Starting a small "fund"

[Patrick]

Looking to host a few more tools on STH in 2013 beyond the RAID calculators. If someone has an idea for a script that is worth developing and getting on the site let me know. Not a lot of funds but the RAID calculator and RAID Reliability Calculator - Simple MTTDL Model tools are quite popular so likely folks find them useful.

 

[nitrobass24]

What kind of tools do you have in mind, I can do a little scripting.

 

[Dragon]

I've been using this from time to time:
IP Calculator / IP Subnetting

A power calculator/unit converter would also be helpful.

 

[Patrick]

I've been using this from time to time:
IP Calculator / IP Subnetting

A power calculator/unit converter would also be helpful.

Very cool! Two ideas that are sitting on my whiteboard. Assuming you are thinking something like w @ 120v to amps and etc. correct?

Also was thinking about something like pingdom/ website up checker (one that you can simply run from a web form.)

 

[nitrobass24]

What platform is the site on? Better yet what do we need to code these in?

 

[Patrick]

Generally the site is CentOS/ nginx/ PHP5. The RAID calculators are shoehorned into WordPress. Odds are php is easiest.

Also, if someone sees a small independent script, happy to do that or sponsor a napp-it add-in or something (now given this is more like sponsor a hobby)

Am working on something *much* larger but may sit standalone and is going to take a long time to build.

 

[Dragon]

Very cool! Two ideas that are sitting on my whiteboard. Assuming you are thinking something like w @ 120v to amps and etc. correct?

Also was thinking about something like pingdom/ website up checker (one that you can simply run from a web form.)

Yup! Sometimes you want to know how much watts you are using at home, and sometimes you want to know how many amps you'll be using in a DC (sometimes even in another country with different volts).

I've ran into problems in the past looking Amp numbers posted by people in different countries, some countries are running 120v, some are 220v, some are 240v, if you want to go the extra mile, a voltage selector would also be helpful.

Something like >> Your result: 1 amp (region x) 2 amps (region y) 2.5 amps (region z)

Yeah those IP/DNS related tools will complete the set.

 

[Biren78]

How about a calculator to compare size of hard drive to operating costs?

Logic:
8x 3TB drives ($l cost) require add in controller for $y + $z power per drive * $t time *$c cost per kwh + $x misc cables + $d drive mounting costs
against
6x 4TB drives ($l cost) no add in controller + $z power per drive * $t time *$c cost per kwh + $x misc cables + $d drive mounting costs

get the idea? there was a post on this one long back

 

[nitrobass24]

Im thinking for a lot of this we may be able to find prebuilt stuff on sourceforge/git that is open source.

 

[Mike]

How about a tool to automate the responses to questions like what configuration people should use from hardware layer up. Stuff like hypervisors, os, hardware, storage technique and configuration. Pros and cons of all, level of expertise required.

 

[Patrick]

How about a tool to automate the responses to questions like what configuration people should use from hardware layer up. Stuff like hypervisors, os, hardware, storage technique and configuration. Pros and cons of all, level of expertise required.

Exactly Mike. Different spin and way cooler but hopefully folks will soon see this.

Another thought is to buy something like this: http://www.hostthebest.com/monitor.php and just build a private pingdom for everyone.

 

[Mike]

Would be way cool to have something to configure a diy-server and get feedback on choices by user-experience or STH reviews. Benchmarks and stuff. If you get this or that you get X lower power consumption, that more computing power, this amount of pcie lanes and slots, these features. Want storage, no linux or unix experience go the windows way, or go with a distro that has a webgui and just point and go, do we need to go virtual if so which hypervisor... I could go on and on. If I only had like a few hundred hours left to spend on this...

 

[Patrick]

Would be way cool to have something to configure a diy-server and get feedback on choices by user-experience or STH reviews. Benchmarks and stuff. If you get this or that you get X lower power consumption, that more computing power, this amount of pcie lanes and slots, these features. Want storage, no linux or unix experience go the windows way, or go with a distro that has a webgui and just point and go, do we need to go virtual if so which hypervisor... I could go on and on. If I only had like a few hundred hours left to spend on this...

Mike - totally got this one. Working with multiple folks on it. Actually ends up being a big effort. Fund above is beyond this.