them due to bandwidth costs.
Pete, [[User:Pcb21]],
Wikarma: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Cetaceans]] over half of all whale
species now have an article!