Path: utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!xios!scs!spl1!laidbak!obdient!blair
From: blair@obdient.UUCP (Doug Blair)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Small sites (was Re: The death of USENET) LONG
Message-ID: <550@obdient.UUCP>
Date: 18 Jun 88 05:17:48 GMT
Article-I.D.: obdient.550
References: <7475@swan.ulowell.edu> <2645@rpp386.UUCP> <329@bdt.UUCP> <100@carpet.WLK.COM>
Distribution: na
Organization: Obedient Software Corp, Wheaton, IL
Lines: 142
Summary: Decentralize net usage to smaller sites

> >It seems like if the load can be better distributed, there are
> >resources out there to handle it.
> 
> Seriously, I think that the net should take a close look at the smaller,
> less featured sites and see if there isn't something that we can do to
> alleviate the overall (perceived) problem.  

To further the suggestions from David Beckemeyer at bdt and Bill Kennedy
at carpet, here are some additional thoughts from a "small" site admin:

obdient is an intermediate node in Wheaton Illinois.  Our machine is
between laidbak (Lachman Associates, who do LOTS of UNIX ports and
rewrites for a living) and wheaton (Wheaton College, where LOTS of
Students and a few Computer Professionals depend on our feed for
news).  The machine is a 386 clone box with microport's SYS V/386.
We also exchange alt, pubnet, biz and local Chicago news with ddsw1
(a retail commercial site with some public access), chinet (one of
public access's "old guard"), vpnet and otishq.

There are perhaps a half dozen newsreaders including myself here, but
hundreds of other newsreaders depend on our feeds. Those sites with
which we exchange a full feed are local calls (which in Chicago cost
about a nickel per dialup); the subset feeds are about 50 cents a day
between the four of 'em. All our connections are at 2400 (your
contributions to the Trailblazer fund appeciated :-).

We're about 3 miles north of Bell Labs (er... AT&T labs) (Yes, "THE"
labs) and this county is LOADED with AT&T employees who are dying to
access Usenet outside of company channels lest something they say
be interpreted as "official."

We are going to continue to forward 3rd-site email, much of which
will originate from AT&T sites. Why? Because I'm a nice guy, and
I know that lots of other sites will be willing to forward my
mail when it shows up on their system.  Everyone has to do a little
bit to give everyone else access to the rest of the planet, and
amazingly it works.

Now a couple days ago I saw postings that mentioned the number
of paths that go through ihnp4 - very few were counted.  These sites
are obviously on the coast - because from here MORE THAN A THIRD
of our paths pass through ihnp4 (could it be that we're only
10 miles away that has something to do with it :-) :-)?).  So, to
us, losing that site *IS* a big deal.  I started thinking about
the problems inherent in our present backbone oriented setup.

With these thoughts in the background I submit that our site is
typical of AT LEAST 25% of the sites on the net. (Go ahead, cd to
your map directory and try: cat u.* | grep \#S | egrep Micro\|micro\|
286\|386\|PC\|AT\|XT\|Clone\|clone\|XENIX\|Xenix\|Microport | wc -l
to get the aproximate number of micros in the maps).  Given that
the power of a 386 clone is equivalent to a mini-computer of five
years ago it seems to me that the connectivity and resources of
the "micro sites" on the net is roughly equivalent to the resources
available to usenet in the first year or so of its existance.

How did usenet operate in the first year?  Slowly, awkwardly at
first, with LOTS of mistakes. But it *DID* work and grow and
evolve - rather nicely too, I think.  And even if ALL the
backbone sites were to drop out of service (which, please note,
AT&T sites are *NOT* doing) usenet would continue to grow,
albeit slowly and awkwardly as before. Hopefully with fewer
mistakes :-).

The point of the above paragraph is that USENET IS IN NO DANGER
of dying at all - only in danger of perhaps losing readers with
the misfortune to work companies which do not appreciate the
value of the net.  And I believe that the more worthwhile network
contributors among these would seek out public access sites to
read and post to usenet.  Because they would then pay more of
the cost, chances are the quality of the net would improve, 
there would be fewer flames, etc etc.

Hopefully none of these contemplated usenet cutbacks will take
place, but the discussion HAS brought about several worthwhile
suggestions for usenet improvement.  I don't wish to hash over
the organization of newsgroups, their content or moderation in
this posting - the present setup seems to work tolerably well
if we could just forget JJ and comp.women and get back to work :-)!
But there has been a proposal to SHIFT MORE NEWS READING TO
SMALLER SITES which deserves thorough examination.

A typical 386 site is grossly underutilized. Even with a full
newsfeed coming in and going out every night (and to be honest
precious little else happening here) I can't claim that more
than 10% of our CPU resources are used every month.  How many
other small sites have a unix-pc in the basement office that
could take the load off an intermediate site while the owner is
away from home at work?  My guess is hundreds!  How many 386
sites, using PC Pursuit at 2400, would it take to aproximate
the connectivity and *usenet-related* data traffic now afforded
by two dozen backbone sites?  Probably no more than 300!

These small sites and the resources now exist, and it's high time
that we make use of them.  It *IS* unfair that the backbone
sites absorb so much of the cost.  It *IS* unfair that such
a large amount of mainframe and large site CPU time be taken
up with usenet if and when there is more productive work
waiting to be done.  For the long-term good of the net, it's
time for the smaller intermediates (like obdient) and the tiny
leaf nodes to ask their upsteam neighbors "Is there anyone I can
feed for you?" and "Would some of your readers save toll charges
if they called my machine instead?"

Questions like these will hopefully result in a more even
distribution of the net's resources and costs; the big guys
have been paying a disproportionately large amount for too
long.  Got a 286 AT Clone in your office?  What's it doing
when you're not there?  Why not let someone call it?  And if
the cost is a concern, something on the order of $50-$75 a
year seems to pay for the cost of additional phone lines and
modem capacity at most public access sites; $300 will pay for
an offbrand 2400 modem and a bottom-of-the-line phone line.

It may be argued that further decentralization of usenet
distribution would increase propigation time.  That's quite
likely.  But with the exception of some rather handy tips
on how to fix the Daylight Saving Time date I can't think
of a usenet posting that wouldn't have been just as useful
had it arrived a few hours or even a few days later.  After all,
usenet isn't being used to fire missles or route organ
transplants.  Usenet is an information exchange (where we
announce conferences a couple of years in advance :-)!).

Now it would be hypocritical of me to suggest that all the
smaller sites agressively try to help out their big brothers
without doing so myself, so HOW ABOUT IT YOU GUYS IN DuPAGE?
INDIAN HILLS? Chicago's Western 'Burbs?  I've easily got room
to feed a couple more sites with full newsfeeds and can
probably support 10 more casual newsreaders before I need
another couple of phone lines.  If you're interested, please
email (try it without ihnp4!) obdient!blair.

Thanks for reading this far.  Time for another Old Style.

Doug

  ___   _             _   _               _ 
 /   \ | |           | | |_|            _| |_  Doug Blair_______312-653-5527
|  |  || |_   ___   _| |  _   ___   __ |_   _| Obedient Software Corporation
|  |  || ==\ / ==\ /== | | | / ==\ |  \  | |   1007 Naperville Road_________
 \___/ |___/ \___/ \___| |_| \___/ |_|_| |_|   Wheaton, Illinois 60187______