Re: RAD FCD-24 and X.21/V.35 Controller for Linux
On Fri, Jun 24, 2005 at 11:52:18AM +0200, Michelle Konzack wrote:
> Am 2005-06-23 19:34:27, schrieb Andrew M.A. Cater:
>
> > You could try Cyclades / Sangoma for the cards. Certainly Cyclades had
> > good Linux drivers. Look through back issues of Linux Journal for the
> > advertisements and, possibly, even for articles on setting up.
>
Cyclades - PC300. Dealer for Morocco (and presumably Germany - Iran not
listed, presumably due to US Govt. sanctions or some other reason) is:
Cyclades Germany - Erding bei Munchen.
Ask if they do "not for profit" organisation pricing?
> I have tried to get Cyclades and/or Sangoma, but nothing...
> I am seraching (international) on ebay since two years... :-/
>
These are specialist items to go directly onto the end of your E1/T1.
If that is what you really want, you may have to dig further on the
'Net.
Be clear as to what you actually want: it may help to write down
some detailed answers to questions like these to help you with planning
and logistics - this is not a short term/amateur project and you
want to succeed from the outset so _lots_ of planning in advance will
pay dividends..
a.) Do you want to use a high bandwidth connection that you can get
in Germany to run a server there and allow your other projects to
connect to it?
b.) What sort of connection do you have if you just have your T1/E1 to
your apartment in Germany? Is it asynmetric ??
c.) In Morocco/Iran/Afghanistan, you may be providing your own connectivity
to remote areas. What sort of bandwidth will you have / what sort of
quality of service will you/your users expect?
c.) In Morocco/Iran/Afghanistan: are you going to set up your
infrastructure using donated/recycled computers and routers?
Who will help you sysadmin / repair / maintain??
d.) Much of this will be common to each country: is each project
sufficiently alike that you can produce some common infrastructure?
e.) Economic and political situations vary, so you may need dedicated
resources for each country to "localise" your network. What about
climate/power/environment considerations?
>
<snip>
Heat/humidity / dust / lightning / static - ESPECIALLY for wireless
comms.
> > regulations and bureaucracy, then the hosting provision. If you need
>
> I have already my Licences fro Morocco, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan.
>
Having the licences and being able to operate effectively may be
different. A female French/German national with French military experience
(which I understand you to be) may be welcome in Morocco / Turkey:
the same person with access to advanced communications might,
possibly. be seen as a Western spy in rural Iran / Taleban influenced
areas of Afghanistan, for example, regardless of ethnicity/origins/
appearance. For different reasons, you personally might find
difficulty in Kurdish areas of Iran/Iraq/Turkey or elsewhere.
Being female may be enough of a handicap in its own right in some
people's eyes.
> > 400GB diskspace, that's one SATA disk - big deal. What the big ISP's are
>
> No, I am using SCSI Systems with my 32-Bit Controller AMI Megaraid
> Enterprise 1200 which I have gotten on ebay for 1 Euro. :-)
>
> My GDT6128RD was more expensive with 27 Euro.
> I have HDDs of 36, 74 and 147 GByte.
>
Try to standardise on one disk size / SCSI controller. SCSI may be
a problem: you are paying a premium for disks and cables and may not
have enough for each machine. You may be getting something like 1/3 the
capacity / 5x the Mean Time Between Failures (disk life) but paying 3x
the cost for each disk (as a hypothetical example). If you are buying
new disks - a 36GB SCSI is probably the cost of 2 or 3 40GB IDE's and
the IDE drives are much more readily available from a variety of
sources and shuuld go onto virtually any motherboard. Same goes for
memory (unless some kind person is giving you boxes and boxes of old
memory. I upgraded a four year old machine the other day and spent
Euro120 or more on 128M of memory - at one time that would have been
Euro40 but its now "old enough" that they can start to charge a premium on
it again.)
> > charging for is 24 hour power, guaranteed time for mending failures and
> > some quality of service. They generally buy their bandwidth from national
>
> To expensive...
>
Three or four other things that a large ISP or hosting service provides
which you may have to provide for yourself.
a.) Reliable mail services and outbound connectivity. You may have to
establish relationships with existing ISP's to guarantee this. Iran and
Afghanistan connectivity may be problematic for various geopolitical
reasons. [From .ir, is there good connectivity to .ru (in one direction)
.tr / ,af / (?? .ik -> .jo ??), from .af is there good connectivity to
.pk / .in / .ru??] What is an acceptable throughput/latency ??
b.) DNS peering and multiple routes. [If half the country's network dies,
where does the other half get its connectivity while the damage is fixed??].
c.) Data backup services / drop in replacement hardware / UPS
What sort of backups do you need?? What sort of power do you need?? Do
you need UPS?? [If, for example, you are expecting a "one terminal per
village" model where people get email once a day / collect content from
a large Squid cache - that's a model that's working in parts of Uganda.
If you expect large amounts of bandwidth demand, that may not work.]
If the machine runs for two hours a day and it doesn't matter if it
loses connectivity then you may not need reliable utility power - if you
want to run 6 hours per day notwithstanding earthquakes / weather, then
you may want diesel generators and ruggecdised UPS. If the client machine is
small enough (mini-ITX board / old laptop) - can you use solar power??
Look at Debian-Edu / Skolelinux type thin clients and fat server??
> > market. Lots of ISP's have closed down / lost money over the years
> > thus lots of cheap kit - so you can be the beneficiary of a lorry load
> > of equipment that is someone else's rubbish / end of life inventory.
>
> I know :-) I have two 40t-Trucks of inventory...
> Excluding 97 AS400 (I am working on the Linuxport "powerpc" for it).
>
You may just be saving them money on recycling and environmental
disposal costs :( With Compaq PII 350 MHz units at about Euro50 each
with hard disk and memory, for example, spend 600 Euro on 12 identical 2 1/2
year old machines?? If you are using old Cisco routers, for example,
do you have access to Cisco techs / spare RAM / spare interface boards
or will you need to cannibalise some to maintain others?
Can you "steal" technical expertise from technical university students
or similar?? I can imagine that you could provide a useful project for
the national university's first year computer students for example.
There is a ?? Geek Volunteer Corps ?? or some such who might help.
Medecins sans Frontieres / Red Cross/Crescent / Oxfam / CAFOD might be
able to share experience and advice.
>
> The ISP mus assurer a working Internet connection and mybey an UPS.
> They can not do more for you !
>
See above.
> The same is, if I get my own E1 at home.
> I do not convince a stranger for my computers...
>
I've enough computer power here to run a mini-ISP :) But I'm paying
heavily for my bandwidth and power 24x7 and in a 4m x 3.5m room the noise
is not good even from five machines. Any telco will give you an E1 at a price.
If you are a business operating point to point networks, they may sell you
"dark fibre" at preferential rates - but will expect you to be able to "light"
it and maintain your own services. Domestic customers may get a different reception: my ISP terms and conditions prevent me running "a server" for example, but don't elaborate what they mean by this: they also provide me a heavily
asynmetric connection: 4MB download but only 512k "up". Computers are easy:
bandwidth and necessary expertise are harder.
> > In Iran, you'll be up against the State, in one form or another.
>
This was, perhaps, too harsh - though given the new President
Ahmadinejad's election, the future is a little uncertain.
> ...the "CyberCenter Network" Project is accepted by the Governement
> of Pres. Kathami... (and do not forget: Kamenei =! Khomeni).
...
> I am origin Iranien, because my mother comes from Khoy (province
> West-Asserbaijan) and my father was turkish comeing from Erçek.
...
> Oh, I know the Iran very well and I have learned
> very much abourt the last 26 years...
Tout cela bien entendu et je vous souhaite bonne chance avec le tout. Je
vous aiderai afin qu'ill me soit possible :) [All understood - good luck
with everything: I'll help you in any way that I can].
Amities / A+
Andy
>
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