It's time for me to give a web site status update and explanation on
why we have been down.

Since I volunteered to assume the responsibility for IBC, Nic,
webmaster for seven years before me, has made it clear that the free
hosting situation that made IBC possible was soon coming to an end. I
do not know precisely how long Rochen Host has provided this service
at no cost, but it has been quite awhile. They provided this service
because Nic was employed on their support staff and they did it as a
favor to him. I think we need to thank both Nic and Rochen for making
this possible for so long.

As we all know IBC has grown to be one of the most trafficked bonsai
sites on the Internet. At first Rochen hosted it on one of their
shared servers in a facility down in Texas. But in time the usage on
the site grew to a point where it was beginning to interfere with the
other websites that were hosted on that server. To mitigate this
impact on their paying customers, Rochen moved the site to an
administrative server which has less of a load on it. This is where
it was when I came on board as the new webmaster. Because this server
was a central administrative server for their entire facility, they
were not willing to give me access to the server itself. It was a
security concern and I would make the same call.

This did not matter too much at the time as I could manage most of my
job using the administrative interface built into the IBC site. I did
this through the browser. Nic was still employed with Rochen and
therefore a trusted employee. He volunteered to help me with the
tasks that required direct server access when the administrative
interface was inadequate. But the knowledge that I was going to have
to find a new home for the site was clear.

Nic and I worked to give the site a major overhaul and upgrade in
preparation for the move. Many refinements were implemented, most of
which were invisible from users of the site. These were intended to
reduce the bandwidth and storage requirements as well as the load on
the server CPU itself.

In spite of our success with this, the changes brought about an
incredible increase in registered subscribers, the number of
unregistered guests and ultimately the usage on the site itself. We
are now at over 3,100 registered users with an average of 15-20 users
online almost 24 hours a day. The bandwidth jumped into the
neighborhood of 50 GB of data transfer per month and the load on the
server began to approach the 80%-90% range.

When Rochen was no longer able to gain access to their support
functions on the server they had to give us notice. We had a week to
find another solution to our hosting situation. Meanwhile, Nic had
moved on and was no longer on the Rochen technical support staff.

I had, all this time, been working on finding an alternative hosting
situation that IBC could actually afford. The most reasonable
solution was the informal offer made by Rochen to provide us with a
dedicated server on their network. This would have cost us something
in the neighborhood of $400 per month. This is an incredible discount
over the general cost of leasing a dedicated server from any
provider. The problem with this was that our treasury could not
afford it.

We launched a fund raising appeal, which was led by Lynn with Jim's
active prodding and support. According to my understanding it was the
most successful drive to date bringing our treasury up to about
$3,100. The email list, that IBC started with, has a cost, I believe,
of over $300 per quarter. Put it all together and there just was not
enough money.

And then Rochen had to pull the plug suddenly on the site. It had
brought their machine down. This occurred a couple of hours after
they had given us a week's notice. And no, they were no longer
willing, or able, to give us more time to resolve the situation. Our
only option with them was to lease a dedicated server and Nic no
longer had access to the main files of the site.

With the site in Texas, me in New York, Nic in New Zealand and the
owner of Rochen Host in Scotland it took 2-3 days just to make
arrangements to have all the site files archived and made accessible
to me. Compressed they comprised nearly a full GB of data.

I made the decision, in order to keep IBC alive on the web, to move
the site to one of my servers. I have owned and run an Internet
hosting service since 1996, Webriver Communications. It is state-of-
the-art and is run out of a data center in Springfield, MA. But it is
not run on a Linux platform like Rochen. I specialize in supporting
Macintosh based companies and corporations. And I run a completely
Mac based hosting service.

I knew there were going to be conversion issues and there were. It
took me a few days to convert the code that runs the site, install it
and get the site back up. But it is up and accessible basically
exactly where it was when Rochen took it down. So far the server load
and bandwidth issues are close to manageable. But I still have a few
bugs to work out before I continue the task of refining the site and
bringing it within manageable bounds. I believe this is possible and
within reach.

I am not looking to profit from hosting IBC but it will need to cover
its own cost on my network and servers. Still this should be
considerably less than what even Rochen would require.

Thank you to everyone for all of your understanding and patience.

Terry
IBC Webmaster

************************************************** ******************************
++++Sponsored, in part, by James Harwood++++
************************************************** ******************************
-- The IBC HOME PAGE & FAQ: http://www.internetbonsaiclub.org/ --
+++++ Questions? Help? e-mail +++++

Alan,

Now that the site is on my server I will have a more accurate
estimate of actual cost in about a month's time. But in the meantime
I think it is safe to say that if ALL members were to contribute, the
annual cost per member would be somewhere in the $3-$5 per year
range. That is a pretty big 'if' though.

We do have quite a few very generous members that have been keeping
us afloat for years. That is what accounts for the current balance in
our Treasury. Lynn has been very good about mentioning their names as
the donations have come in. These are the people who make both the
mailing list and the website possible for all of us. We owe them all
a great deal of thanks.

We also need others to pitch in now.

Terry


On Oct 30, 2005, at 7:23 AM, Elmer Joseph Lehman wrote:


Terry,

What would it cost if each member where to equally support the cost
of operations?
Alan

************************************************** ******************************
++++Sponsored, in part, by James Harwood++++
************************************************** ******************************
-- The IBC HOME PAGE & FAQ: http://www.internetbonsaiclub.org/ --
+++++ Questions? Help? e-mail +++++